Computer Monitors And Colors And Hues !!

every screen is different. i've calibrated my screen over and over - and each time it was different. as screens age, their backlight fades, the older fluorescent tube type screens, those start to darken over time. and you lose alot of light. but it does so slowly so you don't notice it. my old screen was strong on red, so everything made on it, was weak on red. you'll want a screen with 10bits of info - i have an 8 bit they claimed was a 10bit. they lied. i think it's called an IPS screen (probably getting that wrong, it's late i don't remember), which shows color at a 180deg. my laptop has that, but i still wouldn't use it to edit on.

i calibrate my screens every so often, i have two, the old one started to kind of stain itself on the sides, and was too too red, and i have the new one next to it.


---Mike Savad

My point was that no matter which monitor we use, everyone in NetLand will have their own perspective on what any photo or work of art looks like until they see the actual work. It was a bit of a shock to see HOW different. Do you think it would help to get prints of images before putting them online to see how they look? Or do printers also vary as well?

it's so true. I have two laptops, & the brightness varies greatly.
View a few of my images on my husband's cell - & they look fabulous. A few others... look garish.

Unless people are viewing from work - most are on cell phones these days. It's like a potluck dinner, ya just never know what you are going to get.

Janine, yes! On a painting I did, the skin looks very white and the shading looks blotchy. On another screen the skin looks ruddy with deep coloring. Seems there may not be a way to fix it.

I have one image here in particular ( Day is done) that I can not get to show correctly. My stored image - looks fabulous, when I upload it = notsomuch.
I have deleted & reloaded - it just can't display. I think it is something in the red tones.

My concern is more luminance, and I have calibrated my screen to match the brightness of printed output of my epson printer, so that the paper prints are really close to what I am seeing on my screen. Since FAA uses the same printers that I do, although they are bigger (the biggest I print at home, for local art work, is 17 X 22) I am hoping that the work that leaves their facilities looks like what leaves my house, and there is a consistency in product. But I am positive people are getting a much, much brighter image on their computer screens when looking through my work. I have my monitor turned down to only 21% of it's available brightness. I know that on my kids mac's my images are crazy bright and colorful.

everyone's screen will always be different - as long as your screen is the calibrated one, and the printer matches. if you think its a good idea to get the print you can. but the paper makes a difference as well as it introduces tint. and the light in your house will also give you different colors. i think the metal and acrylic come from different places, and the cards used to also. the best you can do is make it look good on your own screen.


---Mike Savad

The average person sitting in front of a monitor viewing art online via an internet browser, is seeing everything in the sRGB colour-space.

If you calibrate your working monitor properly using a hardware solution like a Spyder (for eg) and then set up your colour workflow in Photoshop to edit in sRGB, what you see on your working monitor should be "very" close to what everyone else is going to see.

Things you can't control are whether or not your customers are using calibrated monitors, however most monitors I have come across come set to default sRGB, so as long as the monitor is working properly they should be seeing your work correctly.

If the customer is using a laptop or tablet this can cause problems because of the viewing angle they may be using. The colour of an image will change dramatically depending on the angle of a laptops screen.

Mike was correct with regards to monitors with screens labeled as IPS (In Plane Switching). These monitors allow for accurate viewing of colours up to extremely wide angles of view. Thy are also typically a little more expensive and have excellent contrast ratio. I do not think though that IPS has anything to do with 8bit vs 10bit. An IPS monitor is good for doing your editing, as it helps keep your colours consistent during the editing process.

Thing is, the average customer will likely not be using an IPS monitor on their laptop, however the IPS screens are becoming more and more popular with desktop systems and all-in-one style computers.

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I have one image here in particular ( Day is done) that I can not get to show correctly. My stored image - looks fabulous, when I upload it = notsomuch.
I have deleted & reloaded - it just can't display. I think it is something in the red tones.

Janine, check to see what colour-space you are editing your images in and what colour-space is being saved to your image before uploading to FAA. FAA recommends working and uploading in the AdobeRGB colour-space, which is the best for PRINTING. However, when you upload images edited and saved in AdobeRGB and then view them in an sRGB browser online or on an sRGB monitor, the colours will become very muted and bland. If you were to edit and save the same image in sRGB colour-space and upload to FAA, you will find that it will maintain its same saturation and look much better on the digital display.

sRGB is best for viewing on the MONITOR

AdobeRGB is best for sending to the PRINTER because of its wider colour gamut.

Problem is, you can only upload ONE file to FAA. So what to do? There have been several threads about this on FAA in the past year, some started by me. It was determined that although FAA advised AdobeRGB for upload, a lot of the top sellers on the forum are actually uploading in sRGB because of how much better it looks on the screen. There is nothing to be gained by uploading an image with wider colour gamut for printing, if it does not look good in front of the customer on their monitor.

