# Can a preset be used to match the output of a profiled image to a monitor?



## photoman222 (Jun 28, 2012)

First, let me admit that this is my initial question on this forum and I am a beginner in Lightroom 4.0. I use a Dell U2410 monitor that has been calibrated as well as possible, and a print profile for the printers used at Costco.

I went through my first test of an image that had many Lightroom adjustments, using the "soft proofing" function; which was then printed on the appropriate Costco printer. The result came out perfectly except for one notable exception. The printed image was noticeably darker than expected. If I had to guess, I would estimate approximately 1 1/2 stops underexposed.

Rather than go through most of my remaining lifetime trying to profile everything perfectly, I had an idea that I wanted to run by some experienced people, before doing it to see if it even makes sense. My thought was to take the *resulting printed image*, position it next to the edited Lightroom image on my *monitor*, and make whatever adjustments in Lightroom (with either exposure, brightness/lightness, etc.) so that the image on my monitor (with the new preset applied) matches the resulting printed image from Costco.

My thinking is that by making whatever adjustments I need to make in Lightroom, could be used to create a preset, that could be used as the starting point for all future images that I plan to print on the same printers at Costco. Conceptually, it's like a "soft proof preset" that removes the difference between the viewed image in Lightroom (with the soft proof option checked) and how the final profiled image will  truly look, after being printed at Costco.

What I would like to find out from the forum is:


Is this a valid concept (in other words, will it create the end result I am hoping to achieve)? 
Having never created a preset, what are your suggestions for doing so for this purpose? 
Do you have any recommendations for either workflow steps (assuming the concept is valid), or what I need to keep in mind about Lightroom to accomplish what I'm trying to accomplish?
If this approach will not work, what suggestions do you have other than arbitrarily increasing the exposure one and one half stops, before having it printed? 

Thanks for your help and wisdom.


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 28, 2012)

Hi Photoman, welcome to the forum!

How have you calibrated your monitor?  And did it involve turning down the brightness?  That's almost always the first port of call, and I'd address that long before trying to make presets.  That's the whole point of profiles, that you shouldn't need to do that.


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## photoman222 (Jun 28, 2012)

Victoria,

I guess that's why you are the queen and I am a lowly serf. I am lowering the brightness as we speak. Great idea. I will have to try another test print at my friendly neighborhood Costco.

Thanks


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## Tony Jay (Jun 29, 2012)

Victoria has hit the nail on the head.
Monitor brightness may need to be reduced to as low as 90-100 cd/m[SUP]2[/SUP].
Exactly how low depends on the brightness of the surroundings in which this workstation is located.

Regards

Tony Jay


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## Brad Snyder (Jun 29, 2012)

...and FYI, on my monitors, 90-100 cd/m^2 is a surprisingly low setting, well below 50%;  19% on one, and 39% on the other.  (I use ColorMunki, and the advanced calibration includes a routine for brightness, as well as ambient light determination.)


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## photoman222 (Jun 29, 2012)

Brad Snyder said:


> ...and FYI, on my monitors, 90-100 cd/m^2 is a surprisingly low setting, well below 50%;  19% on one, and 39% on the other.  (I use ColorMunki, and the advanced calibration includes a routine for brightness, as well as ambient light determination.)



Great to know! It will be interesting what the next test brings because I was concerned that the brightness setting was too low (went from 61% to 45%), but that obviously may still be too high. Where/how do I determine what my cd/m^2 setting is?


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## Brad Snyder (Jun 29, 2012)

You need a hardware tool to that. There are a handful of respected manufacturers. As I said, I use Xrite's ColorMunki, which I'm reasonably happy with. 
Common device names are Spyder, and EyeOne.

There's been a lot of discussion here on various pros and cons.  Here's a 'Let me Google that for you' link that searches just this forum. (Ignore Google's snarky comments about your competence and ability 

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site:lightroomqueen.com/community+hardware+calibration 

Work your way thru that list for some background info......


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## Victoria Bampton (Jun 29, 2012)

photoman222 said:


> Great to know! It will be interesting what the next test brings because I was concerned that the brightness setting was too low (went from 61% to 45%), but that obviously may still be too high. Where/how do I determine what my cd/m^2 setting is?



