How do images look on your PC

[Lonnie]

This is my first time creating a poll so I hope it works.

How does this attachment look on your computer screen? I'm only adding 2 options as it will either look good or bad.

I ask this question only because this exact photo looks very good on my Macbook Pro (HD screen) but looks poor with lots of "bloching" in the background on a regular LCD monitor. I'm just curious as I would like to know how I should be processing my photo's to look the best for the "majority" of the members here.

[Lonnie]

I should add a little more info, the image was processed entirely on a high definition screen.

[tmohr]

Lonnie, the image looks just as you explained, blotch background and the stars seem over sharpened. I have a normal LCD, not HD.

Cheers,

[DaltonSkyGazer]

I am with Tom. I have cheap LCD Hooked up to computer viewing with. Background same as described.

[Flea77]

Calibrated professional monitor (far exceeding HD) and it looks as Tom describes as well as a bit over smoothed in the galaxy.

Allan

[Phil Leigh]

Odd - I have a calibrated HD LCD and (having saved it to my desktop) it looks good to me - can't see any "blotching" of the background, but I can see ring/halo artefacts around the stars if I zoom right in...

[Lonnie]

I think I may have found my problem. I won't know for sure until I try it. I already know that my colour profile is set to Apple RGB in PS.

After doing some research, apparently if I switch the colour profile in PS from Apple RGB to Windows RGB when processing, it will produce an image that looks the same (or very similar) on a Windows machine.

In most of the design communities, I find designers facing difficulty related to colors displayed on a Windows machine for the creatives designed on a MacBook. Though the software used to access the design is same (Adobe Photoshop), the moment file is accessed on Windows, the result is devastating. Colors look washed out and whole creativity seems dead.

Phil,
That's exactly as I see it on my Mac.

[Andy in Spain]

I'm on a 16" LCD and I can see some minor blotchyness in the background but the galaxy looks clean close up!

[cbishop]

Looks fine here on my LED laptop screen

[Lonnie]

I think I may have found my problem. I won't know for sure until I try it. I already know that my colour profile is set to Apple RGB in PS.

After doing some research, apparently if I switch the colour profile in PS from Apple RGB to Windows RGB when processing, it will produce an image that looks the same (or very similar) on a Windows machine.

So PS CS5 no longer has a Windows RGB setting. I changed my colour profile in PS to North American General Purpose 2. RGB has now been set to sRGB.

Next problem, my monitor was NOT calibrated properly. From what I've read, Mac sends out the Macbook pro with the contrast set to make images "pop". That it does but it's NOT correct. When I look at the contrast grey scale, the last 2 colours that should be dark grey and black, are both dark black.
I did a colour calibration on my screen using the expert mode. I know it's not perfect but low and behold, there's the blotchy background in the image I uploaded here. It's not as bad as the image I see on my work PC but is quite noticeable. I would say it's now very close to what Allan describes. Blotchy background, stars are over-sharpened and galaxy looks not too bad in the centre but the arms look very "soft".

I guess I now have ALOT of re-processing to do after I get my screen properly calibrated!