[BigMackCam]

Hope you do not mind a comment and a quick tip or two bearing in mind no single correct answer and if it works for you fine but...

Again, absolutely not. I can use all the help I can get, especially from an experienced chap such as yourself!

160 cd/m is much higher than I would expect to go even editing in fairly bright daylight ambient lighting.

For most of the time I'm at my PC, I'm at the breakfast bar in my kitchen with fairly bright daylight-colour LED lighting overhead, or daylight streaming in the windows (with little glare or reflection due to the position of my PC). In that environment, looking at other people's photos online and my own, things look good to me. I don't mean to suggest I'm using the appropriate luminance setting for calibration... Only that my screen, whilst relatively bright, reproduces photos that others share online with an intensity that I find pleasing, and when I edit my own photos and view them in this environment, they're broadly in line with everyone elses. I'm happy to consider and accept that my viewing preference is "too bright", and adjust accordingly. I will certainly try 110cd/m2 per your own profiling and see how I get on with it.

Have a look at a site I always send people to
White saturation - Lagom LCD test
How do the whites look you should see separation up to 254 if not you are clipping
Black level - Lagom LCD test
How do the blacks appear next to complete black should only just be distinguishable - if all appear just dark grey then you are pushing too high

Thanks for these links, Tony. I haven't had a chance to do anything on the new machine and monitor today, due to other commitments... but I should get plenty of time tomorrow to experiment. I'll use these links to reference the white saturation and black level.

Why D50 for printing and why gamma 1.8, has someone recommended this?

Do you like working in D50 for some reason?

Does D50 match your paper colour and contrast when viewing your print near to screen just take a sheet of printing paper to compare - if screen looks too yellow or too blue compared to printer paper and/or too light then D50 may not be a good match.

I'm utterly, utterly ignorant in terms of profiling for print, Tony (and only slightly less ignorant on ideal display profiling too! ).

Most of the time, I view my photos on my laptop, external monitor, tablet and just occasionally on one of my (unprofiled, but manually adjusted to a reasonable degree) TVs. For my profiled device displays, I've been using D65 with a gamma of 2.2, since that seems to be recommended for general office and web use (and I therefore assume if there is any level of standardisation within the rest of the viewing world at large, it's likely to be this or close to it). As for luminance, I'll try 110cd/m2 and reference to those links you've provided.

I don't print at home (indeed, I don't have suitable equipment - only low-end domestic four-colour inkjet). I have just a handful of my own photos third-party-printed and hung on my walls at home. The colour match between those and what I saw in Lightroom - the software I was using at the time (I'm a Darktable convert these days ) - wasn't bad, but nor was it especially accurate. I can only guess that the printing company (a large consumer-oriented printing firm, aimed at the general public rather than photography enthusiasts and professionals) did some tweaking on exposure at the very least (and possibly more), as they look decent enough to my eyes.

My future printing is also most likely to be via third parties, though I may start to use more photography-oriented printers. My choices on my printing oriented editing profile(s) were based on things I've read from various online articles. D50 seems to be very popular for print work, and I'd read about this in several articles (I forget which ones, but may be able to find them again). Same with the gamma, but less so.

I guess what I'm saying, in a very round-about way (though hopefully it's becoming obvious to you), is that I simply haven't a clue when it comes to profile calibration for print-destined work, and only a little more for display work

If you are happy fine if not you may want to keep D65 and invest in a viewing light of around 5000k or the excellent Solux bulbs 4700k. Just a quick check to see why a particular workflow

I like the idea of this, but given the rarity of my printing, it may be overkill. Currently, I feel like I'd prefer to have one (or two) general profiles that will get me "in the ball park" for print-destined images.

I wonder, do professional printing companies advise on the best profile calibration settings for editing that will result in a good match for their printing and paper choices? This is probably an unnecessary level of detail for my personal situation, but I can see that it would be useful.

Thanks again for your help and patience, Tony

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 12-12-2018 at 01:16 PM.

[TonyW]

....
Thanks for these links, Tony. I haven't had a chance to do anything on the new machine and monitor today, due to other commitments... but I should get plenty of time tomorrow to experiment. I'll use these links to reference the white saturation and black level.