As a ballpark in the meantime, hold the underexposed print up next to the monitor and adjust to match, and then recalibrate.


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## AKfreak (Sep 25, 2012)

I am dealing with this same issue, but instead of Costco it's WHCC. Here is my situation and any feedback would be most helpful. I use a couple of tools to calibrate my monitor. I have the ColorMunki Photo, as well as the i1Pro which has more advanced features with respect to luminance setting of the monitor but this seems to make things worse.  My test prints from WHCC come back way too dark. I was also told my monitor is to bright. 

I use the i1 to measure lux of the room (ambient) then it uses that info to set the white point and some other stuff like flare (but I don't use the flare option). Then I place the device on the screen and it automatically sets brightness and contrast as well as RGB to an exact measured value (I have done it in manual as well same result). 

Then it goes in and measures color chips and builds a profile. After calibration the screen is very very bright.  In order to match the print, I set the brightness to 9 of 100 and Contrast to 23 of 100. I want to say this also, when I profile the monitor, and profile the printer, my prints match 100% with no changes to any of the monitor controls.

Also when I view this Reference print http://homepage.mac.com/billatkinson/FileSharing2.html I see the information perfectly. When I adjust the brightness to match Whcc I cant see all of the white chips, I can barely see 2 in the black 252,253 are not view able. The image is dark. I just darkened down everything to match the Whcc prints then re calibrated, How to I find a happy place where my Whcc prints match and my web images aren't too bight?


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## AKfreak (Sep 26, 2012)

Hmmm 3 posts here not a single response.... Is this thing on, knock, knock, knock!


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## Tony Jay (Sep 26, 2012)

You ought to be able to tell the device what luminance you want - the device cannot determine this by itself.
In your case it did and it is too bright.
I don't use your particular brands so cannot give you a step-by-step algorithm but I can tell you that you ought to be able to tell the device how bright you want your monitor.
By the way this a bit of a trial-and-error thing that depends a lot on the ambient light where you do your image editing.
As I indicated in an earlier post for me luminance is set 90-100 cd/m2.

BTW: This is a very good natured forum - lets keep it that way.

Regards

Tony Jay


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 26, 2012)

Hi AKfreak, welcome to the forum!  Sorry we missed your earlier posts!

Personally I tend to skip the ambient light measurement, and just head for 100-120cd/m2 as an average.  You may need to select a slightly different brightness for your lab but it should be in the right ballpark.  And always calibrate AFTER you've done the brightness adjustment, not the other way round.


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## RikkFlohr (Sep 26, 2012)

Poor man's brightness calibration:

Open your word processor to a blank page
Take a piece of matte paper and place it in your normal evaluative lighting position.
Take your camera and put it in manual mode.
Meter on the paper and adjust until the exposure hits the center of the dial. 
Meter on the empty word processor document and adjust monitor brightness  (usually downward) until the meter matches your paper.
Perform a test print

This is the procedure my students (who cannot afford calibration) use.


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## AKfreak (Sep 27, 2012)

Tony Jay said:


> You ought to be able to tell the device what luminance you want - the device cannot determine this by itself.
> In your case it did and it is too bright.
> I don't use your particular brands so cannot give you a step-by-step algorithm but I can tell you that you ought to be able to tell the device how bright you want your monitor.
> By the way this a bit of a trial-and-error thing that depends a lot on the ambient light where you do your image editing.
> ...



Tony my knock , knock, knock was my way of being light hearted, Doh! Thanks for the feedback. 

@ Victoria yes, setting the brightness is the only way I have come close to matching the test prints to my monitor.

@Rikk  That is a clever workaround, and I will try this. What frustrates me is I have a few fairly expensive devices. The first is the i1 pro using the new i1 profiler software. The device measures the ambient, the device sets the white point from it. Then the device automatically sets Brightness and Contrast as well as RGB to a optimum value (supposedly). When it does this, it takes over the graphics card and reads the screen optically and makes adjustment. Btw, I set the monitor to factory default prior to any calibration effort.  When the device is done setting the Brightness and Contrast the monitor is so bright it hurts to look at it. 

