Editing on Laptops...

[yoorch]

Hey guys!

Just got my first laptop, never really had the need for one but now i am shooting a lot more at the race track and taking care of a site, so now i can keep it updated almost as things happen.

Anyway... i`ve noticed that editing on the laptop is strange cause of the screen, in my case it`s a LCD TFT WXGA screen. And when i edit here and see the result on the desktop monitor it just doesn`t looks right. Too much contrast is one of the most noticeable issues.

What can i do? i just have to edit a lot on the laptop and i can`t find a balance of contrast and brightness and saturation to look good on a normal screen


Thanks for your help guys

[Doug Pardee]

You should calibrate any screen that you're going to be using for photo editing, and that goes triple for laptops. Laptop screens are notoriously poor at showing correct color and brightness.

There's nothing to be done for it except to buy—and use—a good calibrator.

[deadpass]

I just know that my laptop screen doesn't show red as much as my desktop so I edit accordingly.

[Mum2J&M]

I did not know that. I do all my editing on a laptop.

[TeeTee]

From what I've learnt...

Almost all laptop screens are TN screens. These don't represent true 16bit colour but rather emulate it. Thus the colour spectrum on most laptop screens just isn't right and no amount of calibrating will get you the right colour cast. Hope this all made some sense.

Once I'm done with lenses I'm buying a nice IPS LCD panel. Getting the shots is priority, but editing them appropriately is the essential next step.

[Mchilly]

I don't use laptop for editing it's so small for me...I barely see the details of photos I edit.

[primoz]

Calibration won't help. Calibration has A LOT to do with ambient (environment) light conditions. Unfortunately at least around here, light in press centers is all over the place, and not even two press centers have at least kinda similar light. Not to mention I sometimes edit on sidelines where you have everything from bright sun, rain and reflectors on night games/races. There's no calibration which would help with this, so in such cases calibrating monitor is total waste of time.
What is solution? Experiences You get used to work this way, and slowly you don't bother how photo on laptop screen looks like. All you need are number values. These are same on any screen. So you don't edit photo based on this how it looks like, but based on this what numbers tell you. It's not easy, but you get used to this

[kahlibra]

I've been using a laptop and have calibrated the screen, however have found that the colours still aren't true when compared to the printed output. The contrast just isn't there. There was a strong blue cast over the screen before it was calibrated and it is still noticeable having used the Spyder2 Express. I think I'm going to bite the bullet and buy a LCD.

[yoorch]

so it`s just practice i guess, i`ll edit more on the laptop than on the desktop for a a while so i get used to it.

thanks for your help guys