Re: Web Site Horror--Feedback requested

Looks good on my PC. Library PC is obviously not calibrated.
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Katharine Thayer<mailto:kthayer@pacifier.com>
  To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca<mailto:alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
  Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 08:00 AM
  Subject: Web Site Horror--Feedback requested

  So I went online at the library to look at the cyanotype-gum sharpness
  test, since I couldn't access it at home (don't ask me why one of the
  symptoms of the death throes of my system is that I suddenly can't open
  sites that I could access easily last week, like Mark's site and the
  Epson site, but it is so). So anyway I had some time left on my
  10-minute allotment, so I decided to look at my website, just for the
  heck of it. Well, I've hardly ever been so shocked in my life. Most of
  the images look terrible -- dark and dirty, dingy, not at all like the
  originals, or like what they look like on my system (or at least how
  they looked before everything turned pink).

  So I need to understand this. I was always under the impression that
  there are basically two gammas that you need to be aware of: 1.8 for
  Macs and 2.2 for PCs. When I set up the website, I had the images
  adjusted to look right on my Mac at 1.8 and then remembered that PC
  users would be looking at them at 2.2, so I changed my monitor gamma to
  see how they would look. They were way too dark at 2.2 so I lightened
  them so they would look more right on a PC. This made the images too
  light on a Mac, but I figured there were fewer Mac users and I dispensed
  with them by adding a warning that Mac users should change their gamma
  to "uncorrected" to see the images closer to correct. And I've left my
  monitor gamma set at "uncorrected" (2.2) and the site looks great to me,
  all the time.

  But this what I was seeing today didn't look at all like 2.2 on my
  system, it looked more like about 2.6 or 2.8. I'm horrified to think
  that maybe this is what people have been seeing all along.

  For example, the image on my home page

  http://www.pacifier.com/~kthayer/<http://www.pacifier.com/~kthayer/>

  should have luminous blushing apricots in a dark blue bowl. The apricots
  should look clean and clear and luminous, and there should be some
  detail even in the darkest part of the bowl.

  If what you see is a black void with some dingy yellow speckled fruit,
  looking like it's been rotting there for a week or more, which is what
  I saw over at the library, I need to know about it, so please let me
  know (offlist would probably be most appropriate). Thanks millions,
  Katharine
Received on Tue Sep 20 17:41:20 2005