The sRGB display image will better help to make your sale and the average person will not notice the colour difference in the final print, as most of us are colour-blind to one degree or another anyways. :) lol

I used to have two example images in my gallery that showed very well the difference between how sRGB and AdobeRGB uploads to FAA. It was a fall landscape theme with lots of RED leaves. It is no coincidence that you are finding your reds to be muted. In my example images it was very obvious that the AdobeRGB image was very muted, when viewed beside the more saturated sRGB version.

Thing is, both versions were based from identical edits. All I did was save the image twice, one in sRGB profile and the other in AdobeRGB profile. I will try to find them and post here for you.


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@ Digital,

I do the same as you and have my screen set to 25% for sending my images to a photo lab. I find that editing wiith this luminance setting on my monitor will give me the correct brightness on the final lab product. (on that lab machine). Took me about a week of sending images to them to get it right.

When doing a monitor calibration, allow the hardware to calibrate and adjust your colours, however just ignore brightness settings. Once your calibration is complete, do not touch any colour settings, just go to your monitor menu and dial down "brightness" only.

Debb, what Mike was trying to explain is that you need to calibrate your screen before making adjustments to a photo. The whole idea behind calibrating your screen is that you want to be able to see on screen what you would see once printed.

a lot of people are using phones, and i find their color to be pretty accurate and consistent. so that's always good. though others are using TV's to see it which isn't as ideal. as long as you see it right. the problem is, until you compare it, you'll never know if it's wrong. i made deep cherry red fire engines, but later found out they were like a brick red because the screen wasn't viewing it right. or i argued with people that they could see in my shadow detail when i tried to hide a logo in there. but they were right, my screen was dying really slowly.


---Mike Savad

Thanks very much for the replies and advice.

What I found was true for my photos on the four monitors,
however, what surprised me most is when
I emailed a painting of a black sax player with dark
skin hues (many hues, impressionistic), was that some
people thought the sax player was Caucasian. I'd say
that's an extreme difference in color.


This photo in particular is one I'd like to know about
because on my laptop it's pale and the photo doesn't seems to have
depth. On my old monitor (about 6 years old) the color
is very rich and the sky feels expansive-- and the same
with the new Mac. Which way would most viewers see it?

Hi Deb,

My laptop screen is set for sRGB and this image does look very bland. (sorry).

the description says pink clouds, but I see no pink at all??

The area where the sun sits is very blown out.

I will check this later on my calibrated working monitor and see if there is a difference there.

What colour profile was this image edited, saved and uploaded in? sRGB OR AdobeRGB

Thank you very much Tiny. I will research that this evening. I am pretty sure I am saving sRGB

I knew it was RGB vs. sRGB & CMYK display from reading passed threads, but I am not versed in the subject to understand , never mind try to explain it to anyone.


Photographers seem to be much better versed & comprehending about technology. Most of us traditional brush painters - just seem to have the type of brains wired for color & texture, and find all things technical most taxing to deal with.

( I know there are many exceptions to that rule here.)

@Tiny, Thanks for the heads up on sRGB. Have you seen the print quality of sRGB vs. AdobeRGB?

@ Kim,

I know "technically" speaking that AdobeRGB profile is going to produce a print with a wider colour gamut and therefore better colour representation and more detail.

Whether or not anyone would be able to tell the difference, unless they had to the two prints side by side, is unlikely.

I know that Mike Savad uploads his work in sRGB format, because he wants it displayed best on-screen. I remember him saying that he does not remember a return where a customer has complained about the print colour vs what was on the screen.

I think working in a colour space like AdobeRGB is better suited for printing your own work at home or where you are taking the file to a print lab and have direct contact with the people preparing the print.

If you are sending your files to a place like Costco where they use a Frontier Lab Machine (chemicals and light vs inkjet on a plotter) they advise all files saved in an sRGB profile. Where sending a file to a wide format Epson plotter (inkjet) is advised to use AdobeRGB.

If selling your work online via POD, sRGB is best in my mind because it displays better. No point having the so called better print, if it never sells because it looks dull on the screen to the potential buyer.

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Something else for everyone to consider as well is what you do for soft-proofing. In Photoshop you can edit your image in sRGB or AdboeRGB and if you monitor is calibrated properly you will see the right colour representation on your screen, but that is all different when it is sent to a lab machine and/or plotter.

