[yeatzee]

Hey guys,
I've been really frustrated lately with the contrast and saturation of my images when viewed on the laptop.

Im constantly amazed by the awesome contrast and saturation I get from my lenses when viewing the images on the back of the camera, the problem is that when I upload them to my laptop they look very "bland" (as if someone took the contrast slider and moved it left) when comparing the picture from the camera to the laptop. Im constantly trying to PP them to look the way they do on the camera's LCD, but I quite frankly suck at PP'ing.

Am I the only one having this problem? Could it be that my laptops monitor is screwed up? Is the LCD screen designed to make the images look better than they really do? The sharpness on the camera and laptop images are the same, its just the saturation and contrast are greatly lacking.

Im using natural mode with +1 saturation, +1 hue, +2 contrast, +2 Fine sharpness.

[yeatzee]

I'll give a quick example.

This is what came out of the camera:



And this is as close as my minimum PP skills could get me to what I see on the camera LCD:



(I over did it a bit, but not to much)

[blackcloudbrew]

I'd suggest that you get some sort of screen calibration device for your laptop and calibrate it. Generally, my images always look better on my camera's LCD but I really never try to go by that. Without calibration, it's hard to say whether your laptop is on or off. However, even after calibration, it's more likely that you should go by your laptop than your camera because that's more likely the way they will display on the web or print.

There are lots of other varriables here too. If you are shooting in RAW, then you really need to focus on PP work and not the LCD as what you are seeing is the embeded jpeg in the camera. Personally, I use Lightroom with most of my images and shoot in RAW, I really don't look at the camera's LCD after I down load it. I've also found these presets from Mithrandir to be of great help.

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-processing-printing-software-darkroo...0081120-a.html

i, and likely many of us, have run into this - if shooting raw. see this thread: https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/post-processing-printing-software-darkroo...ed-images.html
remember that the image shown on your lcd is a compressed jpg thumbnail, and is also what is immediately shown in most viewers when you first look at the files, you'll be looking at the thumbnail until your viewer gets a chance to load the whole image

but it could just be the laptop lcd - my dell latitude d620 is much more dull than my desktop and work lcd's...

[Lowell Goudge]

it might also be interesting to know which software is in use, and whether it carries the camera settings (if the OP uses RAW) into the process or not.

Also note that neither the laptop (uncalibrated) or the camera back are really good for viewing photos but the one posted looks to have a WB issue.

[glanglois]

Laptop displays, at least mine, are troublesome for photo purposes.

Mine have shown large variences in color, contrast, and brightness as I change the angle at which I'm seeing the LCD. A small change in display angle makes a big change in image appearance. After a few blunders, I now do my exposure work on a fixed desktop display that uses IPS (instead of the more common TN found in consumer LCD monitors) to mainain good color and other factors across a wider viewing angle.