The links are really key to show how a monitor should ideally appear (read the comments that go with the various tests)

Have attached a rough guide to how images too bright or too dark luminence settings may appear using the Lagom page as an example. Too bright and you will start to loose highlight seperation and may open shadows too much. Too dark and you will loose seperation in shadow area (that may appear in print) and your highlights may be falsely compressed. Ideat is just the appearance of the slightest tonality for the lowest black square similarly with highlights you really want to see the lightest tonality at 254 checkerboard. Not all monitors are capable at both ends of the scale. If at whatever level you have calibrated to you cannot see close to the ideal image then it could suggest less than optimal viewing conditions (TBH that is likely to be the case anyway unless you have a dedicated area - I make compromises on this like many). BTW Gamma and Contrast will also have a bearing on what you can see

Bottom line is that you could be far enough out to affect print quality (too dark, too light) without noticing anything bad. Most monitors I have seen in others environments are generally too bright

.... I've been using D65 with a gamma of 2.2, since that seems to be recommended for general office and web use (and I therefore assume if there is any level of standardisation within the rest of the viewing world at large, it's likely to be this or close to it). As for luminance, I'll try 110cd/m2 and reference to those links you've provided.

D65 and 2.2 gamma is a strong recommendation from many and I am no exception. In the matter of monitor luminance there is no right single answer and no one can give you a meaningful figure without experiencing and measuring your viewing environment (which I suspect changes on a daily/hourly/seasonal basis). A general suggestion is aim somewhere between 80 - 120 cd/m2 (but go higher if warranted by testing). Some monitors have trouble at the low end 80cd/m2 with black seperation, so you will just have to see. Where this really becomes crucial is if you desire to match your prints to screen and you are printing your own.

I don't print at home (indeed, I don't have suitable equipment - only low-end domestic four-colour inkjet). I have just a handful of my own photos third-party-printed and hung on my walls at home. The colour match between those and what I saw in Lightroom - the software I was using at the time (I'm a Darktable convert these days ) - wasn't bad, but nor was it especially accurate. I can only guess that the printing company (a large consumer-oriented printing firm, aimed at the general public rather than photography enthusiasts and professionals) did some tweaking on exposure at the very least (and possibly more), as they look decent enough to my eyes
My future printing is also most likely to be via third parties, though I may start to use more photography-oriented printers. My choices on my printing oriented editing profile(s) were based on things I've read from various online articles. D50 seems to be very popular for print work, and I'd read about this in several articles (I forget which ones, but may be able to find them again). Same with the gamma, but less so.

. As you do not intend to print much if anything at home then the issue of white point is less of a problem. D50 is not really recommended by most for a number of good reasons. D65 is likely to be closer to many papers you will encounter and will certainly be a more pleasant working space. Unless you are working with old CRT monitors or need to comply with certain ISO standards then I would suggest forget D50.
Attached is a comparison between D65 and D50 environments (accurate enough for this purpose). Below the monitor are two papers one Canon glossy and the other Marrut Satin. Marrut is the target and is set for soft proofing. Which most closely matches paper white? If you cannot match paper white how can you expect to print to match screen (more complex than this really but...)

I wonder, do professional printing companies advise on the best profile calibration settings for editing that will result in a good match for their printing and paper choices? This is probably an unnecessary level of detail for my personal situation, but I can see that it would be useful.

Sadly I think many labs pay lip service to colour management. For instance they will tell you that you can download their paper profiles but you must send them an sRGB file - reason bexause they really do not do or understand colour management or they are too lazy to bother. Send the same image data to 12 different labs and it is likely that you will get acceptable prints back but none will actually match for density contrast or colour. This has not changed since the analogue days. Anyone with an image on a monitor of a nice holiday scene or indoor christmas shots should be able to make a pleasing looking image from some unknown source sending them an sRGB file

[BigMackCam]

The links are really key to show how a monitor should ideally appear (read the comments that go with the various tests)

Have attached a rough guide to how images too bright or too dark luminence settings may appear using the Lagom page as an example. Too bright and you will start to loose highlight seperation and may open shadows too much. Too dark and you will loose seperation in shadow area (that may appear in print) and your highlights may be falsely compressed. Ideat is just the appearance of the slightest tonality for the lowest black square similarly with highlights you really want to see the lightest tonality at 254 checkerboard. Not all monitors are capable at both ends of the scale. If at whatever level you have calibrated to you cannot see close to the ideal image then it could suggest less than optimal viewing conditions (TBH that is likely to be the case anyway unless you have a dedicated area - I make compromises on this like many). BTW Gamma and Contrast will also have a bearing on what you can see

Bottom line is that you could be far enough out to affect print quality (too dark, too light) without noticing anything bad. Most monitors I have seen in others environments are generally too bright

Thank you, Tony, this makes perfect sense

D65 and 2.2 gamma is a strong recommendation from many and I am no exception. In the matter of monitor luminance there is no right single answer and no one can give you a meaningful figure without experiencing and measuring your viewing environment (which I suspect changes on a daily/hourly/seasonal basis). A general suggestion is aim somewhere between 80 - 120 cd/m2 (but go higher if warranted by testing). Some monitors have trouble at the low end 80cd/m2 with black seperation, so you will just have to see. Where this really becomes crucial is if you desire to match your prints to screen and you are printing your own.