I had a lot of trouble getting correct colours from my screen to the lab machine at the local Costco, until I loaded the correct ICC profile for the Frontier machine into PS and learned how to soft proof. In the colour management menu, you can find a tab where it says soft-proof. When it is clicked it will temporarily change the working profile to show you exactly how the colours will look coming out of the printer. Once I learned how to do this properly, I never had any surprises when picking up my prints. The only other surprise in brightness of the print, because the print is front lit vs the back lit monitor. I solved this by turning my screen down to 25% and editing my image to look bright to my liking. You need to check white and bright areas for highlights though. If you see zeros in the "information tab", there is no data and you have gone too bright. I found that working with a darker screen, made my prints come out with the brightness I wanted.

I have asked several times for FAA to provide the ICC profiles for the plotters and paper being used by their fulfillment firms, but have never heard anything back. And yes... I said "paper" as well. If you are sending to a Wide Format Plotter to print, different papers and substrates will all output different colours. some warm and some cold.

EDIT - for those using PhotoShop Essentials, soft-proofing is not an option like it is in CS5 or PS. There is however a third party plugin in that allows you to install ICC profiles and soft-proof. This is what I use for proofing the Costco machine. I do not remember the name of the plugin off hand, but it sits in the Effects panel and costs about $12. I will find a link and post it later.

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The best thing for colour control when photographing or scanning your paintings is to make sure you have everything "right" and "consistent" from the very beginning of the process. Make sure to include a small piece of neutral gray paper somewhere in the photograph or scan. When fixing "white balance" in Adobe Camera Raw, or if using Essentials you will find it under "Color Cast", you click on this area of neutral gray and it will fix your colours to better match what is actually on the painting. This solves and colour cast in the digital image caused by the ambient light in the environment you took the photograph.

Once you start out right, the rest becomes easier. :)

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also depending on screen type you want to wait for it to warm up fully. not as true with an LED, but its a good idea anyway.

---Mike Savad

Calibrated or not - I no longer use my "new" laptop as a guide as to what an image really looks like while I'm traveling. It's never accurate and sometimes not even close to the image as seen on this old HP monitor that has only been calibrated once since I've had it. I've had prints made and they are all pretty much what you see is what you get using this monitor screen.

http://fstoppers.com/adobergb-vs-srgb

all this talk about adobe rgb vs srgb is MORE than just confusing. If you want the visitor/purchaser to have a look at your work that will look good on their monitor - srgb - but a better print will be had if using Adobe rgb. And - there is NOTHING you can do about it - they will get a flat view if you upload it in adobe - and a not as good image when you upload it in srgb. what a stupid stupid stupid way to run an airline.

I color calibrate my screen once a month. I color calibrate my printer as well. I work on my photos until I am satisfied. Then they go out for sale. I can not control other peoples electronics nor their individual color receptors. It has bothered me in the past too. But, you can only do what you can do. I have shot feature films and would have like to shoot some of the projectionists as well. Art is subjective. Someone might love one of your paintings on their computer screen even if the screen is green because their color vision is green deficient. Just set up your system the best you can and stick with it. We're suppose to be having fun, right?

Debb,
Thanks for bringing up this topic. I share your concerns. My brother came to visit and brought two different laptops. He connected them to
my desktop PC. Then I showed him my FAA profile - WOW ...what a difference!

I could not believe how different my B&W pics were on his two laptops. My pics were toned bluish-purple on his laptops. I can't even
discribe that color. I hate not knowing what the customer will get from a POD site.

I too agree with those who say to upload in sRGB here because it makes the most sense to me.

@Tiny,
Thanks for the info and describing things clearly. It is food for thought. Especially how you & others mentioned dialing down the monitor
brightness. I've had trouble matching my exposures to store-labs and it's always too dark.

Nice concise posts Tiny! Great information.

Regarding soft proofing though, I will say that if you use a lab that caters to serious photographers, such as MPix or Bay Photo, there really isn't any need to soft proof. The kids working at Costco and Walmart just don't know enough or care enough to properly adjust the image prior to printing. And its often automated anyway.

I wanted to say thanks to everyone who made a contribution to this thread! Is there a way to save an entire thread for future reference? The info is superb!

I always load up my image files here at FAA in RGB.
On Redbubble it is in the sRGB format.

This is why I usually go to Wally World and have a print made. Don't laugh. Walmart does so much printing business they can afford the latest and best printers, and the cost for an 8x10 is negligible.

I keep some, and give the others away as gifts or for promotional purposes.

Of course this thread brings into play the sage advice once given by Ansel Adams: (To paraphrase...I think)

“The negative---or in today,s terminology: digital file---is as a score of music. The print is as to the performance.”

Decades ago it was commonplace for a professional photographer to have their own darkroom. This took care of the problem of a technician somewhere in a film lab deciding that the image “looked better” after they tweaked it.

As far as printers go... I have yet to buy one from FAA. Yet, I will soon. That said, I love www.smugmug.com

I hope this helps.