[Leica] Monitor brightness issues

[hoppyman at bigpond.net.au (G Hopkinson)]

Oliver, I'm not familiar with that Nokia calibration you mention for your 
monitor.
Is it a hardware based system or something where you make a subjective 
judgement by looking at patches on your screen? Can you set
colour temperature (6500K) contrast brightness accurately?  
A Spyder or similar colorimeter system is not too expensive and yields good 
results.
Given the age of your monitor its contrast and other performance could 
perhaps be deteriorating.
Just like TVs they gradually go downhill.
It would be helpful if you had a friend or colleague with a calibrated 
system where you could compare. Or of course if you could
borrow a colorimeter to see where your settings are.

The sRGB colour space will give you the best start for how the image will 
likely appear on other folks (calibrated) monitors. I
don't suggest using it over AdobeRGB if the intent is to print.

On a good monitor the same image in the two colour spaces is chalk and 
cheese though. That is the colour can be much more muted with
the sRGB. But you should see it as others will. Theoretically!

The whole area of colour spaces is quite a big one with endless web pages 
and print pages out there.
Adobe has reasonable notes on-line and there a number of dedicated books. 
Just occasionally all of these experts agree on the odd
point. 
Good luck with your quest.

Cheers
Hoppy 

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+hoppyman=bigpond.net.au@leica-users.org 
[mailto:lug-bounces+hoppyman=bigpond.net.au@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Oliver Bryk
Sent: Sunday, 10 September 2006 07:59
To: lug@leica-users.org
Subject: [Leica] Monitor brightness issues

Several of our colleagues have been kind enough to call my attention to the
fact that some of my recently posted pictures are too bright, lack contrast,
show blown-out sky, or show similar discrepancies on their CRTs and/or LCDs.


I am asking for suggestions regarding the source(s) of these visual issues
because I do not see them on my CRT monitor, a 5-year old Gateway 19" VX900,
possibly a rebranded Hitachi. The adapter is a NVIDIA GEForce 2 MX400 with
the latest software release. I calibrate the monitor about once a month,
using the Nokia screen test software. I have my vision tested annually. I
edit my pictures in a room with very low ambient brightness, with the shades
drawn. My screen background is middle gray; the screen setting is 1024x768,
32-bit color. I scan the negatives at 2000ppi on a Nikon 4000 with the
current release of VueScan, save and edit them as TIFs, and convert to JPG
as the last step before transmitting them. The brightness of the scenes on
my monitor matches my memory of the location. I made the images in question
under fairly bright conditions, typically f/8 or f/9, at 1/250 on Optima
100, dependably a real ISO 100 film. I did not include a color reference
chart.

I do not have the technical or scientific background to fully understand
what, if anything, is happening to the colors in the sequence of
transformations, and what might account for the differences in perceptions.
I shall be grateful for suggestions and/or explanations.

Oliver




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