Re: What a difference a decent monitor makes!
John J
> What a difference a decent monitor makes!
>
> I am currently taking a class in Photoshop at our local community
> college.
Gary, may I ask where you live? (I work for a University).
John J
:) That's cool, and a long way from Minnesota.
@no.mail D-Mac
"Gary Edstrom" <GEds...@PacBell.Net> wrote in message
news:filrg4133p5hpervu...@4ax.com...
> What a difference a decent monitor makes!
>
> I am currently taking a class in Photoshop at our local community
> of a torn and stained B&W picture from the 1940's. I did the work at
> home and got the picture to a point that I thought was pretty good. What
> a surprise I was in for when I loaded it onto the display at school!
> There were a number of areas that I had missed cloning while I was at
> home. In addition, some of the cloning I did looked terrible!
>
> The monitor I was using at home belongs to the company I work for. It
> is just a simple low-end flat screen monitor and doesn't have a large
> contrast range. I decided to invest in a higher end monitor of my own.
> Yesterday, I purchased an LG monitor. What a difference!
>
> Another thing the monitor showed up was how really bad some of the
> pictures I took at ASA 400 with my Canon SD500 P&S 'Backup' camera were.
> I knew that the camera did not perform as well at ASA 400, even when
> viewed on my old monitor. But viewing those pictures on the new monitor
> really made them look bad! It just so happened that I had never printed
> out any of those ASA 400 pictures, so I never knew how bad they really
> were until now.
>
> Gary
Probably the most significant thing you'll discover with a "decent monitor"
is that all those printers you had a problem getting the colours right with
all of a sudden start printing properly!
I use Backlit Samsung XL series monitors. Before that I used a variety of
different brands and thought the colour balance tool I used was good enough.
It was but a $2000 monitor is not just good enough, it is the purpose of it
all!.
ps...@emmet.com
one its hard to go back to a plain monitor :-) ... the new 31" is a
mere ...$5300 or so :-) ...
oh yes ...then a color calibrated light box so you can work in the
evenings and know your colors will still be accurate ...
steve
Mike Russell
> I have no need to impress others with a monitor I don't need and can't
> afford. I only need to please myself.
C'mon Gary - didn't you ever brag on your new toys?
When you were six, LOL.
--
Mike Russell - http://www.curvemeister.com
Rob
> On Wed, 05 Nov 2008 05:21:54 -0800, Gary Edstrom wrote:
>
>> I have no need to impress others with a monitor I don't need and can't
>> afford. I only need to please myself.
>
> C'mon Gary - didn't you ever brag on your new toys?
>
> When you were six, LOL.
Isn't it the bigger the boys the bigger the toys!
Talker
>On Sun, 02 Nov 2008 23:28:49 GMT, "D-Mac" <D-Mac @no.mail> wrote:
>
>>I use Backlit Samsung XL series monitors. Before that I used a variety of
>>different brands and thought the colour balance tool I used was good enough.
>>It was but a $2000 monitor is not just good enough, it is the purpose of it
>>all!.
>
>It is quite obvious that you and I have VERY different ideas of what
>constitutes a 'decent monitor'. I am NOT in the business of image
>processing or manipulation. I have never sold a picture in my life nor
>have I ever even exhibited my pictures. I am doing it simply for my own
>enjoyment with my own pictures. I don't need a $2,000-5,000 monitor!
>
>To me, a decent monitor is something that performs better than the one I
>had and this is MOST DEFINITELY in that category, even though it 'ONLY'
>cost $500.00.
>
>I have no need to impress others with a monitor I don't need and can't
>afford. I only need to please myself.
>
>Gary
Gary, While I don't work with pictures in a professional sense, I do
like to know that my monitor will display picture colors as accurately
as possible. $3000 for a 21 inch monitor, isn't all that expensive
if you want accuracy. Myself, I'm a perfectionist......if my aunt,
cousin, or whoever wants me to reproduce and repair an old family
picture, I wnat to make sure that the resulting image is perfect.
Having a top of the line monitor is a necessity for me to accomplish
that. I could settle for a lower end Dell monitor, and it would most
likely do a good job, but I want to know I have to best, so I'll opt
for the top of the line models that are at least over 100% of the
adobe gamet of colors. Most run of the mill monitors don't come close
to 100%, but they may be close enough for most people.
