etee's Photo Blog

In my post titled Reflectors are OK, I used a couple of photos from Shutterblog to illustrate where a reflector could have opened up the shadows a bit, providing additional detail that appears to be lost to 'the dark side'.

In her post Pre-Christmas Freeform Friday, Stephanie Davis made the following comments about:

...an issue we see a lot in digital photography: monitor calibration. On my screen at work and home, there is plenty of detail in the shadows that he's not seeing on his screen. Tweak your brightness and contrast Ed and see if you can't see what I see. See?

So, I fired up Adobe Gamma (admittedly maybe not the best of the monitor calibration utilities, but far better than the nekkid eyeballs alone), and ran through the calibration process. When I finished, I brought up Steph's photos again, and as I looked at them the following ditty came to mind (to the tune of "Do You Hear What I Hear"):

I don't see what you see,
sitting in your office, way up high.
I don't see what you see,
And it almost makes me want to cry.
A child, a child,
shadows dark as night,
The left side sure could use more light.
A reflector would make it all right.

Yes, while it appears the monitor had shifted slightly, it was actually pretty well adjusted. So, which of us is right - me, or Steph? To be honest, we may both be right. There are factors other than monitor calibration which can affect how things appear on the screen (my eyesight, for example - maybe I am having trouble seeing shadow detail against a bright light, or maybe my perception of white or neutral gray on this monitor is a bit off), or it may just be that her monitors are of a higher quality than mine.

Which brings up one last point: many times when I read a photo website, I see images put up for critique, and often the remarks are fairly varied (and I don't mean from "great" to "fantastic"!) I suspect this is in part due to differences in monitors (as well as differences in people's preferences and perspectives), which may be one of the reasons why many photo contests still want you to send in prints (or transparency dupes) - this helps to provide a more consistent foundation for evaluating the image, 'leveling the playing field' so to speak.

Anyway, my monitor is re-calibrated, so I certainly gained something from this exchange - and I hope you all did, too. Go forth, take lots of photos, don't forget to make a few, as well - and have a happy holiday season.