Photo processing question

[Wandering Daisy]

I use Elements 10 (Photoshop). I am processing a lot of older photos and wonder if anyone has a good trick to tell if what you see on your screen is the what you would see on a print or someone else would see on their screen. I check the histogram light adjustments and then do a quick auto "Smart Fix" just to see what it does. Often I do not like it so go back to my previous version. I also have a difficult time with the finer adjustments to color. But then color is such a subjective thing. My vision is really sensitive to red.

The smallest tilt on my screen seems to have a big impact on the photos. My Photoshop views seem to have limited resolution; the photos look better when I put them up as screen-savers. Also, there seems to be loss of resolution after long stretches of photo processing- I think I get the memory clogged. I then have to run a disc cleanup, turn things off, and start over. My computer does not have the best graphics card and I think this is the source of most of my problems.

By the way, often the photos I put in my trip reports looks better than what I see on my screen.

[bobby49]

First of all, you have to start out with some decent hardware. That includes a decent display, video card, and basics within the computer CPU and memory. For software, I use Photoshop (full version), since I feel that the best color balancing is done there.

Then you need some sort of calibration system. For me, that means a Spyder optical calibrator that I run monthly. The reason is that some displays drift over time. You need to have some constant lighting in the computer room. You probably need some sort of standard image processing method or procedure that involves proper color profiles. I also have a large printed color calibration target hung up next to my computer, and I have that image file in the computer. If I start to doubt what I am seeing, I can display the file on-screen and then compare it to the printed target.

Personally, I do a few extra things extra. In my camera, I shoot only RAW images. I process the RAW image to produce a TIF file, and I do further processing on the TIF. When I think it is correct, I convert that to a JPEG image and then check it again. Along the way, I keep the various iterations of each image so that I can "back up" as necessary. As a result of all of this, I have many spindles of CDR disks of backups. I have many external hard disks of image files going back about twenty years.

Yes, this is a lot of effort, but I don't seem to have any issue of degraded images or color drift or anything like that.

[Wandering Daisy]

How different is the full Photoshop compared to Elements 10? My camera shoots RAW but perhaps due to my poorer computer system and software, my processed RAW images look worse than the JPG shots. Sigh.

Your system seems very good, but am trying to figure out if the cost/benefit is worth it, given my camera (good but still a point-and-shoot). I think getting a new graphics card is something I will consider, but not sure about update to full Photoshop. I admit that a no-cost option is simply to learn more and use the options I have on my current camera.

But thanks for sharing the details on your photo processing system. It does give me some ideas.

[mort]

If you want to do serious photo processing I'd suggest Adobe Lightroom. It is easier than PhotoShop and has a more photo/camera oriented nomenclature (my opinion).
But $$$.
see viewtopic.php?f=17&t=15075#p127722
-mort

[SirBC]

If you are seeing differences in a photo from when you process it in PS Elements to when you view it in a browser or the program you use to view photos, it is likely due to a break in color management. Photoshop is a color managed program, which means that it respects the color space that you tell it you want to process your photos in. Other programs (some browsers, Windows 10 'Photos" program, etc) are frequently not color managed and do not respect the color profile of an image and images will look different, sometimes drastically so, when viewed in non color managed programs. You should also try and get your browser color managed so that when you view images online it respects an images embedded profile. For example, for Firefox, you can follow these directions.

The first step you can take is that when you process images, be aware of what color space you are processing in. The easiest would be to set it to sRGB. You could also chose aRGB or Pro Photo (not sure if Pro Photo is in Elements), but until you get a little more advanced it is easier to just stick to sRGB. If your monitor has a color space setting, also set that to sRGB. When you export an image from Elements (File > Save As) make sure that you embed the sRGB color profile in the image by selecting that option. With this color space embedded, programs that *are* color managed will respect that profile and display it so that it looks exactly the same (at least on your computer) as it did in Elements.

My Photoshop views seem to have limited resolution; the photos look better when I put them up as screen-savers. Also, there seems to be loss of resolution after long stretches of photo processing- I think I get the memory clogged. I then have to run a disc cleanup, turn things off, and start over. My computer does not have the best graphics card and I think this is the source of most of my problems.

By the way, often the photos I put in my trip reports looks better than what I see on my screen.

I'm not quite sure what you mean when you say your "Photoshop views have limited resolution". When you open an image in PSE, it may not be displaying at full resolution because the window you are viewing it in is smaller than the full resolution of the file. This is when you see at the top of the image pane something like, "Image Name @25%". You are not viewing the image at its native resolution, and in the case I gave, you are zoomed out to 25% and not at 100%. It could be that is what you mean (?) because often an image that is not viewed at 100% will look "softer" than when viewed at 100%.

