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Book Printing

Brightness/Contrast

Hi guys,

I have been working on a B&W book now for several months. This is my big project. I intend to print it with Blurb. Just today I bought an new flat panel monitor (Samsung SyncMaster 245b). I was shocked. So far I was using a standard monitor. All my pictures look like shit. However when I print them out they look good. 

 Now my question is there any advice on how to set the brightness/contrast on a TFT monitor? 

 Thanks for the help

Burger 

Replytopic_b_normal
Posted by
Burgerman
Jul 21, 2008 7:57am PST
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Burgerman
 

Hi Burger,

The obvious question I had in deep, back of my mind. Uhm, are you sure you have correct calibration set up in your monitor (both old and new ones)?

It is often discussed about muddy pictures all over the forums. It is hard for me to point out the right reference to the right one. But if you conduct search query on “managed color profile” or “calibration” or “calibrated device” or “color management”.

Addition to essential function of having corrected color profile set up in monitor, next important task to make sure that your images look as appeared in Blurb book. It is called “soft proof” technique. To make this work, you need to have Photoshop app installed on your computer. There are good alternative image-editing app to Photoshop. Although, you didn’t mention if you have Photoshop or not, so I don’t know for sure.

Again, you might as well want to do a bit of research on “soft proof” search query all over forum discussion, and Help FAQ as well as in Blurberati Blog articles about this topic discussion.

If you need some help, let us know.

Hope that helps, no?
Brian, A passionate Blurbarian

Posted by
brianbonitz
Jul 22, 2008 7:38pm PST
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brianbonitz
 

Yeah Hi and thanks for the response. Yes I use soft proof. I still dont understand how one can calibrate two monitor of two different brands so the image on both screens match?  When I apply soft proof, the image generally gets a little brighter. And then it all depends on what your monitors brightness/contrast is set to. I wonder if there is an ideal setting for blurb. Because so many LCD screen vary in contrast.

Posted by
Burgerman
Jul 23, 2008 1:45am PST
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Burgerman
 

Hello Burger;

There is only ONE way to reliably calibrate a monitor, and that’s to use a calibration tool such as Pantone’s Huey or Spyder... [click on links]

Attempting to calibrate a monitor by eye, using the monitor controls will almost always fail, because we naturally like to see things brighter on screen than we should do for accurate colour rendition…

Cheers;

Lee

Posted by
lkb-28
Jul 23, 2008 2:18am PST
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lkb-28
 

No I am just doing B&W

Posted by
Burgerman
Jul 23, 2008 5:46am PST
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Burgerman
 

Hello Burger;

Wouldn’t you still need to calibrate your screen to ensure that you’re not inadvertantly hiding any colour-cast?

Lee

Posted by
lkb-28
Jul 23, 2008 8:04am PST
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lkb-28