How do you decide photo brightness?

[nadc]

Hi,

When post processing a picture, how do you decide what brightness level is appropriate? If I PP on my monitor at home, then the picture looks too dark on my monitor at work. I heard about something called calibration but I'm not sure what that is and how to do it.

Thanks for any tips!

nad

 

[Plato]

Hi,

When post processing a picture, how do you decide what brightness level is appropriate? If I PP on my monitor at home, then the picture looks too dark on my monitor at work. I heard about something called calibration but I'm not sure what that is and how to do it.

Thanks for any tips!

nad

In one hell of an oversimplification, suffice it to say that some monitors are brighter/darker than others and reproduce colors differently than others. Calibration is a means to adjust your monitor to match a particular color standard, such as sRGB (among many others).

The advantage is that, if done correctly, your picture will look the same on any other monitor calibrated to the same standard and a hard copy print will look like the screen image if you use the same standard (actually, color space) when you print.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Hi,

When post processing a picture, how do you decide what brightness level is appropriate?

It's what looks good to you, basically.

 

[Plato]

Hi,

When post processing a picture, how do you decide what brightness level is appropriate?

It's what looks good to you, basically.

True, but his problem is it looks good at home and dark at work.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Yeah, I looked at it as a two part question.

 

[er111a]

hmmm this is hard I have a huge desktop mac and I keep it at full brightness to tell

 

[Inst!nct]

hmmm this is hard I have a huge desktop mac and I keep it at full brightness to tell

dude turn that **** down, this explains why youre contrast is always like , your colors get washed out then, turn it downnnnn!

 

[DScience]

Hi,

When post processing a picture, how do you decide what brightness level is appropriate?

It's what looks good to you, basically.

2nd!

 

[nadc]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I ended up googling for "monitor calibration" and found pictures like this: http://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/monitor_check_calibration.jpg

That helped me a lot. On the monitor at work I couldn't see the difference between the last 2 black rectangles. I turned the brightness up and all was fine.

Thanks again

Nad