Again, given your own use of 110cd/m2 and your appreciation of my differing environment, this makes sense. I'll start with your 110cd/m2 level, and see how I get on. It sounds like I need to keep it much lower than I'm used to, though.

As you do not intend to print much if anything at home then the issue of white point is less of a problem. D50 is not really recommended by most for a number of good reasons. D65 is likely to be closer to many papers you will encounter and will certainly be a more pleasant working space. Unless you are working with old CRT monitors or need to comply with certain ISO standards then I would suggest forget D50.
Attached is a comparison between D65 and D50 environments (accurate enough for this purpose). Below the monitor are two papers one Canon glossy and the other Marrut Satin. Marrut is the target and is set for soft proofing. Which most closely matches paper white? If you cannot match paper white how can you expect to print to match screen (more complex than this really but...)

Great info, Tony, and thank you for the attached images which make this all-too-clear. Given your advice that many papers will be close to D65, it seems like I might be better served by sticking to this colour temperature for all of my work unless I gain experience with certain papers that buck the trend. And, given my current situation, that's unlikely.

But what about luminance and gamma for printing purposes? Would you suggest broadly-applicable target levels for these? I see from your list of profiles 5000k @ 80cd/m2 - so is this what you'd typically switch to if you were preparing an image for printing? And if so, what gamma?

Sadly I think many labs pay lip service to colour management. For instance they will tell you that you can download their paper profiles but you must send them an sRGB file - reason bexause they really do not do or understand colour management or they are too lazy to bother. Send the same image data to 12 different labs and it is likely that you will get acceptable prints back but none will actually match for density contrast or colour. This has not changed since the analogue days. Anyone with an image on a monitor of a nice holiday scene or indoor christmas shots should be able to make a pleasing looking image from some unknown source sending them an sRGB file

Tony, I can't thank you enough for all the information you've given me, and the patience you've demonstrated. I clearly have a long way to go, but I'm more educated than I was to begin with, and that's both reassuring and satisfying

[TonyW]

But what about luminance and gamma for printing purposes? Would you suggest broadly-applicable target levels for these? I see from your list of profiles 5000k @ 80cd/m2 - so is this what you'd typically switch to if you were preparing an image for printing? And if so, what gamma?

Not easy to suggest target levels for luminancea and contrast for printing - so many variables.

The best I can offer is that IF your goal is to match print to screen then you first must make sure that as well as calibration you are properly illuminating your print near your monitor.

If you see a print that is too dark, is it really printed too dark or is it the illumination falling on it? Seems obvious but if we have candlelight illuminating a painting then it can look quite dark and lacking detail; turn on a light and that same painting can spring to life and offer detail we could not see before. Before deciding too dark take your print outside, to another room or in its final resting place, how does it look know?

Often overlooked it is important that the print illuminated to a standard, 4700 K often touted (even though your monitor at D65) as good starting point. Even better if you know where a print is going to be viewed and average lighting in that area you could try duplicating the source colour and luminance (a step too far maybe reserve for exhibition?)

Then in an ideal world your white point will match your paper white and contrast range

I would ignore D50 or 5000K for now (mine for a special requirement). What you need to try and match is the brightness and contrast range of your paper.
A wild guess to provide at least some figures. Assume a paper that is close to your chosen D65 with a contrast range of say 250:1. If you set luminance to 100 cd/m2 and Black point to 0.4 cd/m2 you are at 250:1 contrast ratio. Leave Gamma to 2.2 or native

[BigMackCam]

Not easy to suggest target levels for luminancea and contrast for printing - so many variables.

The best I can offer is that IF your goal is to match print to screen then you first must make sure that as well as calibration you are properly illuminating your print near your monitor.

If you see a print that is too dark, is it really printed too dark or is it the illumination falling on it? Seems obvious but if we have candlelight illuminating a painting then it can look quite dark and lacking detail; turn on a light and that same painting can spring to life and offer detail we could not see before. Before deciding too dark take your print outside, to another room or in its final resting place, how does it look know?