I doubt that any slowness issues you are having are due to your video card. I've processed multi-gigabyte photos with many layers using integrated graphics (in the cpu, vs. a discrete video card). Integrated video is trash compared to even the cheapest video cards. It doesn't really take any video card horsepower to process photos (there are caveats, but they would not apply to what you are seeing). It could be that you are running out of memory when processing your photos and PSE is using your hard drive as a "scratch disk" to try and keep up. The scratch disk is *significantly* slower than memory and if that does happen it will really slow things down. How much RAM does your computer have?

I am processing a lot of older photos and wonder if anyone has a good trick to tell if what you see on your screen is the what you would see on a print or someone else would see on their screen.

There really isn't any way to tell what someone else will see on their screen because there are so many variables out of your control. The best you can do is embed your color profile and hope they have a calibrated monitor at an acceptable brightness in good viewing conditions. I think that most people have their monitors significantly brighter than mine, so when I process an image for the web I tend process a little "dark".

There are things you can do to try and get your photos to look as close as possible to what you see when it is printed. The most important way is to calibrate your monitor with a calibration device. I use an Xrite i1Display Pro, but they are not inexpensive. Basically, what they do is flash known colors on your screen that the device sits against and reads those colors and then it compares what it knows a color should like vs. what it is actually displaying on your monitor, and it builds a profile to get those colors as close as possible. I have an old Spyder 3 calibration device that I haven't used in years and is collecting dust in my closet, you are welcome to it if you want. I don't know if the software is still available to download, I probably have the disk somewhere (not sure if it has Mac software). One thing calibrators do not do is to set the brightness of your monitor. So you could have a 100% accurately calibrated monitor but still have prints coming out (usually) darker than they look on your monitor. There are some images on this site that can help to somewhat get the brightness dialed in. If I'm going to be doing an expensive print at a lab I haven't used before I will do a small test print to check for color accuracy and brightness. A really good website for color management and printing (among other things) is Cambridge in Colour.

One thing that anyone can do to make their web images look better is to sharpen them for web. It's the last step you do in processing and it makes a huge difference to how your images look on the web. I use a Photoshop action but I'm sure there are free ones for PSE that you can download. You should also be sharpening for print, but that is a whole other ball of wax.

[Wandering Daisy]

Thank you for taking the time for such a detailed answer! It is a bit over my head, but I think with more careful reading I can get the gist of what you are suggesting.

Just one more question. My camera is a Canon G9X. I do not plan on getting another camera soon. I see it as a system: 1- the camera, 2-me (I really need to learn how to use the camera better), 3-processing software (Photoshop Elements 10), 4-my computer (I have an old but good oversized screen HPw2207h, Dell Inspiron620, Intl i5-2320, 8GM installed Ram. Are the components of my system well matched?

[SirBC]

I'm not personally familiar with that monitor or computer. Google says the monitor came out in 2007 and has a max resolution of 1680 x 1050 while the processor for you computer was released in 2011. I think for photo processing the monitor resolution is on the low side and I'm not really sure about the processor, it probably should be fine, some things may run a little slow but it shouldn't be a show-stopper. The ram though is on the low side for processing (if you are using layers in PSE). It looks like that is maximum amount available for that machine though. If you are having to reboot your computer just to continue processing photos it may be that your system is getting a little too long in the tooth.

Lynda.com has some good video tutorials on photography and processing. A lot of libraries offer free access to it. Mine did (San Mateo county) but recently dropped it. KelbyOne.com also has a lot of photography/processing video courses. I think Kelby regularly runs Black Friday promotions too.

[SSSdave]

There are technical basics a person needs to understand before they might rise above the display and photo printing level of an average person. None of that is too complicated to understand though requires some time and effort to work through to. Probably plenty of online resources to do so and I'd also recommend Cambridge in Color as it has good graphics to complement text.

An average desktop computer monitor may not provide reasonable color fidelity even after being calibrated. Most such monitor models do not even specify color fidelity. Those less expensive monitors are made for non image computer work and tend to vary considerably with viewing orientation. So the key piece of hardware necessary to view images has always been an adequate monitor. Another key component is to have a standard calibration target. Here is one on amazon that also has lens testing graphics all for $15. Most other targets have squares with colors because they have dedicated uses with monitor calibration apps.

https://www.amazon.com/DGK-Color-Tools- ... 207&sr=8-7

In fact although I already have older targets, this all in one is so cheap I plan to order one myself.

So just with the target but without any calibration hardware or software, a person could simply take a picture with any camera of the target outdoors in soft diffuse sunlight and then in a dim room without other ambient light interference display their camera's jpg image output on their monitor with their photo processing software that they then could manually adjust their monitor brightness and color controls to reasonably match. So that much can ballpark match their camera to displays. Along with a color target one might also purchase a high CRI full spectrum rated light bulb in order to be able to evaluate color indoors versus always needing to go outdoors as most indoor lighting is otherwise out of balance.

