What You See May Not Be Seen By Others...

[waitingman]

I recently obtained a not-so-brand-spanking-new LCD monitor, which I'm enjoying for reasons of both space-saving & clarity. One thing I immediately noticed, though, is the difference it made in viewing photos... especially mine. Shots I thought were dark turned out not-so-much...

Which in the case of the photo below, is an issue. Given that I was going for a shadowy feel where shape was mainly suggested by contrast, Version 1...



... looked just right on my old CRT monitor, but too light/bright on the new LCD. So, I re-did the shot so that Version 2 looked right on the new monitor & re-posted it on my Flickr page...



... only to field comments that it was now too dark to see any detail in the statue at all. Problem. The new monitor isn't set to any kind of extremes vis-a-vis brightness or contrast, so ~

Which one looks better/brighter/darker/right to you... bearing in mind the idea of the lit edges of the statue providing shape & detail. Bugger the background ~ it's just another bloody cathedral... it's St Francis who matters!!

Comments

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Can barely see His Franciship in the second one.

[shadow-5tails.livejournal.com]

Ah, the wonderful world of colour management. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_management) Drove me bonkers on my old monitor - welcome to the fun!

I've lost most of Francis' facial detail in the second, though the robes are fairly well-defined. Mind you, the robes look distinctly backlit in the second shot; part of the appeal of the first is that they seem to be partially lit by the lens flare.

For comparison, I find that in the first shot, the bit of church-window detail just to the right of the statue's upper arm is just visible enough to throw off the visual lines, though the vague shadow of the window to the left of the shot is fine, and I like the additional detail in the spires.

Hmm. It's been a while since I checked the calibration of my own monitor, actually...

[waitingman.livejournal.com]

Hmm... seems I'll have to work on finding a happy medium.

Watch this space...

Optics

[(Anonymous)]

I have recently calibrated my display. The second picture is, to be succinct, crap.

It's most likely that the contrast is set too high on your new display.

How is the job search progressing?

And now for something completely different ...

Re: Optics

[waitingman.livejournal.com]

Don't sugar-coat it... tell me what you really think!!

My anonymous Python fan strikes again...

[(Anonymous)]

remind me to have a look at the monitor next time I am there.. I'm sure there is some kind of contrast thingo..