Of course, using calibration software is a must also, to keep
everything in sync......software and hardware like the Color Munki is
a good inexpensive way to accomplish that.
Talker
Mike Russell
is an elitist view that I disagree with completely. Many people spend
thousands of dollars on their equipment. Only a few have the wherewithal
to use it well. Those who are professionals accept this as part of their
operating cost, and will make up more than that amount in revenue from
their photographs. Hats off to them. This is purchasing the equipment
appropriately, and using it for its intended purpose.
If they are amateurs, as (I would wager) the OP of this post is, their main
gratification is buying and showing off the latest and greatest. If they
have no talent for good images, then these folks are feckless braggarts
with more money than sense. You'll find them, dressed in shorts in some
great cathedral, temple, or mosque, toting a 5000 dollar camera with a 150
dollar lens, taking the very occasional snapshot. And their images, if
they bother to show them to anyone, are no better than snapshots.
The final color corrected image is a function of the brain of the person
making the color correction, not the number of dollars that went into the
camera and computer equipment. The latter is simply a way to fine tune the
former, giving extra leverage to what the person knows how to do.
Going back to basics, a monitor will never match a print, no matter how
much money is poured into the camera and computer equipment and associated
calibration gear. The implication of this is that we all learn,
consciously or unconsciously, how to translate what our monitors show into
what the print will look like. As we learn, our printed images look better.
Calibration, within reason, is an important and necessary part of the
process of color correction. It is not the end all, any more than having a
10,000 dollar watch is necessary to be on time. These days, even the
cheapest watch is accurate to a few seconds a day. Likewise, even the
cheapest cameras take images that were out of our reach five or ten years
ago. In this environment - an embarrassment of digital riches, ask
yourself if the yearning for an expensive watch is not similar, in many
ways, to the desire for more and more expensive equipment.
There is a lot of room for improvement in technique based on "by the
numbers" techniques that get accurate (objective) color without relying
unduly on (subjective) monitor appearance. There are numeric operations,
using the info palette, that are guaranteed to improve the appearance of an
image, yet they are known to only a fraction of the people who use
Photoshop. Learning how to do this is a task that will take many years,
with milestones along the way as each new concept becomes clearer. All of
this can be yours without spending a penny on calibration equipment or
expensive monitors.
If this intrigues you, grab any book by Dan Margulis.
Jurgen
> Bah. The notion that only expensive hardware can produce excellent
> images is an elitist view that I disagree with completely.
> There is a lot of room for improvement in technique based on "by the
> numbers" techniques that get accurate (objective) color without relying
> unduly on (subjective) monitor appearance. There are numeric
> operations, using the info palette, that are guaranteed to improve the
> appearance of an image, yet they are known to only a fraction of the
> people who use Photoshop. Learning how to do this is a task that will
> take many years, with milestones along the way as each new concept
> becomes clearer. All of this can be yours without spending a penny on
> calibration equipment or expensive monitors.
>
The interesting part of all you say Mike is the way curvemiester works to
disprove you.
If I am to read what you say accurately, you are suggesting I can use any
old monitor and as long as the photo I edit has white, black and gray in
it, I'll get accurate colour balance just by using curvemeister to click
on those three colours.
You and I both know that is a load of bunkum. Without an accurate colour
profile for a monitor, no colour correction software will be accurate. I
agree that relatively low cost, non backlit, LCD screens can be profiled
and coaxed into producing surprisingly good colour but without a display
having an accurate profile, Photoshop cannot use a workspace with any
degree of reliability, you won't get accurate colour output or even save
an edited photo with accurate colour unless your monitor has a functional
and accurate profile associated with it.
This is where High end monitors like Samsung and EIZO come into their
own. Out of the box they will all produce an accurate rendition of sRGB
using the Photoshop sRGB profile. Something cheap monitors won't do.
Mike Russell
> If I am to read what you say accurately, you are suggesting I can use any
> old monitor and as long as the photo I edit has white, black and gray in
> it, I'll get accurate colour balance just by using curvemeister to click
> on those three colours.
No. It's not as simple as clicking on three colors - if that were the case
it could be automated and life would be very simple. You need to know
something about what you're doing.
Margulis calls it "color by the numbers", and it includes the basic
principles of shadow, highlight, and neutral. These do not depend on
precise calibration, or an expensive monitor. Color blind individuals can
use "color by the numbers". It is possible, as a stunt, to get a good
color correction, by the numbers, using a black and white monitor.