How can it be so far off. I thought my i1 Pro might be off, but the ColorMunki Photo does the same exact thing. It seems to me that Brightness and contrast are just as important as color accuracy. Why does no one sell a Brightness calibration Specific device. I do not like guess work. I want to insure my prints are 100% accurate the frost time and every time. I do not like a WYSIWYG solution to brightness and contrast, is how all pro houses work? Whcc will tell you to match the prints visually. 

I think the reason why most don't see this problem is most labs use automated solutions to insure prints are not too dark. A custom lab like Whcc does not correct anything. What you send in is what you get back. 

Thanks for all the advice. I will continue my quest to now all I can about profiling a monitor. AKf


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## AKfreak (Sep 27, 2012)

Thanks for the info.


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 27, 2012)

Just try turning off the ambient - select the 'advanced' mode and it should show you a tool that helps you set the brightness numerically (it'll ask you to place the puck on screen, and adjust the brightness until it says enough).  Aim for about 120cd/m2 as a starting point, white point native or 6500 are generally a good bet.  And close the curtains and turn the lights off in the room, perhaps with a small light on out of the line of sight - your eyes will adjust.  And see how that looks.


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## AKfreak (Sep 28, 2012)

@ Victoria, Every effort to let the computer take control over the brightness, either automatically or manual control as you describe results in a monitor that is way too bright compared to my WHCC test prints. The only way I have been able to come close is to adjust the monitor contrast and brightness to match the print (turn them way way down) then run a calibration with a fixed luminance value of 90cd/m2. I haven't got my second round of test prints back from WHCC/ The only thing that worry's me is my prints might match WHCC output but what about all of the other images I want to upload to the Net or print with other labs.

This is why I responded to the topic of a Preset. It would be nice to have a Monitor profile and brightness/contrast preset that allows me to use these setting for WHCC then revert to my normal settings for the rest of my work. 

The way profiling control brightness is a mystery to me. I have always assumed it was a measured and specific value that allows everyone to have the same output, but it seems that isn't the case, It is more about consistent color. Brightness is a WYSIWYG system, much like Gamma was back in the earliest days of printing with Photoshop


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## Victoria Bampton (Sep 28, 2012)

How bright is the rest of the room?  That will affect the way your eyes perceive the colour and brightness.  FWIW, mine were calibrated to 100cd/m2 for a long time (to get closer to a specific lab, so not far off your 90) and are usually 110 now, and they match other labs pretty well.

As you say, the main aim is consistency - your eyes will automatically compensate with a little time.


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## Tony Jay (Sep 28, 2012)

A think a little more background is in order here.

This all about perception - yours.

Think about it in this way.
Any light source (your monitor is a light source) will appear brighter in a darker environment.
As soon as ambient light is increased the light source (assuming no change in the light source) will not appear as bright. 

This all perception - eye of the beholder.
So if you are editing an image in a dark environment you will adjust tones to suit your perception.
If you edit the same image in a brighter environment (with no change to your monitor) to suit your perception of how the image should look it will be lighter than the same image edited in a dark environment.

This is why professional photographers edit their images in an environment that is somewhat dark, but much more importantly CONSISTENT. This allows them to calibrate what they see on the screen and their prints. They go through a round-tripping process of image editing and printing until they can exactly predict how an image will look based on its on-screen appearance.

Your situation is only a little different apart from the fact you are having to wait for your prints so the next round of adjusting monitor luminence and then reprinting after adjusting is delayed.

There is no magic bullet, one size fits all, monitor luminence, to give the ultimate print since both ambient light in your editing environment AND your eyes are different from everyone elses.

Getting it right is a process - and this is what you are going through right now.

Regards

Tony Jay


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## GBM (Sep 30, 2012)

At least we are doing this here on Earth.... these guys are having to do it on Mars !!

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl...BoUJ_FKKXi2AWe7YHICQ&ved=0CDMQ9QEwBg&dur=8049

AND here is an example of how much difference the things around what you are looking at make... your brain and eyes compensate for so many things which do not show up until you have a really objective way to measure them... it is really amazing... 

http://listverse.com/2007/09/16/20-amazing-optical-illusions/

Numbers 18 and 19 are both  amazing examples some of the  concepts mentioned in this thread....


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