[Leica] RE: Umbria 2006

[oliverbryk at comcast.net (Oliver Bryk)]

Thanks to everyone who took the trouble to comment. It seems that the
majority of the viewers consider most of the images to be too bright and/or
lacking in saturation:

"Oliver, you've shown a stack of interesting detail and content. I enjoyed
the browse. On my (calibrated) monitor the entire gallery appears overly
bright. I'd guess like about approaching a stop too bright as shown? It will
be interesting to see if others have the same impression.
Cheers
Hoppy"

"This is also the case on my MacBook Pro's glossy screen.
Adam"

"Gee, they look saturated and rich here. No blowouts anywhere. 23-inch
Cinema Apple -- calibrated well enough to print color accurately. Mac vs PC
gamma? Lovely vacation pictures. Thanks for showing.
Ric Carter"

"My screen is set to 2.2 Gamma even though it is hooked up to a PC. It's
calibrated though. Anyway, no blown outs. Nice and smooth.
(Richard)"

"Oliver - Nice to wander through Umbria again.  I was there five years ago
and it looks like we visited at least some of the same towns and I had a
nice ramble through yours.  Sorry to say most of the shots looks washed out
here too, though. :-((
Dick"

"The 2.2 vs 1.8 gamma thingie? My 24" is same res as yours, 32 bit and also
calibrated. I think that the pics ought to look darker on your Cinema HD
display, if calibrated and using 1.8. If pics are for display on monitors
and the sRGB colour space is chosen, then 2.2 is the better choice. Note I
don't mean it's the best. sRGB (which has 2.2 as part of the spec) and
indeed gamma compensation does yuck things to the images. But it is the
majority "standard" for web display.
Of course if your end result is prints and the on-line versions just a
bonus, then your monitors ability to approximate what comes out of your
printer is the only important consideration.
8-b Colour managed Hoppy"

"Richard I'm not seeing any blowouts, just that the images look lighter than
normal on my particular hardware. That's not a complaint. I really enjoyed
them. Just feedback as requested. Please keep them coming.
Cheers
Hoppy"

"As to the density of your images, nothing is blown out but it seems that in
many of your images you just miss black. This one would be a prime example:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/OBRYK/Umbria/06Umbria07.jpg.html

The nun's habit should go to black but it appears that you have used H/S to
bring back too much of the shadow. You almost get to black in the doorway on
the back of the image. It does however give a light mid-summer feel to the
image. Much like spending most of the day in bright sun at the beach where
everything seems washed out. Possibly that is what brought this image to
mind. With the glare you are getting from the nun I expected the image to be
far darker, more threatening so that the lighter color palette is jarring.
On the other hand, this image:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/OBRYK/Umbria/06Umbria13.jpg.html

appears to be well balanced from the blacks to the whites. It seems to have
a far more saturated/richer look than the one I first pointed out. Again, a
good set and I appreciate the chance to look into a place that I will
probably never get to.
Don"

"a lovely group of images, Oliver...   beautiful   rather other worldly, I
think because they are uniformly overly light/bright on my monitor....
Steve"

"The majority seem over-light to me, too, Oliver. However, I think you've
pretty much captured the spirit of Umbria - thanks! I'll be there myself in
5 weeks, it's quite a few years since my last visit.
Nick"

A friend lent me his Gretag but I haven't properly calibrated my CRT yet
because (add excuse of your choice). I finished scanning my 15 rolls of
Optima 100 from the trip about 6 weeks ago, and I'm not going to rescan the
whole bunch although I may rescan selected images for comparison purposes.
The pro lab that does my C-41 processing looked at the negs and said that
they are correctly exposed. Could the perceived excessive brightness
originate in the scanning process?

Thanks again to everyone,
Oliver