Can someone look at this and tell me if it's too dark on your screen.

[pankaj purohit]

Alex, the picture is way too dark on my monitor which is calibrated my nVidia's inbuilt color calibration tool 6500K. Mark's adjustments are good, but I would do it differently, I would correct it from Adjustment>>Shadow and Highlites, not from the curves or levels. See these two example, upper one is good for me>>>><div></div>

[Alex]

Lets try again as a tiff file a smaller res and fewer pixels. the image went down from 57 mb down to 18 mb

[Alex]

I can't make the file to upload this is the last try. now it's a 8mb tiff. If it does'nt upload I'd appreciate some ideas since I think I've seen raw files here.

Thanks and sorry about not being able to upload file.

[frans_waterlander]

What about your monitor brightness? What level did you calibrate it to?

[jam]

My 2 cents to this discussion: What monitor do you have? I used to have Dell 1703FP and had similar problem with it. If the picture looked OK on that monitor - it almost certainly was waaaay too dark on other monitors. This was the same after I started calibrating that monitor every two weeks. Ended up selling it couple weeks ago, because it was too frustrating. Right now I am looking for a replacement.

[jongaus]

I don't understand why your first posting became so dark. When converting the tiff-file to jpeg using CaptureNX and performing some standard histogram adjustments (I actually made it darker, you are right it's being shot to the right of the histogram) and white balance adjustments, I get this result which look great on my screen.<div></div>

[petemillis]

Alex, thanks for the TIFF file. I've just done a levels adjustment on that to clip the left of histogram slightly to give true blacks, and then converted to JPEG in sRGB colour profile and finally downsizing to fit here. Let's see if this works...<div></div>

[petemillis]

full size one here....<div></div>

[jongaus]

I should have converted to sRGB before posting. You can also add i little more punch by applying an unsharp mask of about 8-10%, using a radius of about 40 pixels, this will add some more contrast without destroying the end points of the histogram. See attached suggestion.<div></div>

[petemillis]

hmmm, hadn't thought of applying USM for adding a bit of punch. Here's my GIMPed version.<div></div>

[ed_ci]

my edit

 

<img>http://www.photo.net/photo/7846024</img>

[gt1]

I like Ed's and Jon's edits the most so far.

[ed_ci]

Sorry mine is not showing up in the post. I read FAQ on posting and can't see what I did wrong or the bulletin

board upload feature. <br>New to posting here.

<br>

my edit via PS3: SRGB> Levels > Curves> Shadow/hilight> color balance> UnsharpMsk> jpg-9 .....on a mbpro lcd.

[evphotography]

The image looks fine on my screen, under the conditions on which you shot it that is probably as good as your going

to get. I will admit the gorilla is a little dark, but he is backlit and without some fill light I'm not sure what else you

could do. But I can still see detail in the gorilla so if he is really dark on your screen then it is probably your monitor.

My suggestion is spend a little money and get yourself a really good monitor. If you do a lot of digital work on your

computer it is worth the extra money. I finally bought one about year ago and it was one of best investments I have

made. I purchased an 20" Apple Cinema display and the picture is absolutly beautiful and they profile really really

well. This monitor I got has been recommended by several different proffesionals. When you look at what a high

quailty monitor cost, the Apple Cinema display is really a very good bargain. They run about $600 for a 20", but the

prices keep dropping so they might me cheaper now. They use to cost around $1100-1200 several years ago but

have dropped in price a lot.

[Alex]

Wow. So many interpretations from the same file. Thanks a lot for all your help so far. Today I was about to give this image a second try but my PC got infected with HIV or whatever virus called Untivirus XP 2008 so I have to fix that and then retry fixing the image.

Again thanks to all of your who took the time to assist.

Regards,

Alex

[ed_ci]

I feel dumb the attachment is right at the end of the posting process.<div></div>

[gt1]

"Today I was about to give this image a second try but my PC got infected with HIV or whatever virus called Untivirus XP 2008 so I have to fix that and then retry fixing the image."

 

Ouch, I used to be an expert at removing malware but support Mac more than PCs these days at work and have lost my touch with that stuff, but I've had several co-workers complain that they were never able to remove that one completely.

[commortis]

sRGB, new layer, selective levels ( the shadowed areas of the gorilla), flatten image.

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/7846515

[frans_waterlander]

Alex,

 

Did you look at my posts re the brightness of your monitor?

[how]

On my monitor It is much too dark.

You might also try an HDR program that will work on a Raw file.

[kevcross]

You may want to check the gamma setting on the computer. The original looks fine for me with a Mac Power Book calibrated at 1.8 gamma. When I switch to 2.2 calibration it appears too dark.

[frans_waterlander]

If the brightness of the monitor is too high, then all the tweaking talked about sofar will do nothing to resolve the issue at hand and it will persist. Interesting to see everybody jump in with editing suggestions and almost nobody trying to address the issue of monitor brightness.

 

As for gamma, most people agree that 2.2 is the better number to use.

[Alex]

Frans that is a great question that I can't answer. I trully don't remember the number and now my computer it's dead. But what is the desired brightness so I can check it when the PC is back in action?

[petemillis]

Frans, I made an assumption that the monitor brightness was probably ok as Alex has calibrated it.

 

Alex, you can check the brightness using a test chart of different shades from black through white. There was a link to one in a recent thread (which I don't have to time to hunt for at the moment). I use the ones that come with the free "Quicjgamma" software.

[Tim_Lookingbill]

Yeah, I tried to find the grayramp test target I recently created and posted in a recent thread and the thread got pushed down

and off the listing.

 

So I've reuploaded it again and posted at the bottom. The top four dark rectangles should have reasonable separation with the

second next to black with less separation from the others. The top highlight rectangles should show separation from white and

the entire bottom 21 step grayramp should show a smooth and gradual increase in luminosity from black to white. Everything

should look neutral as well.<div></div>