Avoiding color diff b/w LCD and Prints

[aRJun]

Guys,

It's happened to me quite a few times now...I send a photo for print that looks nice and bright on my laptop LCD (running Windoze XP) and the print comes back dark! Last night, I edited something in Photoshop and increased saturation...and then when I exported it to smugmug, my saturation changes were gone! If I see the same jpg in PS CS2, it's got my changes.

How do I make sure that all my colors are the same everywhere (in photoshop, on the web, in prints, etc)?

Really appreciate any help on this.

Thanks,
RJ

[Mark_Cohran]

The first step is to calibrate your monitor. The 2nd is to make sure your photo is edited in the same color space as your output device. Finally, you might want to look into Color Profiles. I don't know a lot about color management profiles, but I'm sure there are lots of people on here that will be able to expand on what I've written.

Mark

[René Damkot]

Also, convert to sRGB before putting an image on the web...

[SkipD]

I have found that some laptop monitors don't respond well at all to calibration, even using a calibration package that has a colorimeter to measure what the monitor is doing.

In addition - just a slight change in viewing position makes a large difference in viewing characteristics on a lot of the laptop displays.

If you want to use a laptop for editing, I suggest that you use an external monitor. A standard CRT monitor would usually be easier to calibrate and better for photo work than most lower-priced LCD monitors.

[Wilt]

You do not necessarily have to buy special purpose equipment to adjust your monitor. A reasonable way to get your monitor 'in the ballpark' is simply to go to dpreview.com and adjust your monitor so that the grayscale sample strip is adjusted on the monitor so that you can see as many of the steps from white to black as possible...brightness and contrast adjustments to your monitor!

[aRJun]

You do not necessarily have to buy special purpose equipment to adjust your monitor. A reasonable way to get your monitor 'in the ballpark' is simply to go to dpreview.com and adjust your monitor so that the grayscale sample strip is adjusted on the monitor so that you can see as many of the steps from white to black as possible...brightness and contrast adjustments to your monitor!

Could you elucidate pls?

[Wilt]

Could you elucidate pls?

Go to http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos400d/ and scroll to the bottom of the page. You see a grayscale bar with 26 steps labelled A-Z. As dpreview writes just above the grayscale bar,

"Dpreview use calibrated monitors at the PC normal gamma 2.2, this means that on our monitors we can make out the difference between all of the grayscale blocks below. We recommend to make the most of this review you should be able to see the difference (at least) between X,Y and Z and ideally also A, B and C."

Adjust both brightness and contrast on your monitor to see as many of these levels as well as you can, and at least X,Y, and Z areas, as dpreview suggests.

[aRJun]

Go to http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos400d/ and scroll to the bottom of the page. You see a grayscale bar with 26 steps labelled A-Z. As dpreview writes just above the grayscale bar,

"Dpreview use calibrated monitors at the PC normal gamma 2.2, this means that on our monitors we can make out the difference between all of the grayscale blocks below. We recommend to make the most of this review you should be able to see the difference (at least) between X,Y and Z and ideally also A, B and C."

Adjust both brightness and contrast on your monitor to see as many of these levels as well as you can, and at least X,Y, and Z areas, as dpreview suggests.

Thanks for this Wilt..how do I change contrast on my laptop? I have a Sony Vaio

[Wilt]

Thanks for this Wilt..how do I change contrast on my laptop? I have a Sony Vaio

Now you see one of the fundamental problems of using a laptop to do postprocessing! Attach an external monitor.