Your Working Environment

Unfortunately many studio environments work against their occupants. On our travels we have even come across computer screens under large skylights with no blinds, screens facing windows etc. Under these circumstances good colour management practice is nigh on impossible since the screen is very sensitive to ambient light.

Viewing conditions for the screen and prints:

When your monitor is switched off, it’s not very black at all. So how does it display black?

It’s all down to contrast with a bright white and to our eyes’ adaptability. However, it must be obvious that the monitor has even more of a struggle representing black well in situations where more than a little ambient light hits the screen.

It’s a great idea to make a monitor hood which shields the screen from light falling from above or from the sides, the hood would ideally be black inside and project about 12 inches from the top of the screen and at the sides (cutaway toward the base) toward the operator.

The room, and ideally even the operator’s clothing, should be a neutral colour and not brightly lit, and any ambient lighting should be to standardized to D50 / 5000K [artificial daylight) where possible. Prints should be viewed with a D50 / 5000K or near daylight source, if possible with a similar luminance to the screen. Alternatively it can sometimes be advantageous to view printed output in a light similar to an eventual final display situation, if known, especially if the display situation is known to have unusual lighting.

No Coloured Desktop Patterns:

The human eye has an incredible ability to adapt to different lighting situations. This works against us a little in computer imaging, since we can easily adapt to an on-screen display with a colour caste. One good way to avoid this possibility is to use a neutral gray pattern as the screen background, our eyes then constantly reference that gray as neutral.

Compare a known print and the monitor screen:

It can be useful to have a known original image and a verified print to accompany it. These can be used together to check the quality of printer output and to assess screen to viewing box accuracy too. It is quite a good feeling to hold a good print of an on-screen image and to see thatimager and screen are indeed very similar. This can also help educate the user in the essential differences between an image seen on a back-lit screen and the printed version of the same.