Laptop Monitor Calibrating

[Albert Sim]

Good day everyone,
I m buying a new laptop (though I always hate to carry around such a heavy piece of metal but for the sake of prompt works... I can only say yes ) and will be using it mainly for my image editing. Certainly I'll calibrate it with my Spyder4pro. Here are my doubts:
1. Since it is mobile, the ambient lights varies. Is this a concern that the image viewing will differs? If yes, what is the best solution to encounter this effect?
2. The default system requirement of CS 5 is somehow relatively low. My desktop is i5, 8gb ram with 1gb vram graphic. Anyway, any advice or suggestion for a laptop? consider an upgrade to CS6 extended.

Thank you fellows.

Cheers

[Simon Garrett]

As you say, with varying ambient lighting the effects of calibration/profiling will be a bit inconsistent. Also, most laptops don't have good screens: the colour often isn't very good, and tends to vary with viewing angle.

I have a Dell XPS 15 and the 1920x1080 display isn't too bad, and I've calibrated/profiled it, but I don't rely on it for accurate colour adjustment. That waits until I'm back home with a better display in a more constant environment.

[Albert Sim]

As you say, with varying ambient lighting the effects of calibration/profiling will be a bit inconsistent. Also, most laptops don't have good screens: the colour often isn't very good, and tends to vary with viewing angle.

I have a Dell XPS 15 and the 1920x1080 display isn't too bad, and I've calibrated/profiled it, but I don't rely on it for accurate colour adjustment. That waits until I'm back home with a better display in a more constant environment.

Ok Simon, I agreed with you and that means the final touch will need to be done within a four-walls. So which file format you think is best when you saved your in-progress editing files before you have it finalized on your, say, PC, a more constant environment ? TIFF ? PSD ?

[Bobobird]

I have been using a laptop exclusively for about a year now.

Used to have the same ambient light issues mentioned and members here used to comment that my colours were off.

Later on a member here gave me this graphic which fixed that.

Tilt screen until both the inner black and white portions are visible.


Back home, I connect the laptop to a big monitor and it is fine as long as the angle of the screen does not change.

[Bobobird]

Found 2 other graphics that help.

[Albert Sim]

Found 2 other graphics that help.

That is cool Bobo!
Where shall I get your these three graphic ?

[Bobobird]

In your browser right click the displayed image and select "Save Image as" from the context menu. Assuming you are using Windows. Other OS' would be about the same I think.

[Albert Sim]

In your browser right click the displayed image and select "Save Image as" from the context menu. Assuming you are using Windows. Other OS' would be about the same I think.

Thank you so much, Bobo.

[Simon Garrett]

Ok Simon, I agreed with you and that means the final touch will need to be done within a four-walls. So which file format you think is best when you saved your in-progress editing files before you have it finalized on your, say, PC, a more constant environment ? TIFF ? PSD ?

I use Lightroom, so the files are in the original format (raw in my case). The advantage of Lightroom is that all adjustments are non-destructive, so I can treat any edits I make on my laptop as provisional, then finalise them on my desktop in Lightroom - or Photoshop if it needs that.

I really would hate to do any permanent edits on a laptop - except perhaps with a decent external monitor connected, and then only if it were calibrated and profiled.

[Glenn NK]

I use Lightroom, so the files are in the original format (raw in my case). The advantage of Lightroom is that all adjustments are non-destructive, so I can treat any edits I make on my laptop as provisional, then finalise them on my desktop in Lightroom - or Photoshop if it needs that.

I really would hate to do any permanent edits on a laptop - except perhaps with a decent external monitor connected, and then only if it were calibrated and profiled.

I have the same concerns about editing an original RAW file - I have never done it, and will never do it.

With the continuing development and ever increasing capability of Lightroom, I'm re-processing images I took at the beginning of digital photography. I should also note that my knowledge and skills have improved considerably too - if I'd done permanent editing to an original, I would be out of luck.

Glenn

[Colin Southern]

if I'd done permanent editing to an original, I would be out of luck.

How does one apply permanent editing to a RAW file?

[Colin Southern]

The advantage of Lightroom is that all adjustments are non-destructive, so I can treat any edits I make on my laptop as provisional, then finalise them on my desktop in Lightroom - or Photoshop if it needs that.

People often say this, but IMO it's a bit misleading as it's no different to editing in ACR or Photoshop or any other program in that the original is always left untouched.

[Simon Garrett]

People often say this, but IMO it's a bit misleading as it's no different to editing in ACR or Photoshop or any other program in that the original is always left untouched.

ACR is non-destructive in the say way as Lightroom, yes. But Photoshop? Not to my way of thinking! Of course, any editor is non-destructive if you save the edited result as a new file, obviously. Or in Photoshop you can use smart objects or layers, and leave the original image data in the file along with edited image data.

But Lightroom and ACR are rather different in that they never alter the original file (except for metadata) - not even by adding new image data.

To put it another way: in Lightroom (and ACR) it isn't physically possible to make a change that you can't undo (except for deleting the file, I suppose!). You can't say that about Photoshop.

[Colin Southern]

To put it another way: in Lightroom (and ACR) it isn't physically possible to make a change that you can't undo (except for deleting the file, I suppose!). You can't say that about Photoshop.

But I CAN say - exactly that - about Photoshop.

When I shoot a frame it pops out of my camera as a 1234.CR2 - I convert it to DNG and have a 1234.DNG - I edit it in Photoshop and I then get a 1234.PSD - BUT - I still have the unedited 1234.DNG. Just as with Lightroom & ACR, Photoshop doesn't alter the original in any way. So in that respect you can "undo" changes in Photoshop simply by discarding the COPY of the original that they make.

I know you know that - and I know it too - but I think it's important to point it out because left unchallenged it leaves folks with the impression that Lightroom has some kind of "advantage" over Photoshop in that it leaves the original intact when in reality Photoshop does exactly the same -- so it's no advantage at all. Keeping in mind too that Photoshop "carries on" where Lightroom "finishes up" ... in a ACR / Photoshop combination, as a rule of thumb, anything one CAN do in ACR one SHOULD do in ACR - and since Lightroom and ACR share the same engine then it follows that if one NEEDS to do something in Photoshop that they couldn't do in ACR then Lightroom wouldn't have been able to do it.

Or from a different angle ...

If one does something in Lightroom and wants to reverse it a few steps then one can ... but one can also do that in ACR (by using CTRL+Z whilst the current session is still open, or by saving as a snapshot at any point along the way). On the other hand, if one makes changes in Photoshop that may or may not be reversible (although generally they are as layers take care of that), then "reversing" those edits becomes a moot point because Lightroom wouldn't have been able to do them anyway (because best practice says they should have been done in ACR if possible, and if they couldn't have been done in ACR then they couldn't have been done in Lightroom).