To illustrate the principle of a neutral a bit more: if an image contains
an object that you know is gray or white, setting the red, green, and blue
channels equal will remove the color cast from the image, and generally
result in an image that 100 percent of viewers will agree is better than
the original image.
Almost every image is laced with colored objects that follow certain
numerically defined rules, and these rules can be used to improve the color
appearance. Skin tones, sky, foliage, and hair are examples of common
objects that follow rules. For example, a dog be a shade of brown, red, or
yellow, but seldom is there the slightest hint of blue, purple, or green.
It's also important to have some knowledge of how the eye can be deceived
by effects such as simultaneous contrast. An example would be a gray
object surrounded by a colored object, taking on a slight tint of the
colored object's complimentary color. The eye may be deceived, but the
color numbers are not, and no monitor - no matter how expensive or well
calibrated - can compensate for that.
Curvemeister helps structure things and make them faster, but the real gold
is in Margulis's books. His techniques are all designed to be done using
Photoshop alone, and inexpensive equipment that is reasonably well
calibrated.
Jurgen
> On 8 Nov 2008 04:02:23 GMT, Jurgen wrote:
>
>> If I am to read what you say accurately, you are suggesting I can use
>> any old monitor and as long as the photo I edit has white, black and
>> gray in it, I'll get accurate colour balance just by using curvemeister
>> to click on those three colours.
>
> No. It's not as simple as clicking on three colors - if that were the
> case it could be automated and life would be very simple. You need to
> know something about what you're doing.
>
> Margulis calls it "color by the numbers", and it includes the basic
> principles of shadow, highlight, and neutral. These do not depend on
> precise calibration, or an expensive monitor. Color blind individuals
> can use "color by the numbers". It is possible, as a stunt, to get a
> good color correction, by the numbers, using a black and white monitor.
>
>
I have long used black and white to obtain a correct color balance. As
far back as 1982 when I set up a video color assesment system to color
balance for Cibachrome prints I've used the concept of "black
balance" (also white) as a primary source for starting accurate color
balance.
I have never read anything from the author you mention but color by
numbers is a well documented method of color assesment being re-birthed
now that most photo editing is done with computers. In my opinion digital
assesment still falls short of analogue but that is only my opinion.
What I read in your post was your (seemingly) total disregard for needing
a correct profile for a monitor in order for color managed programs like
Photoshop to work with. They need a working space. That working space
needs to be correct or the purpose of using a color managed program is
lost.
There is little point in creating an ICC or ICM profile for a monochrome
monitor if obtaining correct color balance is as easy as you make it out
to be.
Once, when someone suggested that turning off color management in PS may
help obtain more correctly balanced prints from an uncalibrated monitor,
you were quite forceful in pushing your opinion that such advise was
wrong and the person concerned would be better off getting a decent
monitor and having it profiled.
Your statement now would seem to contridict your stance of a few years
ago. Curvemeister - like PS itself, will not produce color corect results
if Photoshop's workspace is not tied to a profile that renders color
correct images. Follow that on and cheap (as in under 750:1 contrast
ratio - non dynamic measurement) LCD screens will not allow that to
happen any more than an aging CRT screen with compressed dynamic range
will.
Put simply, consumer class monitors are an extremely poor choice for a
photographer who has already invested considerably in camera gear and
software.
Seriously Mike, Can you offer any sensible reason for buying $2000 worth
of computer and software to edit photos from (usually) equal cost cameras
and putting up with pretty much any monitor they give you? If someone can
afford to spend $4000 on their hobby, what will an extra 20% to get the
whole system right really matter?
J.
Mike Russell
...
> I have long used black and white to obtain a correct color balance. As
> far back as 1982 when I set up a video color assesment system to color
> balance for Cibachrome prints I've used the concept of "black
> balance" (also white) as a primary source for starting accurate color
> balance.
We may be speaking in different contexts here. Margulis's "color by the
numbers is not a reference to calibration. It is a concept that is very
distinct from calibration, though calibration has its place in supporting
the relatively small number of subjective adjustments that are also
required for good color.
"Color by the numbers" starts with a particular image, of more or less
unknown vintage, and improves the colors systematically based on the
numeric color values, and what is known about the objects in the image.
Everything relates to actual photographs, and improving their appearance.
