It’s sunny outside and I’ve been editing some of my astrophotos while there was an abundance of light in the room. Eventually I had the sun shining in my eyes and I closed the curtains. And that was when I noticed that the results of my earlier editing looked very different from what I thought they should’ve been. In fact, they looked terrible :)
Any of you had this before and are you now only editing for example in the evening?
Yes, this is a common trap that easy to fall into. A background level that looks great in a bright room can look like a dog’s breakfast when the room is dim. You could use a consistent set point for sky background that you know is good under all conditions and not try to balance it visually. Or, setup your editing space so that the light level can be controlled. Editing in a sun drenched room during the day would be worse case. Of course, if there’s any question, just review your published images at night or in a very dim room to be sure.
Usually when I edit an image I try to do it in a midly lit room. Not in darkness or an overly bright one. Also when I think I’m done I put it on Astrobin on the staging area, then check it the following day on my phone, perhaps quickly at work on my work computer and the screens I have there and usually its enough to guess if I need to do some last minute adjustment before publishing for real (usually the blackpoint).
Thanks Tony, I also noticed this when I’m watching the crazy wonderful astrophotos by the advanced photographers here. Not that there’s anything wrong with their editing (far from), but even their photos look different during the day or in the evening.
I had my PC set up wrong indeed, but luckily the curtains do a great job and I live in the Netherlands so we don’t see the Sun that often here 😛
I typically use my low-light office to process and then I will review what I’ve done in a very near blackout room (old mud/coatroom) in my home to review my processing. If it looks bad in there, then I will go back and make adjustments.
Agree with Tony and the others, I process in a low light environment using a color calibrated monitor.
Thanks for your replies everyone. Appreciate the input 👍
I process my images when I can !
When I have something to process, and time to do it and if I feel like it. I used to try to rush things so I could publish as quickly as possible and I found it’s not the best approach.
Now I do it only when I feel like it, if I try to force it then I won’t be inspired and my results won’t be satisfactory.
Agree, I also edit in low light but would point out that many calibration units have a measurement for room brightness as well, although that will not help in really bright rooms.
That’s not a stupid question; I’m extremely limited in astro knowledge and was completely unaware it made any difference. I tend to process them, day and night, many, many times over because I get a very mixed bag with the same data set and still trying to find my feet.
There’s always the issue of monitor color calibration.