Gregor, I downloaded the four quadrants of the image the link takes me to, and assembled them on my ASUS screen, then did a screen capture of all four of them:
I guess this means my system is acceptable?
Think about it from my perspective. I have no idea what a “cd/m2” is or means.
In retrospect, m2 really means “square meters”, and I’m guessing CD is some kind of measurement of light.
I went through the calibration procedure once, not having any idea what I was doing, and I left my monitor on the default settings.
On my second attempt, something “broke”; to fix it, I believe it was Joanna who suggested I restart my iMac computer. Worked.
So, on my next attempt, I used all the default numbers from the device, but this time learned how to match the brightness on the monitor with the number that the software was after. It was 120, but at that moment I didn’t know what the 120 meant.
Now I’ve got a little more understanding of what is going on. I know 120 is too high according to everyone in this forum.
From what I think I have learned, using 120 on calibrated displays and printers, the print will be too dark.
But, my goal is not to publish photos on m.smugmug.com specifically for expert photographers with calibrated displays and printers - the people who I assume are looking at my Smugmug gallery have phones, and iPads, and basic computer systems, almost certainly NOT calibrated. I doubt if any of them would have a clue as to what a calibrated display even is.
Take me for an example - I have my Apple iMac computer, and this ASUS monitor. Anybody looking at my ASUS monitor during the day would see a very dark, ugly image. But the same image, videoed on my iMac, looks beautiful. I have seen my SmugMug gallery on other people’s computers, and it looks great.
My opinion right now, is that by editing the images in PL4 on my calibrated ASUS monitor, even though they look too dark on the ASUS when viewed during the day, they look perfect on my iMac. If I re-calibrate the ASUS based on say, 80 cd/m2, I suspect they are going to look way too dark on my iMac - and everyone else’s display that is not calibrated. I’m just guessing.
Final thought - if 80 cd/m2 is a better setting, why does the manufacturer of the device say to use 120 cd/m2 ?
Maybe I need two calibrations, one for people in this forum, with calibrated gear to look at and use, and another calibration for “everyone else”?
On Monday (tomorrow) I can call i1Display Studio tech support, and get their take on things. I might also write the people at SmugMug and get their advice.
Or, how about this. Suppose your neighbor asked you to take a photo of his car, and send it to him as email. Suppose he’s got a basic Windows laptop, or maybe a Mac, just an ordinary consumer computer, no special anything. Or more likely, he wants to show it off on his iPad or phone. How would you calibrate the photo before you send it to him? What settings?
I downloaded the PDF file. On both my ASUS and on my iMac, the large image on top is all there, looking good. So I guess that means:
“The system supports these ICC version 4 and version 2 profiles”.
It’s after midnight, and I’m going to put things away for tonight. I tried to read enough about display calibration, so I’d better understand what I am learning here, but for everything I start to feel I’m learning, I find much more that I barely can understand.
One example:
I now feel comfortable in the idea that if I was a professional, I should have a calibrated system so I know what the end result will be before I even start using it. I won’t get random results, I’ll get predictable results.
Here’s a silly example of what I understand, and where it still doesn’t make sense.
Suppose you asked me to pour enough water into a beaker to fill up, one at a time, a drinking glass for 25 people at a table, one at a time. Let’s say I do a quick measure, and let’s say I figure I need 8 ounces of water. So, one by one, I fill up my beaker to 8 ounces and fill the first glass, then repeat for the second, and so on, until all 25 glasses are filled to the brim with water. None or over or under filled. Success. This is what you asked me to do, and I accomplished it.
So, the next night there are again 25 people at the table, and you tell me to do it again. But, it turns out that some people have larger, or smaller glasses. So some I can’t fill up all the way, and others overflow.
This is exactly my problem. Let’s say I follow the proper calibration for creating my images for all the people in this discussion, who have already calibrated their equipment. Chances are I’ll do a pretty good job, as everything is calibrated at my end, AND at your end. So far so good - but how about the overwhelming number of people who can’t even spell calibration, let alone do it, and who have all sorts of displays, maybe computers, maybe phones, maybe tablets, maybe projectors, and maybe even some who are using old television sets. If I make one perfect image, and send it to everyone by email, all of my careful calibration goes out the window. My picture might look light, dark, greenish, who knows what.
This leaves me with a question for all of you - how might I create an image that would be satisfactory for the majority of viewers?
