Recommended monitor luminance levels?

I've just been calibrating my new printer but during the process I
found recommendations that monitor luminance level should be between
90 cd/m2 and 100 cd/m2.

I checked my (calibrated) monitor and it was something like 190
cd/m2. So I've now adjusted my monitor to 100 cd/m2, gamma 2.2 and
colour temp of 6500K.

Everything looks gray and dim! So are these luminance levels really
the recommended values for a printer-workflow environment?

This probably accounts for why *some* people think that my
web-gallery photos are too dark.

--
Kulvinder Singh Matharu

Website : www.MetalVortex.com
Contact : www.MetalVortex.com/contact

Blog : www.MetalVortex.com/blog
Experimental : www.NinjaTrek.com

Brain! Brain! What is brain?!

If you are using an LCD panel you probably should not be adjusting the
brightness or contrast.
For the common type of non-LED LCD panel you should leave brightness and
contrast settings at the factory default setting.
Calibrate your monitor according to your device instructions, including
adjusting RGB if necessary.
This should yield good color matches but brightness and contrast in the
final print may not be what they should be.
As you realize the monitor is so bright that your prints look dim. It seems
that common calibration devices, like the Spyder, cannot take that
brightness fully into account when calibrating the monitor and creating a
profile.
Sometimes your eyese fool you because you look at a less reflective print
after staring at a bright monitor: take them to an area with normal light
and wait a bit before examining them.
One workaround for this problem is to set up a test strip print with set
adjustments to brightness and contrast until you find a combination that
yields prints that are a reasonable facsimile of what you want. Those
setting should work for a majority of images that you print but some fine
tuning may be needed.
I rarely had these problems with even a mid-level CRT.

Kulvinder Singh Matharu wrote:
I've just been calibrating my new printer but during the process I
found recommendations that monitor luminance level should be between
90 cd/m2 and 100 cd/m2.

Was there also a remark, in which conditions this recommondation is
true? Because the optimum brightness for a monitor is dependent on the
brightness of the room you are working in.
So 100cd/m^2 might be ok for a relatively dark room, but for sure not
for a room with daylight in it!


I checked my (calibrated) monitor and it was something like 190
cd/m2. So I've now adjusted my monitor to 100 cd/m2, gamma 2.2 and
colour temp of 6500K.

most monitors are set much brighter than they actually should be. this
is ok for surfing and text work.
If you hold a printed image beside you monitor, it should look the same
(that's the whole point in calibration). If it does, than the settings
are right, otherwise they are not.


Everything looks gray and dim! So are these luminance levels really
the recommended values for a printer-workflow environment?

Try it by comparing.

This probably accounts for why *some* people think that my
web-gallery photos are too dark.

maybe...

Marco

--
Dimage A2, Agfa isolette
http://flickr.com/photos/kruemi
http://profile.imageshack.us/user/kruemi/images

On Mar 2, 3:30 am, Kulvinder Singh Matharu real-address-
wrote:
This probably accounts for why *some* people think that my
web-gallery photos are too dark.
--
Kulvinder Singh Matharu

Website :www.MetalVortex.com

You have quite a collection there, Kulvinder, but they look a little
dark to me.. (O:

In other words, yes, maybe.. But then again your style might be low-
key, so who are we to judge. Look at the multitudes of galleries at
recognised sites like photo.net and get a feel for what is right, then
balance that against your calibrater's recommendations.

What sort of monitor, and which calibration system are you using?

On Mon, 3 Mar 2008 00:37:53 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

[snip]
What sort of monitor, and which calibration system are you using?

Well, my eyes have now got used to the lower luminance...in fact,
I've now gone down to 90 cd/m2. It makes all the difference for
monitor/printer matching. So I'm now happy :-)

I guess the one problem that I now have is that an increasingly
number of people are getting LCD monitors at +200 cd/m2 and so
they're going to see insanely bright images on the web. It's going to
be difficult to persuade these people to lower their luminance levels
to 90 cd/m2!

I've got a home-built Vista Ultimate 32-bit Intel dual-core 3GHz PC
with 4GB RAM. Running Photoshop CS3, and Qimage software for
printing. Using 32-bit as I'm waiting for the 64-bit drivers to
mature before switching over for access to 4GB RAM. May swap
dual-core for quad-core and overclock to near 4GHz too.

It's a dual-monitor configuration consisting of 2 x 24" widescreen
BenQ FP241W LCD monitors. Using a ColorVision Spyder (which I've had
for years) but I'm going to replace that Spyder with a newer version
at some point.

Printer is an Epson Stylus Pro 3800 printer (for A2+ prints). Using
mostly Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk paper and Harmon Gloss FB AI
paper. I think that I prefer the Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre
Silk...just done some A2 prints on that paper and they were superb!
Still need to experiment more with matt papers though!

