Brian Khang | Photographer

Thank you everyone for emailing me such awesome suggestions.  I had a question from Tim Goodchild that I chose, because it’s a good question and plus I do love emails, but Tim was the only one who posted it in the comment section, so I decided to write about it first.  I’ll definitely be bringing back some more questions I received in future blog posts.

Here is what Tim wrote, “Lately I’ve been having some trouble with my prints being dark but maybe that’s just because I edit on a laptop… Anyway, I’d love to hear how you keep your monitor calibrated”

I think this is something that can definitely be overlooked.  Again, I want to let you all know that I’m no expert on monitor calibrations, but here is what I do.  Once a month usually on the 1st of each month, I run a monitor calibration tool on all of my monitors.  I use Spyder to calibrate them. It’s really easy to use, just push a few buttons and it only takes minutes to do. Also on my laptop I do notice that the screen isn’t as bright as my other monitors, so I try not to edit off of it, but if I do, the laptops are usually set on full brightness, while my other mac monitors are usually almost turned all the way down. It’s really trial and error when it comes to brightness on monitors or you can just follow what the calibrator tells you.

Besides brightness, skin tones and colors are always tricky too. And what I do to resolve that is to get test prints. Normally I do have print orders every month or so, so I just normally test it to see if it’s close to what I’m seeing on my monitors, which they normally are. If I don’t have any prints ordered, I contact my printers and ask for a test print. Normally there isn’t any charge for that. What also helps is that they have ICC profiles from your photo lab that they can send you and you can use those to help calibrate your images on your screen vs printing them. If you’re using either their ICC profile or a calibrator, you should be really close.

I hope that helps out and if not, please post your questions in the comment section.