Monitor brightness setting while post-processing

[cr_wildlife]

A simple question: What brightness setting for your monitor do you use when you are post-processing. I have always turned the brightness all the way up, as I had assumed that everyone looked at the images with the monitor turned up. However, recently I have seen people advocating for turning the brightness down when post-processing, as some people (competition judges) might not have their monitors turned up all the way, so when they look at your images, the images look underexposed. The flip side is, of course, if you process with the brightness turned down, and someone looks at the image with the brightness turned up, then your image looks overexposed! Is there a standard? What do you do? Thanks.

 

[PhilcTx]

Your monitor should be bright - but not too bright.

How to know the difference?

Really should calibrate the monitor to be certain. Something like a datacolor Spyder or other monitor calibration tool.

 

[bleirer]

I calibrate my monitor between 80 and 120 CD/M2. I make sure I have as little sunlight entering the room as my situation permits and set two presets on the monitor. If it is night I have the room lights off but a hallway or closet light on and use 80. If it is daytime I have some light leaking through the blinds. I sometimes drape a towel over the window where the sun is, and set the monitor to 120.

The general idea is that your eyes adjust relative to the background on your editing screen and the level of light in the room and the brightness of the monitor. If you keep the screen bright you will adapt by making your images too dark, unless the room itself is bright. If you have the screen dark you will adapt and make your images too bright, unless the room is dark.

 

[seh]

I calibrate my monitor between 80 and 120 CD/M2. I make sure I have as little sunlight entering the room as my situation permits and set two presets on the monitor. If it is night I have the room lights off but a hallway or closet light on and use 80. If it is daytime I have some light leaking through the blinds. I sometimes drape a towel over the window where the sun is, and set the monitor to 120.

The general idea is that your eyes adjust relative to the background on your editing screen and the level of light in the room and the brightness of the monitor. If you keep the screen bright you will adapt by making your images too dark, unless the room itself is bright. If you have the screen dark you will adapt and make your images too bright, unless the room is dark.

Good advice. Especially important if you intend to print as a bright monitor will lead to dark prints, a lesson I learned from experience.

 

[Calson]

When needing to use the monitor to pre judge an image before sending it off to the printer I use a very low brightness setting and also have the ambient light in my workspace low as well and use light bulbs that are daylight type in terms of their color temperature. I avoid surprises with the prints I get back from the lab with this approach.

 

[Russ4750]

If I'm submitting images for judging in a competition, I first calibrate my monitor using a SpyderX Pro, which ends up adjusting the brightness level to about midrange. Then, as a final check, I compare the brightness of my images to previous winners in the competition. If both sets of images look good at the same brightness level, I assume mine are OK.

 

[Anjin San]

A simple question: What brightness setting for your monitor do you use when you are post-processing. I have always turned the brightness all the way up, as I had assumed that everyone looked at the images with the monitor turned up. However, recently I have seen people advocating for turning the brightness down when post-processing, as some people (competition judges) might not have their monitors turned up all the way, so when they look at your images, the images look underexposed. The flip side is, of course, if you process with the brightness turned down, and someone looks at the image with the brightness turned up, then your image looks overexposed! Is there a standard? What do you do? Thanks.

On macOS there is a calibration thing in system preferences…not as good as the non free color calibration thing but plenty good enough for most purposes. It results in a much dimmer monitor than one might think but results in output images that are properly tuned for screen display or web use.