Computer Monitors, Calibration, and Editing

I came across this article on Computer Monitors and thought I would add my thoughts on this (I might have already done this in another post).

Unless you're a commercial or advertising photographer, printing from home, or perhaps entering a competition, there should be no reason to choose any special monitor nor calibrate it, assuming it gives you at least a somewhat realistic looking image.  If you're sharing your photos on the internet, there is no way to know what kind of monitors others will be using, so even if everything is perfect on your end (because you've spent many hundreds or thousands of dollars on equipment), it probably won't look the same on their end.

What if your color balance is off?  Maybe you shoot jpg images and have the wrong color balance set, or you shoot RAW.  If you use Lightroom, there is a color balance eyedropper - just click on an 18% gray area in the photo (or at least close to that), and it will adjust your color balance.  If there is no 18% gray area, you may need to bring an 18% gray card with you and photograph it under the same lighting conditions as the photos you are shooting.  What I am doing is shooting an 18% gray card, using the eyedropper to correct the color balance, then making a preset and naming them something like "Noon Sun," or "Midday Shade," etc.  Then when my photo is shot under those conditions, I just click on the preset and the colors will be very close to where they should be.  That has worked for me for posting to the internet.  For example, here is the same photo - as might have been shot with wrong white balance, used eyedropper on gray concrete, and used noon preset in Lightroom:

Much too green

 Used the eyedropper on the concrete just to the right of her head - because the light in the photo actually lit the concrete, and it's close to the 18% gray, this is probably the closest to being correct, although can use a little more work.

From Noon Day Sun Preset (note:  it wasn't noon, so color is probably a little off)

Once you get close to the correct color, you can play with the sliders in Lightroom (or other editing software) for an almost infinite number of variations.

How about prints?  Even the cheap labs have given me excellent results.  But if you're having a 40x60 print made, you can have the lab do a test first on a small section or small size of the image to check and see if their color settings are what you want.

If you are shooting for a client, remember that colors are subjective.  One person may like cool colors, another maybe warmer colors - although probably not the green one above.  Maybe they want actual skin tones, maybe they want to look suntanned.  Maybe they want vibrant colors, maybe subdued or pastel colors, or even black and white.  But if they want colors identical to the original scene for an ad, with in-house printing, then they would spend the extra money for monitors and calibration, not to mention the best cameras and lenses.

The moral of the story - you don't always need the absolute best to get the end result that you (or your client) want.