No color chart is ever photographed and measured. A profile is never the
central concern about an image's color quality, but always secondary to the
numeric values of the colors in the final image.
In this context, shadow, highlight, and neutral refer to objects or areas
in the image that are known not to contain color. Furthermore, shadow and
highlight, when present in an image, are colorless areas that we want to be
as dark or bright as possible, yet contain significant detail
Black and white points refer, often, to calibrated areas of maximum light
and dark, and is distinct from color correction.
> I have never read anything from the author you mention but color by
> numbers is a well documented method of color assesment being re-birthed
> now that most photo editing is done with computers. In my opinion digital
> assesment still falls short of analogue but that is only my opinion.
Fair enough. I stuck with film for a relatively long time as well. By
analog do you mean analog video, film, or both?
> What I read in your post was your (seemingly) total disregard for needing
> a correct profile for a monitor in order for color managed programs like
> Photoshop to work with. They need a working space. That working space
> needs to be correct or the purpose of using a color managed program is
> lost.
What you were picking up on was my objection to bragging about equipment,
and particularly the attitude that excellent color is not possible without
expensive, fully calibrated equipment. This is not so.
> There is little point in creating an ICC or ICM profile for a monochrome
> monitor if obtaining correct color balance is as easy as you make it out
> to be.
Not sure I parse that - color can be corrected on a monochrome monitor by
careful reading and interpretation of color values. This is a stunt, sure,
but it demonstrates the importance of knowledge over equipment.
> Once, when someone suggested that turning off color management in PS may
> help obtain more correctly balanced prints from an uncalibrated monitor,
> you were quite forceful in pushing your opinion that such advise was
> wrong and the person concerned would be better off getting a decent
> monitor and having it profiled.
I started off being very skeptical and cautious about monitor profiling,
and have softened my stance since then. I now have two sets of
recommendations for people who want to match their monitor and print. For
single person setups, I think manual calibration saves money, and gives a
person a sense of control over the behavior of their equipment. For people
who do not want to tackle that issue, otherwise view it as an obstacle, I
do recommend calibrating with one of the devices commonly available. I also
recommend calibrating where multiple monitors are used in a workplace or
classroom. Both groups of people are equally capable of getting excellent
color. Is this inconsistent? I don't think so.
> Your statement now would seem to contridict your stance of a few years
> ago. Curvemeister - like PS itself, will not produce color corect results
> if Photoshop's workspace is not tied to a profile that renders color
> correct images. Follow that on and cheap (as in under 750:1 contrast
> ratio - non dynamic measurement) LCD screens will not allow that to
> happen any more than an aging CRT screen with compressed dynamic range
> will.
Recognizing that your tone is very different from earlier contributors to
this thread, I respectfully disagree with this. It is possible to set an
accurate shadow, highlight, and neutral from the info palette, and to use
almost any monitor to judge the overall brightness and detail of an image.
Those five things cover the vast majority of the corrections that may be
made to an image.
> Put simply, consumer class monitors are an extremely poor choice for a
> photographer who has already invested considerably in camera gear and
> software.
We may differ on the definition of consumer class. A monitor costing $800
dollars, plus the calibration equipment necessary to maintain it, is
overkill for most people, better spent on additional equipment.
> Seriously Mike, Can you offer any sensible reason for buying $2000 worth
> of computer and software to edit photos from (usually) equal cost cameras
> and putting up with pretty much any monitor they give you? If someone can
> afford to spend $4000 on their hobby, what will an extra 20% to get the
> whole system right really matter?
It will matter as much as 800 dollars matters, and this is an individual
judgment. It's enough money that most of us will rightly weigh that
expense against other equipment and software.
Look, we can do things with our images, using curves and other tools, that
Ansel Adams and his contemporaries could only dream about, assuming they
could conceive of it. Edward Weston hated the long hours he spent in the
darkroom, and he complained bitterly about having to retouch his negatives.
Imaging how happy he would be, sitting on his sunny porch near Pt Lobos,
using the clone tool in Photoshop!
Moving a mouse half a centimeter can replace the work of an hour or more in
the darkroom. From this, it should be evident that even those of us with
cheap monitors have far more control over our images than was possible with
film technology 50 years ago. Therefore, when we compare our images to the
great ones from long ago, and find our images lacking, what we lack is
knowledge and technique, not equipment.