RawDigger is an app that opens the view into technical bowels of your images. It is an explorer’s tool, it can help to understand.
RD’s raw histogram is much better than FRV’s or any other apps’ I know of.
Beware of RD’s many settings, they require some dedication.
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Do you know something? In all the years of posting images on forums and galleries, nobody has ever said that my images are too bright. When I first calibrated my screen (years ago) I thought it was way too dull, but then I got used to it and now think the “average” screen is blindingly bright.
This is difficult to achieve because you can’t swap brightness like you can a screen profile. You would need to get out the device and re-measure the screen every time.
The numbers you see are not instructions, they are simply their idea of what constitutes their Photo preset. It is not necessarily what is best for everybody.
My setup is…
80 of course 
But seriously, I think that your use of two different luminance levels on your screens is causing visual confusion. If you set both screens to the same luminance level, you will lose any idea of too dark or too bright.
When I use my camera on a bright sunny day, I need to raise the brightness of the screen on the back in order to simply see anything at all. But then I need to remember to reset it to 0 for most of the time. I would never dream of judging the brightness of an image by what I see on the back of the camera; I just use it to confirm the framing and composition. Because I know that what I am seeing is a jpeg rendering, I therefore know that it is a waste of time judging exposure, which, because I have metered the scene to be within limits, is going to be correct enough to give me the opportunity to adjust in PhotoLab.
However, when I am editing my images at home, I know that it is useless trying to adjust the screen to compensate for too much light and so I adjust my environment to allow me to see the calibrated screen properly. As I said in an earlier reply, even having bright objects within eyeshot whilst editing will give you a false sense of how bright things should be on the screen.
Nice 
Even better
Mark, what luminance is your screen set to?
With most full range images, the first thing I edit is the Smart Lighting and I tend to use the Spot Measure mode. here’s a screen shot of where I placed the measuring zones (highlighted in red)
Note that I include a zone for the brightest and darkest areas where I want discernible detail. In this case, that the skirt on the bridge and the font-side of the hull.
Not necessarily - as long as you know how to master the light
There’s an old saying - you can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time but you can rarely please all of the people all of the time 
In summary, from my point of view, adjust your editing environment to avoid bright light rather than messing around with two monitors of disparate brightness 
If you really insist on increasing the luminance, perhaps try 100?
OK, I’ve been playing 
I deliberately setup my monitor to be brighter than I would normally.
I told i1Studio to take the luminance from the ambient light instead of setting it to my usual 80cd/m2
Then I shone a small LED torch onto the device, to simulate a much brighter ambient light, and got a reading of 182cd/m2, from which I made a profile, adjusting my screen brightness to match. That level of illumination I found tolerable in the short term but really too bright for the duller room in which I normally work. I also know from experience that printing would more than likely produce a result that was going to be a bit too dark.
I then proceeded to edit an image in PL4.
Then I reset everything to normal and re-profiled for 80cd/m2.
I then added another virtual copy to the image, reset it and started from scratch.
Here are the two exported jpegs reduced to 1536 x 1024 pixels, as if I were going to post them on a forum.
It was very difficult to not let myself be influenced by the first one whilst editing the second but, the question to you lot is… can you tell which is which? And, if you can, is the difference really noticeable to the average viewer of web content?
The top one looks like it has a bit more contrast/Clear View on my screen - calibrated imac.I f I view it on the uncalibrated office computer I have a similar effect. Both look good.
I read your post quickly, need to read again, slowly, and then I just stared at the two images. It is now 9am, my room is bright from daylight, and my ASUS is a little darker than my iMac, but both are useable. On the ASUS, both images are fine, but the rocks show up more clearly on the lower image. The sky almost looks prettier in the top image.
…now, I have shifted the window to my iMac. Now the top image looks beautiful, with the rocks just slightly dark, but the lower image now looks too bright. If these images were within my PL4 screen, I would darken the lower image to get it to look more natural. I definitely prefer the top image now.
Third test - I closed the shades, and turn on my ceiling lights. I’m still looking at the window on the iMac. I prefer the top image - everything really stands out beautifully, and the bottom image looks over exposed, much too bright.
Last test - I moved the window back to the ASUS. Immediate reaction - the top image now looks too dark, and the bottom image looks beautiful.
…this is just to tell you what I observe on my screens. I will now slowly re-read what you wrote, and try to understand my reactions to each image.
