Calibration and web use

[*Jayrou]

Good day all

18 months ago at the grand age of 39 I became serious about photography, Things started off great and within a few months I'd had images appear in Photography Monthly (Uk photography mag) and local lifestyle magazines.

What I did notice was my images appeared darker in the magazines, I actually thought nothing of it until I sent images to the printers, when they arrived I was hugely disappointed to find the prints REALLY dark.

The printing company said my monitor needed calibrating, so I get a calibration card from them, I scour the internet regarding calibration, Gamma etc and get my monitor (Calibrated) to the best of my knowledge/ability.

What I then found was every image I'd processed and/or uploaded to the web etc was WAY too dark, when I upload an image processed with my calibrated monitor, it looks great to me, but if I view on an uncalibrated monitor (Which I think 80% of the world must use), the images looked washed out.

I recently done a wedding and the prints turned out fantastic , so don't want to touch my monitor again regarding calibrating but I suppose what I'm asking is.., how do you balance having great prints and great web images?... should mine be so different? are yours?

I would appreciate some guidance on what you guy n gals do regarding this situation.

I'm not sure if you will notice differences in the following images and if you have or don't have calibrated monitors but any help would be gratefully received.
I feel the whole year has been wasted processing images that look OK on un-calibrated monitors, but complete C**p on calibrated monitors and in print.

Image 1 (Processed before monitor calibration)


Rocks are darkish here, but still distinguishable (but not on my calibrated monitor ....really dark)

Image 2 from the same outing (Processed on my supposedly calibrated monitor)... this looks washed out on my work monitor now , but at home looks OK (Excuse facebook, they seem to ruin photos)



Thanks for your time

James...