Yep, my monitor calibration was off. I hadn't run it in about six months, and the luminance level was down quite a bit. I do have to run gamma 2.2, so that makes a difference as well. (Gamma 2.2 is pretty much mandatory when dealing with stock houses, retouchers and other visual arts professionals.) But this was a wakeup call. I thought I could get away with six month calibrations. Not true.
In regard to your rendering, it looks quite good now. The midrange contrast is a big improvement. When I first viewed it there was no detail to speak of in the blacks, which are converted from dark blue, by the way. I'm going to go back and rework the original RAW and do a new conversion. A correct monitor should help a lot. Thanks for taking the time on this. Paul On Mar 13, 2007, at 12:38 AM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: > On Mar 12, 2007, at 5:36 PM, Paul Stenquist wrote: >> Thanks for the feedback. I'm beginning to suspect that the contrast on >> your monitor is somewhat less than mine. >> ... > > Certainly possible. Let's see if we can know for sure: > > My monitor is calibrated with the Eye One Display 2 unit and iMatch > 3.2 for 140 luminance, 1.8 gamma, and 5500K white point. An > simplistic way to check whether your calibration is netting the same > on-screen dynamic range as mine is to look at the grayscale step- > wedge on my calibration page: > > http://homepage.mac.com/ramarren/calibration/cal.html > > If your monitor is adjusted to the same overall DR as mine, you > should be able to see each step in the wedge as distince from the one > next to it. At the left edge, the white wedge should disappear into > the surrounding white area, and at the right edge the black wedge > should be indistinguishable from the black bar above it. Each step in > the wedge should be an even amount darker/lighter than the ones next > to it. (You can check this with the Digital Color Meter application > supplied in the /Applications/Utilities folder.) If that all matches, > we're looking at the same thing with regards to contrast. > >> ... But what do you mean by >> "depth." More contrast makes the blacks block up here and wipes out >> the >> skin tones. "Depth" is a vague notion as relates to a two-dimensional >> photograph. > > When I see "depth" in a photo, B&W or color, it is an illusion > created by the expression of a full tonal scale as well as the > interaction of focused zone and unfocused elements in the scene. A > photo which has no full black or white and poor separation of tones > in the grays tends to look flat and without depth, a photo which > expresses the full tonal scale and retains good tonal separation in > all the tones looks three-dimensional. It's something I strive for in > my renderings. > > I've taken a copy of your runner photo and applied a curves > adjustment edit to it, along with a spot correction on the black suit > to hold back areas where the detail should remain. It's difficult as > I am working with the 8bit JPEG file and there isn't a lot of detail > in the black areas to start with, they are somewhat underexposed. > This composite should show the difference ... I've included the > histograms of the original and the adjusted image: > > http://homepage.mac.com/godders/PS-BW-runner-adjustment.jpg > > You can see that the adjustment is quite subtle. If I had the > original RAW file to work with, there might be more that could be > done to express the Zone II-V tones better. > > The adjusted image, on the right, shows much more depth, to my eye, > and would be preferable to the color rendering in this instance. > > Godfrey > > >> On Mar 12, 2007, at 8:29 PM, Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote: >> >>> I would like the B&W rendering more if it had more depth to it. The >>> current rendering in both versions is somewhat flat, but this is not >>> as much of a problem with the color version. >>> >>> Godfrey >>> >>> >>> On Mar 12, 2007, at 2:16 PM, Paul Stenquist wrote: >>> >>>> BW: >>>> http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=5716008 >>>> >>>> Color: >>>> http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=5708787 > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
