Tone confusion between monitor and phone.

I would like to post up images here from scans of my analog prints but I have been at a loss for a some time and It has to do with calibration of images from scanned images.

I have an old emachines flat screen monitor that I have no idea how to calibrate. I have viewed test patterns for both black and white and color and the results after calibration ends up not looking optimal. The default setting when resetting the monitor's values gives a heavily bright image that is very harsh on the eyes.

Right now I have the brightness, contrast and gamma set so that the web pages look decent/good on screen as well as other windows stuff but when it comes to viewing my scanned-in images they look on the dark side with a good amount of shadow detail being lost. However if I put those same images onto my phone they look awesome. So what I have been doing as of recent is adjusting my images to make them look on the phone, as a guide. This makes the images dark on my monitor while web pages look good. If I match my scanned prints to look good on my monitor then they look light on my phone. Yet others images on the web look fine on my phone?

My question is should I upload a darker example image or an example image that looks good on my monitor or an example image that looks good on my phone? Thanks

I hope I didn't confuse too much. I think I confused myself a little more.

After you scan the prints, then what? Are you editing the scaned files in some kind of image editor?

How are you viewing the scanned images on your monitor? That is, what software do you use to view them?

Everything looks awesome on the phone and on camera screens.
And didn’t phones have auto adjust?

1. Make sure you have the proper Windows driver for your monitor loaded and active.
2. Reset the monitor to default values in the menu on the monitor (NOT in Windows software, the monitor itself).
3. https://www.wikihow.com/Calibrate-Your-Monitor

You will be setting your monitor to the sRGB color space with 8 bit color. Don't try for anything else with that monitor.

In fact, take that monitor and fling it as far as your strength will allow and go dig up a better monitor and start again at #1. I had E Machines stuff back in the 1990's.

Sorry, it was cheap crap then and it hasn't gotten any better.

I understand not everyone has a big budget. I routinely see Dell and HP monitors in thrift stores for little money. In fact, BOTH of my desktop monitors came from Goodwill. I kept my eyes open and did some research and found a pair of very capable flat screens for no more than $10 USD each that calibrate very well to sRGB and one even to Rec. 709 video colorspace.

Do yourself a favor and get one.

EDIT: You can't trust your phone to display anything remotely "calibrated" to what you are going to see on your desktop monitor. As implied in a previous post, they are jammed full of color gamut and LUT tricks to make candy-apple images out of anything that appears on their surface. It is not a good objective device from which to judge proper color calibration...

From the initial post, I got the impression that not ALL images viewed on his monitor look bad, but only the scans.
So, calibrating/replacing the monitor may be good advice, in general - but I'm thinking the root of the problem may have more to do with the scan files, or how they are being processed.

runswithsizzers said:

After you scan the prints, then what? Are you editing the scaned files in some kind of image editor?

How are you viewing the scanned images on your monitor? That is, what software do you use to view them?

Click to expand...

I use a Canoscan LIDE 120 scanner and Paint Shop Pro version 12 for editing. The scanned images do come out a bit on the dark side after scanning. They do require a little lightening up. The image that looks good on the monitor doesn't look so good on a phone or other device.

Kino said:

1. Make sure you have the proper Windows driver for your monitor loaded and active.
2. Reset the monitor to default values in the menu on the monitor (NOT in Windows software, the monitor itself).
3. https://www.wikihow.com/Calibrate-Your-Monitor

You will be setting your monitor to the sRGB color space with 8 bit color. Don't try for anything else with that monitor.

In fact, take that monitor and fling it as far as your strength will allow and go dig up a better monitor and start again at #1. I had E Machines stuff back in the 1990's.

Sorry, it was cheap crap then and it hasn't gotten any better.

I understand not everyone has a big budget. I routinely see Dell and HP monitors in thrift stores for little money. In fact, BOTH of my desktop monitors came from Goodwill. I kept my eyes open and did some research and found a pair of very capable flat screens for no more than $10 USD each that calibrate very well to sRGB and one even to Rec. 709 video colorspace.

Do yourself a favor and get one.

EDIT: You can't trust your phone to display anything remotely "calibrated" to what you are going to see on your desktop monitor. As implied in a previous post, they are jammed full of color gamut and LUT tricks to make candy-apple images out of anything that appears on their surface. It is not a good objective device from which to judge proper color calibration...

Click to expand...

I will look for another monitor. This one was given to me by a cousin, some years ago. It is a turd.

I won't go by the phone as a guide anymore after what you two were saying.

I posted an example of what a scanned image comes out like with the Canon. On my end the shadow detail and low tones are deadened and the mid tones look shrunken but that could be on account of my monitor? On a phone the image looks better but there is some slight haze in the shadows?

What About Bob said:

I use a Canoscan LIDE 120 scanner and Paint Shop Pro version 12 for editing. The scanned images do come out a bit on the dark side after scanning.

Click to expand...

It is common for scanner files to need some editing to look right. But after editing in Paint Shop Pro, are you able to recover some shadow detail and they look OK, right?

Which goes back to my original question: If your scans look OK in your editing software, then where are you seeing these dark images?

I have never used Corel Paint Shop, but I see that program includes a feature to calibrate your monitor. At any point in the calibration did the software ask you to input a "gamma" value (like 1.8 or 2.2), or did it ask you to adjust the gamma by eye?

I also see there is an option under color management to select a monitor profile:
"In the Monitor Profile drop-list, choose the monitor profile you want to use."
Was there more than one option?

What I am getting at, if your editing software is assumming a gamma of 2.2, but your monitor is actually set to 1.8, then it might produce results that would cause your edited files that look too dark.

@runswithsizzers: The scanned image comes out a bit dark but can be livened up some through controls in Paint Shop pro 12. yet when I do it seem like the results look better but they don't look "clean", if that is the word I am trying to find. A haziness overall. Best as I can explain it.

I went through the calibration in Paint Shop a while ago but there was a problem from what I remembered with trying to get the result that was needed. One instance I couldn't get anymore out from raising a setting on the monitor, limitation.

Let me go through the steps with Paint Shop and get back here.

@runswithsizzers : Ok the calibration in Paint Shop pro 12 has you go through adjusting RGB color sliders of different brightness levels. You need to blend in the middle patch of each color with the sides then hit next. It goes through brightness levels in percentages. 100%, 50%, 25%, 12%, etc. After doing this test, the picture image in Paint Shop looks much improved on my monitor but now everything else is wicked brighter. Also after that calibration test, a file called CalibratedMonitorProfile_PSPX12 is generated and becomes an option in the Color Management section in the menu.

In the drop down of "monitor profile" there are three choices for profile selections:
1. CalibratedMonitorProfile_PSPX12
2. sRGB Display profile with display hardware
3. sRGB IEC61966-2.1

Update: I didn't notice anywhere that was shown to input a gamma value.

I checked out the link that Kino provided and played around with that and I came close to what looks good and my eyes need to adjust, slightly, because things are a tad brighter; a good brighter and not dullish like before. I will keep things as they are now and not fuss with them and I will try to see if I can get another monitor as soon as possible.

Thanks to everyone who has responded and helped out.