Now the second part of the question is getting that monitor display image to match a print. One needs to understand that how a printing service sets up controls on a specific printer has significant effects on resulting printed outputs. Professionals almost always use services adjusted to a standard wherein the service prints out a file without service or machine software evaluating an image such that the resulting print is totally dependent on the customer file as is. Conversely consumer printing services tend to expect many people will be inputting out of balance images so their software adjusts image files to what it thinks is better. Obviously that also eliminates the ability of certain output. Larger printing organization now tend to have high end calibrated printers where there is no adjustment and the inexpensive cost for printouts makes them a good choice versus the recent past era when most photographers bought their own printers and then found such wasted much expensive ink. I'll recommend FEDEX Office.

So after getting a good monitor display of a color target, one might also view online images of known photography websites online to further show one is reasonably set up. Then I'll suggest have some small test prints made at local services that one then evaluates for fidelity to what is on one's monitor. And note prints ought be evaluated under calibrated lighting or outdoors in diffuse sunlight also.

As for resolution, one key issue is understanding traditional desktop computer monitors have phosphor RGB dots with a pitch of about 90 dots per inch while more serious printing is at effective resolutions of 200 to 300 image file pixels per inch. Thus it is impossible to fully evaluate a file expected to print out at 300 pixels per inch on an average display. Another way to explain that is to consider an image file 900 pixels wide. On an average desktop computer monitor that would display as a 900/90= 10 inch wide image. However that same image printed at 300 dpi would be just 3 inches wide. The small print will appear far sharper than on the monitor even though the image file resolution is identical. In this recent era with denser phosphor dot displays this is changing. My 24 inch diagonal UHD 4k display is for instance 184 DPI and my 15.6 inch UHD 4k laptop display 282 DPI. Thus the later closely resembles an actual print output. A similar effect beyond an optimal close viewing distance results when the viewer moves further away from a print or display.

As for RAW versus JPG processing, that is a long discussed issue that really doesn't apply in this era with better cameras unless one is into dark or contrasty subjects and higher forms of output. Almost all printing is still 8-bit color. I never use RAW because jpg's out of my A6000 at neutral settings is consistent that then provides a consistent 8-bit RGB source to work from. It is true that being a skilled Photoshop CS6 user makes processing good jpgs easy. No one is going to look at my work and claim using RAW would have made much difference though with someone limited to simple photo processing tools that might not be true. The Canon G9X is an excellent compact camera that ought also provide a consistent neutral jpg output setting.

[Wandering Daisy]

Again, some good advise. Thanks. I am not trying to put out professional photos. I just want the photos to be on the better side of what my system is capable of. I do not plan to print any large sized photos, but I may get a few of the better ones printed. I think your idea of sending them out rather than printing them myself is a good idea.

My monitor is 22-inch and set in sRGB UEC61966-2.1 (whatever that means) and 1680-1050 resolution. It actually is quite good when I put the photos on as my screen saver slide show. But the Photoshop Elements 10 display is not very good (small window). I can zoom in and out but that is quite tedious when processing. I usually do quite a bit of color adjustments when processing. I think the problem may be that I do not have my white-balance on the camera set correctly. I will have to play with that. And thanks for your assessment that my camera is OK, although I have to admit that my husband's I-Phone 12 takes better photos some times.

[bobby49]

If you choose to send files out to be printed, then that is OK. That makes best sense if you don't have very many to be printed. However, you really must get all of your white-balances and color profiles and all of that figure out in advance. Otherwise, you will be paying the print company and you won't be getting good results. As an example, I shot an event, and the customer told me that they wanted everything printed at Walgreens, because that is where everybody in that community got their prints done. Walgreens could not tell me anything about their printing color profile, so it was all a shot in the dark, and it missed. Every frame had a terrible red cast. So, instead, I gave the customer one set of prints that I did myself on my own printer, and I recommended a different print company. In my humble opinion, they were perfect compared to what I saw, what the camera saw, and what I saw on the computer screen. Frankly, what I don't like about the drug store printing is that they really don't care. That is not their core business, and they are just doing it to bring more customers in the door. In contrast, I've had a few of my best photos printed large (20x30 inches) by a photography company, and those also got great results. My color printer handles up to 13x19 inch paper. I've found some excellent paper, but it does get pricey at that size.

The thing that I value about printing my own photos is that I get immediate feedback. If I foul up and have something wrong with the file, I can go back to Photoshop, correct it, and then print it another time. Been there, done that. Got the book, saw the movie.