For the vast majority of the people reading this, is that you can make a
larger leap in color quality by learning more, and gaining an understanding
of "color by the numbers", than by buying more equipment, and other
equipment to calibrate it. Invest 50 dollars purchasing a good book on
color correction, or to take an online class, than to spend a penny on a
better monitor.
Once you have obtained enough of that knowledge to realize that your
equipment is limiting your results, dig out the 800 dollars and spend it
where it will help the most - It may well be that you spend it on a new
lens. tripod, or camera, and not a monitor.
Michael J Davis
>
>The interesting part of all you say Mike is the way curvemiester works to
>disprove you.
>
>If I am to read what you say accurately, you are suggesting I can use any
>old monitor and as long as the photo I edit has white, black and gray in
>it, I'll get accurate colour balance just by using curvemeister to click
>on those three colours.
>
>You and I both know that is a load of bunkum. Without an accurate colour
>profile for a monitor, no colour correction software will be accurate. I
>agree that relatively low cost, non backlit, LCD screens can be profiled
>and coaxed into producing surprisingly good colour but without a display
>having an accurate profile, Photoshop cannot use a workspace with any
>degree of reliability, you won't get accurate colour output or even save
>an edited photo with accurate colour unless your monitor has a functional
>and accurate profile associated with it.
>
>This is where High end monitors like Samsung and EIZO come into their
>own. Out of the box they will all produce an accurate rendition of sRGB
>using the Photoshop sRGB profile. Something cheap monitors won't do.
So what monitors would you (and others) recommend for a serious amateur
photographer?
I bought a Viewsonic VP201 (1600 x 1200) some four years ago for office
use, keeping a nice, but smaller, CTX crt for my photography (because
I'd been told that crts were better than tfts for graphics work).
However the quality of the Viewsonic seemed so much better that I moved
my photography onto it.
It's now getting a bit old - the bottom left is losing contrast, and I
need to think of something else. What would you choose?
Mike
--
Michael J Davis
<Please note that the Reply-To: address will remain in use for at least 30
days, but the sender and from addresses are not valid.>
<><
Dave
><Please note that the Reply-To: address will remain in use for at least 30 days,
> but the sender and from addresses are not valid.>
><><
'kay, this is twit is not available.
Don't waist your time on a reply.
Michael J Davis
So why waste your time with a reply? Especially as you didn't seem to
read what it said; the reply-to address *is* valid.
Why do you have a problem with my reserving the right to change my
reply-to address? Have you never had your address captured by spammers?
In any case, I thought newsgroup postings are best answered by newsgroup
replies.
Mike
--
Michael J Davis
<><
The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.
Dorethea Lange
<><
Jurgen
news:JVVr69Do...@trustsof.co.uk.invalid:
View Sonic make some unique monitors. Almost all of them have Samsung
screens in them. Hopefully this will tell you something.
Mike Russell
> It's now getting a bit old - the bottom left is losing contrast,
Hmmm - bottom left. Could this be a degaussing issue? Maybe there's some
life left in the old buggy yet.
> and I need to think of something else. What would you choose?
You may want to start your own thread - this one has sort of gone south and
many people who would otherwise respond to your very reasonable question
may have blocked it.
TO answer your question, though, I'm in a similar situation, with my Nanao
long gone - sigh - an old Dell monitor that is starting to bite the dust.
I'm using a relatively inexpensive Dell 1707FP, calibrated with an Eye One
display 2, in place of the Nanao and it gets the job done.
Michael J Davis
>On Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:17:44 +0000, Michael J Davis wrote:
>
>> It's now getting a bit old - the bottom left is losing contrast,
>
>Hmmm - bottom left. Could this be a degaussing issue? Maybe there's some
>life left in the old buggy yet.
I think it would, were it a CRT! ;-)
>> and I need to think of something else. What would you choose?
>
>You may want to start your own thread - this one has sort of gone south and
>many people who would otherwise respond to your very reasonable question
>may have blocked it.
Maybe!
>TO answer your question, though, I'm in a similar situation, with my Nanao
>long gone - sigh - an old Dell monitor that is starting to bite the dust.
>
>I'm using a relatively inexpensive Dell 1707FP, calibrated with an Eye One
>display 2, in place of the Nanao and it gets the job done.
I'm still v. happy with my Videosonic, but just wondered what's best in
the middle range.
Mike
--
Michael J Davis
If you want gold, you can dig in the dirt yourself, or
find a specialist refiner. The choice is always yours.