Monitor settings?

[2 rocks]

Hi folks
Although not new to photography, I have surrendered my luddite ways and finally bought a decent DSLR - Santa bought me a nice D300s with the kit 16-85 Nikkor.

So now I'm on a steep learning curve in the 'lightroom', this is probably a real no-brainer, but my first question for you all is:

"What's with my monitor?" :confused:

Now I have noticed this issue with images from my little Fuji happy-snappy, but never bothered about it, but with the images from the Nikon - it's bugging me!

When viewing thumbnails, colour balance looks to be 'correct', as in what I 'saw' in the viewfinder, but when I open up the file (say 3/4 of a full screen), all the images have a magenta cast to them. Why?

The display is an Acer 24" AL2416W, I've had a quick look at the display's menu and can't see anything out of place - and anyway, as I said the thumbnails look correct.

TIA
Mike

[300+]

The first thing to check is that you have the white balance set correctly. Your shiny new toy may be on the wrong settings. Not that I have ever done that...

Monitor calibration is important. The easy one to check is the temperature. This would normally be at 6500 Kelvin.

Lightroom may be applying calibration profiles for the camera & lens as well, check that they are OK. They are at the bottom of the develop tab from memory.

There are some free software products out there which help with calibrating colours, but there is no substitute for a real calibrator. They are coming down in price, but you can borrow one if you know someone local which should sort things out pretty quickly - or show that you have a dud monitor if that is the case.

Cheers, Steve

[Chucaro]

Only the new version of PSCS5 and perhaps LR read correctly the Nikon camera settings on the NF files.
I have PSCS3 and for keeping my camera settings I open and process my NEF files using Nikon NX2.
My D300s and the D200 are set on withe balance Auto but I correct as necessary the balance during my PP in NX2.
You have an excellent camera and once you learn how to use it your images will be excellent.
The bank custom settings are very handy to have.
HERE (http://www.outthereimages.com/images/D300_Setup_Guide.pdf) are some which you can use as a base to start customizing to your taste or style.
Calibrating the monitor is essencila for having good prints. I use a samsung monitor which is very close to the settings of the system that is using my prints provider.
Cheers

[dmdigital]

It's not Photoshop but ACR that is processing the RAW images. ACR 6.x is excellent in CS5 and is the same RAW converter in LR3, unfortunately it won't work on earlier versions of PS or LR. Aperture and DCR from Apple handle the RAW files no problem. I'm finding I go to NX2 less and less now.

Check your camera settings. Are you shooting RAW or JPEG? If you are shooting JPEG then make sure the D-Lighting is set to default and White Balance to Auto and go from there. If you're shooting RAW D-lighting is post processing and WB can be set to what ever to correct it but generally (outdoors) Auto is fine.

[2 rocks]

Thanks for all the tips folks!

Steve, I hope I didn't send us all off on a tangent - when I said 'lightroom', I meant, as opposed to sitting in a blacked-out bathroom with my Durst, rather than PS :D:angel:

I checked the WB on the monitor, it doesn't appear to have scalable settings but "warm" is meant to be 6500K. I will have to look into getting the monitor calibrated. I still don't understand why the thumbnails are the "right" colours, yet the full image is not...

Chucaro, thanks custom bank list! More reading :D Yeah, I'm already really pleased with the D300s, still miss my old F2 though. I would have liked a full size sensor, but just couldn't part with 5 grand at the moment. :p

dmd - I'm shooting JPEGs, and I'm fairly certain WB is on Auto, however I'll check D-lighting... And keep ploughing through the manual :)

Thanks again guys!
Cheers
Mike

[dmdigital]

Mike this is worth getting and reading for the camera: Complete Guide to the Nikon D300/D300s (http://www.bythom.com/nikond300guide.htm)

If you want to, e-mail an image and I can check it out (PM for email address). The thumbnails are optimised for viewing on screen and are low res, so you probably just don't notice the issue with them.