Evaluate Gamma of my photos

[brett_cole]

<p>THE PROBLEM</p>

<p>Not the photos so much as the monitor at the time that they were processed,

but therefore the photos as well. </p>

<p>I realized my monitor has been set too dark. My work looked good tonally on

my CRT - when it was set too dark - and on most other CRTs, but bright and

washed out on LCDs.</p>

<p>I adjusted for proper gamma and wound up changing the brightness setting

from 35 to 53 on the monitor. Yikes... I am assuming I'm in for a big round of

image adjustment now, but wanted to get feedback from folks first.</p>

<p>HELP WANTED</p>

<p>Not fishing for input good or bad on my photos, just tonality and gamma

issues. Not wondering whether my method of gamma adjustment/calibration is good

or bad, just whether the images on my site, as you see them right now, appear to

have incorrect gamma (too bright, lacking low end)</p>

<p>If it were you and you now had to readjust these photos, what would your

likely adjustment be?</p>

<p>THE URL</p>

<p>My url is <a href="http://www.wildnorthwest.org">www.wildnorthwest.org</a></p>

<p>The old home page (before I darkened the solid colors blues and brown,

photos are all the same) - <a

href="http://www.wildnorthwest.org/old.html">www.wildnorthwest.org/old.html</a></p>

<p></p>

<p>Thanks,</p>

<p>Brett</p>

[jack_landry]

All pictures look great on my CRT monitor, the Gamma is certainly OK. And so are the levels,contrasts and colors too...

[william-porter]

On my Dell laptop's display (which I calibrate every month or so) the photos appear neither too dark nor too light -- just about right. Very nice photos!

[brett_cole]

Thanks guys. Yikes! What is going on then, because they looked great on my CRT (and most others too, although too bright on maybe 50% of other CRTs I've observed them on), but way too washed out on most LCDs. Then I ran a few of the standard gamma adjustment apps, and they all indicated my monitor brightness was way too low. I wound up cranking it quite a bit, as I indicated.

 

Gotta love photo.net. Ten minutes and two responses already.

[ronald_moravec1]

They look great on my two new Macs, one an iMac one a notebook

[petemillis]

Brett, I've just set my IBM TFT monitor up using Quickgamma and also confirmed that blackness is correct, and all your photos look spot on here. Of course, it's difficult to know if everything is exactly as you intended as I can't see how they display on your monitor. But there is certainly nothing that stands out as being incorrect.

 

On subject of your photos - the conservation gallery - most excellent :)

[SCL]

Looks on the button on my LCD.

[Tim_Lookingbill]

The only thing that looks different on the old page is the surrounding brown background

is lighter than the newer. The photos look the same viewed in Safari which is color

managed.

 

Frankly your images are so over the top perfect and gorgeous, I don't see how gamma

could be an issue even if they were slightly lighter or darker.

 

I wonder how much of the look of the color was derived from that plugin called AutoEye.

I've never heard of this software company but if they can make my drab RAW images look

like yours I'm going to give it try.

 

Dang! The color on the shots of birds is just unbelievable. A very enjoyable gallery.

[brett_cole]

Thanks again everyone for the nice and helpful comments. I am confused, as now that I've set my brightness higher everything looks bright and washed out on my CRT. This is the test I used - The "gamma and black level" chart on the right halfway down

 

http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html

 

I realize as a working photographer I should have a real calibration method. My spider broke and I haven't broken down and bought a new one. My old Lacie monitor was calibrated. It broke (lots of breaking in my gear world), I inherited a nice Decaview, and everything looked peachy with the brightness set were it was when I got it (35), so I never bothered.

 

If you look at the "old" homepage, don't the solid color fields (blue and brown) in fact look too bright.

 

Thanks again

[brett_cole]

Thanks Tim,

 

I sent you an email about Autoeye

[simus]

Agree with all of you. All Pictures look excellent on my newly spyder calibrated lcd monitor.

 

Antonio

[Tim_Lookingbill]

Brett,

 

Just downloaded the AutoEye demo. Will be trying it out later.

[petemillis]

Brett, the colours on the new homepage are definitely a bit deeper than on the old homepage, but the ones on the old home page don't look too bright - but like I say, I can't compare them with what you see on your monitor!

 

Yesterday I calibrated my monitor by checking the gamma and black level using the same charts you have used. I corrected the gamma level using Quickgamma to which there is a link on Norman Koren's site. Please don't take this the wrong way, but do you know how to read the gamma chart? Only reason I ask is that first time I looked at one I couldn't see what I was supposed to be looking at! And with the black level, have you set it so that on the chart the left hand black column disappears somewhere around the point that the gamma lines match up?

[brett_cole]

Hi Pete,

 

No offense taken at all. I'm obviously an idiot for not having a better handle on this all along. All I did was adjust my brightness while looking at the chart, and met the stated criteria for the white bar and the two black bars.

