monitor calibration

It is equally important for both. I wouldn't even bother editing on an uncalibrated screen; all you're doing is guessing about what the photo really looks like. An uncalibrated screen will display BW photos too light, or dark, with the wrong contrast.
 
As a professional graphic designer working with monochrome and colour images daily: what Chris said.

Total waste of time editing digital photos without calibrating your screen...
 
back alley said:
i ask because i am lazy and if it wasn't necessary for b&w then i would skip it.
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While color accuracy isnt important for BW, brightness and grayscale tracking are. Imagine looking at the same image on a screen set to the factory default brightness, which is always way too bright.

The image looks too light, so you darken it with a curves adjustment in Photoshop. Then you print it and it comes out WAY too dark. Looks nothing like the screen.
 
From my experience monitor calibration is only necessary half of the in home printing with matching screen colors process.

For regular person bw image posting on internet it is next to irrelevant. Because image is to be ruined by Apple screen on mobile device many NA viewers are using :).

For this most common scenario I recommend to check your internet shared images from another devices. Like someone else computer. If it looks recognizable, nothing to worry about.
 
Ko.Fe. said:
From my experience monitor calibration is only necessary half of the in home printing with matching screen colors process.

For regular person bw image posting on internet it is next to irrelevant. Because image is to be ruined by Apple screen on mobile device many NA viewers are using :).

For this most common scenario I recommend to check your internet shared images from another devices. Like someone else computer. If it looks recognizable, nothing to worry about.
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that sounds very practical.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
And very, very wrong. It amazes me that so many here have spent untold thousands of dollars on camera gear, but balk at spending $300 for a calibrator.
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Or less. The Spyder5 costs just $130 for the basic model, which is all most people need. I’ve been using Spyders for well over a decade so am used to them, but any calibrator will do the job.
 
Back Alley, you need to be more specific about what you are doing. If you are just posting files on the internet, you don't need to calibrate because those looking at your files are not using calibrated monitors. If you are printing, how serious are you? Will you profile your camera and printer after calibrating your monitor? Is your monitor adequate for graphics? If you are serious, you may want to consider an Eizo Color Guard monitor with a built in calibrator. I use a CX271 monitor and the calibrator is done every 200 hours of monitor on-time.
 
Ko.Fe. said:
From my experience monitor calibration is only necessary half of the in home printing with matching screen colors process.

For regular person bw image posting on internet it is next to irrelevant. Because image is to be ruined by Apple screen on mobile device many NA viewers are using :).

For this most common scenario I recommend to check your internet shared images from another devices. Like someone else computer. If it looks recognizable, nothing to worry about.
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This is also my opinion.
If you are sharing your images via screens (computers, tablets, cellphones, etc) unless every viewer calibrates his/her screen the same way, you have no idea how that picture is going to look on their screen. In this case, calibrating your monitor is pointless.
Physical printing requires a calibrated monitor-printer system.

EDIT (after reading later postings): obviously if you're sharing photos with an important audience on calibrated monitors, you would want to keep your monitor calibrated as well.
 
back alley said:
i ask because i am lazy and if it wasn't necessary for b&w then i would skip it.
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Do you have a monochrom camera that gives you native b&w files or are you color files and convert them to monochrom images? Rethorical question...:rolleyes:

You will get the best results if you process the color image first for acurate color and exposure and then convert the file to b&w. If you trust your camera and use the b&w jpgs, then forget about you asked about calibrating...;)
 
Ko.Fe. said:
From my experience monitor calibration is only necessary half of the in home printing with matching screen colors process.

For regular person bw image posting on internet it is next to irrelevant. Because image is to be ruined by Apple screen on mobile device many NA viewers are using :).

For this most common scenario I recommend to check your internet shared images from another devices. Like someone else computer. If it looks recognizable, nothing to worry about.
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That's really bad advice. You should always start with the best image you can produce. Sorry to step on toes but this philosophy is why there are so many terrible looking images posted. If you calibrated then you know your image looks great to the people that care and calibrate their monitor. You can't second guess what someone else's monitor looks like.
 
x-ray said:
That's really bad advice. You should always start with the best image you can produce. Sorry to step on toes but this philosophy is why there are so many terrible looking images posted. If you calibrated then you know your image looks great to the people that care and calibrate their monitor. You can't second guess what someone else's monitor looks like.
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Totally agree.

I also disagree with those who say it is not necessary for you to calibrate your monitor because some viewers don't. Two wrongs are simply twice as bad as one wrong.

And then there are those of us who insist on having a calibrated monitor. Do you want us to know your photos look funky because you adjusted them to an uncalibrated monitor?

As Chris Crawford said, it makes no sense to spend all that time and money worrying about lenses then all that time doing a photo to throw most of it away in the final step.

BTW, all of that is just as important in b&w images as color.
 
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