Is it hopeless to have pictures look good on a PC?

I have a whole batch of scanned Portra 400VC that I'm proofing and adjusting now for web display (using PS on a Mac), and it seems that I'll never manage to make it look good on a PC screen. Whatever correction I apply to it, it will forever look shitty. (of course I'm not terribly proficient with PS, but I can make the difference on a screen between a good and a bad picture)

I've been using it for flash photography, so of course I have to manage to get decent highlight details without dropping the shadows too much. And from what I've read so far, PC monitors are inherently more contrasty, but there should be a way to manage?

I've also been wondering whether using slide film would help alleviate the problem. I chose neg film because I thought it would help me keep shadow details, but the grain is embarassing unless I downsize the image.

Michel,
Macs are generally better at rendering images accurately right out of the box. To ensure a consistent, accurate appearance across platforms both need to have their monitors calibrated. Otherwise you are correcting your image for your monitor (and any other monitors that are equally or similarly out of calibration).

It isn't hopeless, but somewhat more difficult, to get an image to look as good (or correct) on a PC as it does on a MAC.

Other things to consider are the colour profile used and what your intentions are with regard to final disposition. If the image is intended for screen viewing or printing and if printing, which printer and depending upon printer what inks and paper.

It can get complicated. In my experience a properly calibrated monitor will help you produce an image that will generally look pretty good on most any platform and screen.

John, nice to see you chime in on that one. What I'm doing right now is essentially compressing the midtones a bit and augmenting local contrast in highlights and shadow to avoid blacked out/whiteout areas. It's looking not too disgusting on my mac, and nearer correct on the PC. I think that's as far as I'll care to correct this time, but I know this is an issue that will come back at me in the future.

What's most important in terms of curve is that it is upswept in the highlights, just like that of Tri-X 320. So maybe there's another Kodak color film that could help me here?

Almost all the pictures I take for work are made to be scanned and put online. A small minority may end up in print, but that is getting far less likely given that we're moving all the brochure and annual report stuff on PDF. So in the end I could care only about web display.

Also, when I'm covering events, it's almost 99% flash pictures, and the faces are what count the most, so blown highlights are a big no-no. I picked 400VC to have some saturation in the colours and for the Kodak palette, but now I'm wondering where should I start to make things look better. Given that I lose about two stops with the diffuser, 400 ISO is a minimum for me, and I don't really want to invest in a potato masher flash because that's a bit too in your face for conferences and candids at the coffee break.

The variables I can see are: film, scanner, profiling, corrections. I'm generally good with exposure, and my flash's auto setting is fine and consistent when I use the diffuser. My local lab scans on Fuji Frontier AFAIK.

g'day mhv
seems to me you have several issues to address -
how to correctly expose for flash
learning how to scan
learning how to set levels in PS or similar
calibration through all stages

showing your work on a PC is not your problem

Can you email me a scan prior to your adjustments and maybe one that you've adjusted?

Scan emailed to John.

Ray Heath said:

g'day mhv
seems to me you have several issues to address -
how to correctly expose for flash
learning how to scan
learning how to set levels in PS or similar
calibration through all stages

showing your work on a PC is not your problem

Click to expand...

Hi Ray,

The scan part I can't control: I don't own a film scanner, so I must rely on the lab. The flash part I think I got about right. I have occasional mishaps, but when I'm within distances, I have correct light. I think the PS/calibration part and the film choice part are what I'm after.

One way to insure a more consistent display of images across platforms is to use the .png (portable network graphics) file format. Macs and PCs have different display gammas (1.8 on Mac and 2.2 on PC IIRC), so an image targeted at one will look suboptimal on the other unless the gamma is considered. The .png format has the capacity to include image gamma information that can be used by decent software on the viewing platform to make the necessary corrections when displayed.

See: http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/ for more info.

Lee

Yep, as mentioned, the gamma issue will come out. If you correct on a Mac then you'll find they look too washed out on a PC. If you correct on a PC then you'll find that they look too dark on a Mac.

A lot of Mac programs (even browsers) support embedded profiles so if you prepare it on a PC using a good colour profile then the Mac should adjust for the gamma so that it looks good on that screen (assuming you have a good profile for the Mac's monitor too).

I'm not sure about the PC side of things, I work on a Mac for my editing and my last step is to adjust the gamma to a PC's gamma, I find that works well because my Mac will adjust back to what looks good for it and it will look okay or better (depending on the monitor and profiling) on a PC.

Lee, thanks for the PNG info, I think it's something I'll look into. Frugal, what tools do you use to control gamma? I usually save my pictures with an embedded sRGB profile.

sRGB is very limited and IMHO good for next to nothing outside of a powerpoint presentation.
Adobe RGB or Apple RGB are better all purpose profiles.

As an aside. As soon as the storm settles on APUG I'll return your scans...

Thanks John, it seems it will take a few days for that collective bowel movement to end...

I used sRGB because I thought that using a more limited colorspace would increase my chances of cross-platform stability, does that make sense?

Common wisdom was that sRGB was good for screen display and your thoughts seem to be logical. My experience is that sRGB losses the highlights too quickly and creates an overly contrasty image.

A profile with a wider gamut may create an image with more information than can be viewable on some monitors, but the overall image is almost always nicer.

Two caveats: 1) I seldom if ever view images on lower end monitors or produce work that takes into consideration lower end monitors; 2) Most of my knowledge is based upon doing/testing and not as much about going by spec's.

yes the objects of consternation on APUG is slowly being evacuated. I spent a day fielding PM's, reported posts and other nonsense. I also spent a good deal of time just being a voyeur. As it is my work ground to a halt and it'll be bit before I can do much else.

WRT your images. My first impressions are that your corrections are good and that the biggest issue is on camera flash. I do have a suggestion regarding the adjustment of local contrast and I'l send this back or post it here. Its tough to battle the headlight like glare and lighting created by these flashes.

Good points John, I'll give them a go. Regarding flash, I have some qualms about my results using natural light, so I'm wondering if my problem is EI, actual metering technique, or scanning. Again, when I compare pics taken with slide film, the latter seemed to have colors more to my taste when scanned.