To answer your last question, to someone who didn’t do all the shifting around I just did, no, I don’t think the “average viewer” would be aware of any of this, unless given a choice of images.
Sorry to say it, but I was dreaming about this stuff last night, and as I was waking up I reminded me of something to ask you. Can’t I create multiple screen calibrations? One for “the public”, and another for “people with calibrated equipment”? …or Plan B, to switch to a calibration based on a lower luminance, and see if anyone in the forum notices. If I used a luminance level of 100, would that be a better compromise for a single calibration for everyone?
You can create as many profiles as you like. Still, they influence your screen only and all to other screens out there have no idea about how bright and profiled your screen was. You could add, to your presentation site, a greyscale step wedge and some text saying that all steps should be equally visible and therefore brightness and contrast should be adjusted for showing what you intended… At least a few people will try…
If your Asus is calibrated to 80cd/m2, that would explain that because the bottom image was edited at 80cd/m2.
Well, you are finding that under certain conditions, both images have their pluses and minuses. And that is the problem. There is no way you can make an image that is going to please everyone. Although the mythical “average viewer” is likely not to even know that things do not appear as you intended - and they more than likely don’t care either. Don’t forget that the top image was processed with my screen at 182cd/m2!!! …which supposedly is a whole lot brighter than the average of 150.
The best that you can hope for Joe Public is that they appreciate the image, despite the brightness. After all, if they were that particular, they would have calibrated their screens. And if you think your images will appear too bright because you processed them at 80cd/m2, consider that most people’s televisions are far too bright and often the wrong colour but they still watch them every day.
As @platypus says, you can create as many profiles as you like but you are never going to be able to predict what conditions people are going to view your images under. It’s not just brightness that comes into play, it’s also not just colour temperature but which real colours map to which perceived colours. i1Studio takes 118 samples throughout the spectrum and maps those colours to standard colours in order to try and get somewhere near a “true” colour rendition, but that is only going to work on your, or any other, calibrated monitor with the same luminance level.
Have you noticed, consistently, that the images I post here are “too bright”? Or did you accept that is just how I process them? I think that, if you commented on the brightness of an image, someone else would just as likely comment to the contrary.
I think that has to be up to you. Before you discovered calibration, your images were “OK”. Don’t get too hung up on everyone else’s idea of perfection and work towards getting results that you know are technically as perfect as you can get them and that please you.
Seeing as how little difference there is between my images at 80 and 182 cd/m2, why not try 100 as a compromise if it suits you better? just be aware that, should you ever want to print an image, it could start to lose shadow detail and look a bit dull.
Unfortunately, swapping to different screen profiles doesn’t adjust the brightness, so I would give up on that idea and try to settle on a luminance that suits your situation and that won’t look too bad when it is printed - the lower the better.
But, whatever you do, I would really strongly advise you to turn off automatic brightness and, if possible set both monitors to the same level all the time.
@platypus suggests posting a greyscale wedge alongside your images, which then passes the responsibility to the viewer to adjust their monitor to something approaching a sensible level, even though the colours may still be out of whack
Sooner or later, I’m pretty sure I’ll buy it. Thanks!
Hello,
I’ve read the whole thread because it’s always instructive and interesting if @Joanna talks about colour management. I’ve learned a lot in the last months and I would like to supplement the discussion with the following from a “lower” technical sight.
x disable all automatic settings on your displays (light sensor, energy management eg.)
x disable all automatic settings from your graphic card driver or control center of the software (I’m on windows don’t know how it looks on Mac)
x create the profiles for a specific light environment ( I use 3 settings …evening with artificial light, cloudy daylight, bright daylight for my two monitors…that give me 6 profiles)
x create the profiles with Joannas suggestion 80 cd/m² maximum 100 cd/m² and don’t forget to warm up the monitors for a minimum of 30 minutes
x after finishing the profile creation take one of the calibration pictures and move it from one to the other monitor and backwards…if for example the greys looks very similar your are on the good way.
Two different monitors will not 100% identical because the technic of the screens differs. In the calibration software Argyl CMS/ Displaycal you are able to choose the mode of the technic. I’ve got the information from the EIZO and DELL support. This increases the accuracy.