--
Kulvinder Singh Matharu

Website : www.MetalVortex.com
Contact : www.MetalVortex.com/contact

Blog : www.MetalVortex.com/blog
Experimental : www.NinjaTrek.com

Brain! Brain! What is brain?!

[A complimentary Cc of this posting was sent to
Kulvinder Singh Matharu
], who wrote in article :
Well, my eyes have now got used to the lower luminance...in fact,
I've now gone down to 90 cd/m2. It makes all the difference for
monitor/printer matching. So I'm now happy :-)

Just for reference, could you please spot meter the white
(RGB=255/255/255) area on your display at 100ISO?

Thanks,
Ilya

Ilya Zakharevich wrote:
[A complimentary Cc of this posting was sent to
Kulvinder Singh Matharu
], who wrote in article :
Well, my eyes have now got used to the lower luminance...in fact,
I've now gone down to 90 cd/m2. It makes all the difference for
monitor/printer matching. So I'm now happy :-)

Just for reference, could you please spot meter the white
(RGB=255/255/255) area on your display at 100ISO?

IZ-

Could you explain a bit how one does this, and what expected results
might be?

--
John McWilliams

Kulvinder Singh Matharu wrote:
On Mon, 3 Mar 2008 00:37:53 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

[snip]
What sort of monitor, and which calibration system are you using?

Well, my eyes have now got used to the lower luminance...in fact,
I've now gone down to 90 cd/m2. It makes all the difference for
monitor/printer matching. So I'm now happy :-)

I guess the one problem that I now have is that an increasingly
number of people are getting LCD monitors at +200 cd/m2 and so
they're going to see insanely bright images on the web. It's going to
be difficult to persuade these people to lower their luminance levels
to 90 cd/m2!

I've got a home-built Vista Ultimate 32-bit Intel dual-core 3GHz PC
with 4GB RAM. Running Photoshop CS3, and Qimage software for
printing. Using 32-bit as I'm waiting for the 64-bit drivers to
mature before switching over for access to 4GB RAM. May swap
dual-core for quad-core and overclock to near 4GHz too.

It's a dual-monitor configuration consisting of 2 x 24" widescreen
BenQ FP241W LCD monitors. Using a ColorVision Spyder (which I've had
for years) but I'm going to replace that Spyder with a newer version
at some point.

Printer is an Epson Stylus Pro 3800 printer (for A2+ prints). Using
mostly Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre Silk paper and Harmon Gloss FB AI
paper. I think that I prefer the Ilford Galerie Gold Fibre
Silk...just done some A2 prints on that paper and they were superb!
Still need to experiment more with matt papers though!

Are you printing from PS? I generally print from LR and it's difficult
to use third party profiles, on a Mac, at least. I got the 3800 for
Christmas, and now I am confident that when a print turns out poorly....
it's my fault. Although I sometimes can blame the gremlins that get into
the print driver settings.

Thanks for revisiting this subject! (The luminance one, that is) I hope
we don't eventually have to process images separately for print vs. web,
though some already do that (not just size and color space, but luminance)

--
John McWilliams

[A complimentary Cc of this posting was sent to
John McWilliams
], who wrote in article :
Well, my eyes have now got used to the lower luminance...in fact,
I've now gone down to 90 cd/m2. It makes all the difference for
monitor/printer matching. So I'm now happy :-)

Just for reference, could you please spot meter the white
(RGB=255/255/255) area on your display at 100ISO?

Could you explain a bit how one does this, and what expected results
might be?

Show a white image on your monitor. Switch your (d)SLR to spot
metering, point it to the white area, and read the exposure it is
suggesting. (Mine reads 1/80sec f/8 with ISO100.)

Given your number, we poor candelameter-less people may start to
appreciate what you are talking about (for a photographer, what I did
is a cheap brightness-meter with precision about 20%; but it is not
calibrated without your report).

Thanks,
Ilya

P.S. If you do not know how to create a white image, I put one on
ilyaz.org/photo/tmp/wh400.png
(created with `convert -size 400x400 xc:#FFF wh.png').

In article , Ilya Zakharevich says...

Show a white image on your monitor. Switch your (d)SLR to spot
metering, point it to the white area, and read the exposure it is
suggesting. (Mine reads 1/80sec f/8 with ISO100.)

Given your number, we poor candelameter-less people may start to
appreciate what you are talking about (for a photographer, what I did
is a cheap brightness-meter with precision about 20%; but it is not
calibrated without your report).

But the measurement obviously depends on the distance between the camera
and the screen. You have to specify the distance.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
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