Often overlooked it is important that the print illuminated to a standard, 4700 K often touted (even though your monitor at D65) as good starting point. Even better if you know where a print is going to be viewed and average lighting in that area you could try duplicating the source colour and luminance (a step too far maybe reserve for exhibition?)

Then in an ideal world your white point will match your paper white and contrast range

I would ignore D50 or 5000K for now (mine for a special requirement). What you need to try and match is the brightness and contrast range of your paper.
A wild guess to provide at least some figures. Assume a paper that is close to your chosen D65 with a contrast range of say 250:1. If you set luminance to 100 cd/m2 and Black point to 0.4 cd/m2 you are at 250:1 contrast ratio. Leave Gamma to 2.2 or native

Much appreciated, Tony. I'm starting to understand how variable the whole print world might be. Thankfully, for me, it's currently of minimal concern, but I forecast interesting times ahead if and when I might print more

Once again, I'm very grateful for your help and advice, and the time you've invested in this. Thank you

[BigMackCam]

I thought it might be worth updating this thread with my experiences with my new HP "mobile workstation" and its 15" UHD 4K display - both as a courtesy to those who were kind enough to respond to my original questions, and to inform other users who might end up in my situation...

I'm currently running Windows 10 Pro, as supplied with the machine (I will install Linux Mint 19 for dual boot later, once I've got everything working as I'd like under the supplied and warranty-supported OS).

For day-to-day use, I've chosen to create a display calibration for sRGB, D65, 110cd/m2 (thanks to @TonyW for this advice and more), which - incidentally - results in a brightness setting of 35% on this very bright display. I've quickly got used to the lower luminosity than I had previously been using on my old laptop screen (which is also now calibrated to sRGB, D65, 110cd/m2 for comparison with the new machine). I can observe all checker-board graduations of black, greys and white individually, so I'm happy with this profile.

I started off with the display resolution set to the default and native UHD 4K setting (3840 × 2160), with 250% (recommended) scaling for fonts and icons.

I've installed and briefly used the latest stable Windows versions of all the following photo / image processing software:

• digiKam
• darktable
• RawTherapee
• GIMP
• Lightroom 6

... as well as Firefox and LibreOffice for general productivity.

My experience has been as follows:

I find 4K resolution on the small 15" display to be wonderful for viewing sufficiently-high-resolution photos sized to fill the screen. They look great. I haven't watched any 4K videos yet, and I'm not sure I ever will, but I assume this would be equally rewarding.

However...

Operating system and application fonts, as well as the mouse pointer (and its outline) look rather delicate at such high resolution on a small screen. For the mouse pointer, I actually had to add pointer trails to make it easily locatable. Some applications - notably, GIMP 2.10 (somewhat expectedly) - do not make full use of Windows 10 scaling, requiring the user to select sizing preferences for in-app tools. In GIMP particularly, the maximum size offered is still too small for this display (for my liking, at least). Other applications - for example, Lightroom - scale just fine, but for some reason just don't look quite right to me. I believe this is my perception based on what I've been used to, rather than any real problem with Windows or in-application scaling - but I can't be 100% sure.

So, I tried setting the resolution to FHD (1920 x 1080), with Windows scaling for fonts and icons set to 125% (as recommended by the OS). Initially, I was doubtful about doing this, as I wondered if a square layout of 2x2 pixels vs a native single pixel might look slightly pixelated or soft... but I shouldn't have worried. Suddenly, all of my applications and photo editing activities looked great and felt immediately more familiar. There is no evident pixelation, and images look at least as sharp as on my old laptop's 17" FHD display. I guess that's what I should have expected, but - as I said - I had my doubts

So, as it currently stands, I believe most of my day-to-day web browsing, productivity, and photo editing activities are best performed at FHD resolution, but with the option to easily switch to UHD resolution to view (and check) high resolution photos at a higher pixel density closer to print, as well as for general enjoyment of viewing high resolution photos and videos. It helps that Windows 10 remembers the scaling selected for each resolution setting (that's a nice touch), and I do wonder how much of a pain this will be in Linux Mint... but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

At some point in the near future, I'll calibrate a display profile for AdobeRGB at a suitable cd/m2 level for print-related processing, but given what I've learned about 3rd party printing facilities, I might be better off simply using an sRGB profile at that same level of luminosity...

Thanks again to everyone who replied and offered input and advice