Maybe that helps others a little bit without diving to deep into this complex matter
Guenter
i1Display also offers a choice
When it comes to colour management, we all need al the help we can get
1 - You wrote: I would really strongly advise you to turn off automatic brightness and, if possible set both monitors to the same level all the time." During the day, my room is much too bright to do that, as using the iMac display for anything would also be a problem, UNLESS I were to close the blinds, darkening the room t the point where I could comfortably use my computer. When it gets dark (after sunset, or my closing the blinds) both displays are easy and comfortable to use. I now understand how this affects image editing, so I’ll no longer do that on a bright green during the daytime. Doing what you suggest will benefit my image editing, but make the iMac much less enjoyable to use during the day. It would be like you with your camera, taking a photo in the daytime, and needing to tighten up your screen so you can see it properly. I would need to brighten up the iMac to read mail, and all the other things I do besides image editing.
2 - Since I’m going to re-calibrate my ASUS anyway, I will do that (in a darkened room) with the brightness set to 80 as you first suggested. I will then post some images to my SmugMug gallery, and see if they’re acceptable. I will also post them here, to see if you agree with what I have done. I suspect nobody will say anything - if the images are dark, they’ll just assume I made a mistake.
3 - It would be interesting to post a grayscale wedge alongside my images, or as just one image in the gallery. I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with any questions though. I’ll save that idea for the future.
If I use each of those settings, one at a time, to post an image to my gallery at m.smugmug.com doesn’t this mean that this will create six slightly different images on the gallery page? Why would I want people to see a different image (if this is what happens) because of the different conditions I was working in?
If the image sent to the gallery would NOT change, and all this does is allows me to work on the image in different conditions in my room, maybe this is a good idea for me? I dunno…
No,
the profiles are for you to see the picture under the correct light conditions.
The perfect situation would be a room with never changing light condition…in my case not possible, because I have also a room with windows and changing light the whole day. And i don’t work with boards in front of the windows 
In a perfect world I would see the colours of a picture in the 3 situations I made the profiles for identical without any colour cast. But it can’t happen, because the light temperature has differences with every minute, hour and clouds and so on.
And like some members said if you create a perfect calibrated photo the Receiver of the photo must have the same perfect calibrated environment and software that must support Colour management.
Browsers for example sometimes support CM, but for example Firefox you have to activate it with about:config and make the settings.
Make a test and look the pictures from your gallery on a Pc of a friend without profiling on 3 different browsers, and with the light conditions your friend normally has.
I know photographers, creating the final photo at the printing studio at professional equipment.
It’s a long and stony way
Tutorials on Color Management & Printing (cambridgeincolour.com)
best regards
Actually, my ASUS is/was still calibrated based on 120 cd/m2.
I am recalibrating it now for 80 cd/m2.
Let’s see what happens.
I will close the shades, then do the calibration.
(Is my i1Display Studio influenced by ambient light?)
Recalibration done. New name: ASUS PB278_20201228(80cd).icc
(from now on, I will include the brightness setting in the name)
Joanna - just thinking about what I recently learned from you… One image was from 182 cd/m2, and the other image was from 80 cd/m2 ??? I would have anticipated a huge difference. I was very wrong. They are different, but both would easily pass for “acceptable” on my SmugMug gallery. Prior to the past few days, I would have said they were almost the same.
I’m going to stop thinking about this, and go about using my ASUS for image editing, now that it is based on 80 cd/m2. I’ll post a new photo, edited with the new settings.
THANK YOU!!!
Thanks, but at the risk of burning out my brain on too much new information at once, I need to take this one step at a time. Sounds like your room is like my room - even with the blinds closed, when the sun passes behind clouds, my room lighting changes considerably.
For now, my ASUS is now calibrated based on 80 cd/m2 and I will do some editing on it as best I can, using all the new concepts I’m continually learning about PL4 (what this forum is about). When things settle down, maybe in a week or so, I can expand what I know, and view the tutorials you just posted. To keep myself doing things in an organized manner, I will try to do this one step at a time.
Thank you - will come back to this in a while…
I wrote to the people who make Raw Digger - the following is from their reply:
Also, we have some case studies on our site, one of the most popular studies is a three-par explanation of the histogram
https://www.rawdigger.com/howtouse/rawdigger-histograms-what-is-the-raw-histogram
https://www.rawdigger.com/howtouse/rawdigger-histograms-display-modes
https://www.rawdigger.com/howtouse/rawdigger-histograms-overexposure-shapes
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