 

Actually, meeting it completely meant my brightness went way up, from 35 to 60, so I dialed it back down to 53. But all the photos on my site where tonally corrected with brightness at the old level of 35. With it there, the two bars were almost all black.

 

That's why I'm confused. I expected people here to say, yeah everything is too bright.

 

I downloaded quickgamma but am still trying to figure out how to use it.

 

Thanks for taking time to respond in general

[rjlewis]

The new page layout is slightly more contrasty and rather more pleasant but the images are so close I'm not sure it's worth doing them over again.

 

If your images will only be viewed on monitors and browsers then it's hard to find the right target so shoot for. Most LCDs are too bright to judge much unless they are calibrated, and few are. People get used to see everthing bright and contrasty and you can't do much about that. If you got them looking good on a gamer's LCD they probably would not look right to this crowd.

 

Koren's brightness card has never been useful for me. The gamma card yes, but not the bars. They never seem to fall where he says they should even when my CRT is calibrated.

[brett_cole]

Thanks Rick,

 

I do a lot of field work for others, and they never say "the photos looked good but they were kind of bright," so it doesn't seem extreme in any case. I had a book published last year, printed offset in Hong Kong, and the tonally was really good across the board, with 250 photos shot over three years. That seemed to me like an assurance that the tonality of my work in general was in a good range. These factors are one reason this threw me for such a loop today. I'll take into account your experience with the charts.

 

Thanks

[petemillis]

Hi Brett.

 

Quickgamma is pretty easy to use. First set the black level so the left hand black bar is just visible alongside the 2.2 marker, and not visible by the time you get to the 1.9 marker - best to view from a distance otherwise you start trying to see what isn't there (well, I do!).

 

Then you set the gamma level. You can change colours individually...but you don't want to do that. When you look at the gamma chart, make sure you're viewing it from a distance so you can' see the individual horizontal lines on it. You need to see it as just vertical bars. What you'll see is two outer bars going up vertically, each to a point as the grey intensity disappears into the surroundings. And you'll see a central vertical bar that comes down into a point. In the region where they overlap there'll be a bit where the intensity of the grey for the outer bars appears to be the same as that for the central bar. You read off the point at which this happens on the scale on the left. On my monitor this was initally alongside the 1.8 marker.

 

I got one of my kids to click the down arrow on the gamma spinner until the point at which the intensity was equal across the the gamma scale was alongside the 2.2 mark. This is where it should be set. The numbers in the boxes next to the up/down spinner things indicate what the native gamma of the monitor. For mine, these ended up indicating 1.8 which is correct as that is what I read off the gamma scale before adjusting the gamma to 2.2.

 

The help instructions with Quickgamma explain it all quite clearly (probably better than my effort!)

 

But everything is definitely NOT too bright no your pictures.

[ellis_vener_photography]

i have an accurately and frequently calibrated and profiled ( at native WB and Native Gamma --per Andrew Rodney's suggestion for Apple Cinema Displays) Apple 20" (LCD) Core 2 Duo iMac. The photos on your old website looks just fine on my machine.

 

Which begs the question: How are you calibrating and profiling your display?

[Tim_Lookingbill]

Brett,

</p>

 

<p>

If Norman's site doesn't do it for you, I find this <a href="http://www.aim-dtp.net/aim/

evaluation/gamma_space/index.htm">gamma evaluator site</a> much more simple. IMO

it uses more appropriate raster targets for evaluating LCD's.

</p>

 

<p>

Just pick a gamma to make the boxes look as one where you can't detect a dividing line.

It's also great for checking neutrality uniformity throughout the entire tonal scale. Seeing

no color, just flat neutral in the boxes at the selected gamma matched to the display is a

sign of a good calibration and quality display.

</p>

 

<p>

You must view this site in a noncolor managed browser like Firefox or IE.

[petemillis]

Tim - agree, they're easy to use charts. I've just had a look at them after calibrating gamma with Qucikgamma, and they confirm all in order (mostly!). On the right hand chart for Gamma 2.2 I see very slight colour toward the bottom that only gets worse, not better, if I shift the gamma adjustment. I assume this is down to something with my display that can't be calibrated out - yay, nay? I wonder if I might disappear if I alter gamma for each of R G and B individually?

[Tim_Lookingbill]

Color crossover isn't that major of an issue down in the shadows. Calibrating using an

eyeball calibrator which I just found out for myself after revisiting that site causes color

tinting to show up in the raster targets. When I load the i1 Display puck based profile it

eliminates them. I get a perfect gray target and a boost distinguishing more of the blocks

in the shadow/black point targets on the right.

 

I guess everyone's right the eye is easily fooled and I should just trust the colorimeter.

However when I calibrate this way it seems to show color crossover or nonuniformity

viewed in a 21step grayramp. It's subtle though and I guess I'm going to just stick with the

puck based calibration regardless.