LCD more saturated than real picture?

I have a question regarding the image as I see it in my LCD vs the actual picture.  With my EPL6, when I take a picture taken which includes blue skies  I like Natural Mode better than Vivid Mode, because in the LCD the sky colors look more blue.  Vivid mode makes the skies look purple, or neon blue and not as accurate or as pleasing.  However when I put the pictures on my computer, Natural mode does not make the blue skies look quite the same as it does on the camera.  How can I change the settings to equate camera LCD to computer LCD?  Should I tweak the picture settings or the settings of my computer LCD?

Is your monitor calibrated?

Is it reasonably decent quality?

JaKing wrote:

Is your monitor calibrated?

Is it reasonably decent quality?

I guess.  It's rated at 92% of Adobe gamut.  I use my Nvidia driver to calibrate it along with a monitor calibrating webpage I can't remember the name of right now.

I can just up the saturation on my video card driver I guess.

Is the camera LCD supposed to be accurate or is it intentionally more saturated than the actual image is supposed to be?

Mate, none of these devices are "accurate"!

Some are more so than others.

Using even a cheap spider type hardware calibrator improves one's chances a lot 😋.

Your monitor sounds OK. 98%+ of aRGB is better ...

Even with everything as right as you can get it, you will still see some inconsistencies. My touchstone is to hold a print next to a flower in much the same lighting (or put on the car bonnet ... ) and not want to puke! The print will never be exactly the same, but should be acceptably (very) close.

PS: make sure the brightness of your monitor is set somewhere in the middle of the scale, and your room lighting remains relatively constant.

OutsideTheMatrix wrote:

I have a question regarding the image as I see it in my LCD vs the actual picture. With my EPL6, when I take a picture taken which includes blue skies I like Natural Mode better than Vivid Mode, because in the LCD the sky colors look more blue. Vivid mode makes the skies look purple, or neon blue and not as accurate or as pleasing. However when I put the pictures on my computer, Natural mode does not make the blue skies look quite the same as it does on the camera. How can I change the settings to equate camera LCD to computer LCD? Should I tweak the picture settings or the settings of my computer LCD?

Are you shooting RAW or are the images OOC Jpegs?

Even if you only save RAW files, most cameras generate a preview or thumbnail JPEG and that is what you see on the LCD on the back of your camera.

The LCD on the camera is a much smaller viewing area and will give the impression of being sharper with more contrast and colour.

If you are then viewing a RAW file it will appear flatter on your computer screen.

Aside from a having a good quality calibrated computer screen I would be more concerned how the images look on the computer then on the LCD.

I would run a RAW file through OV3 and then tweak the colour and contrast settings so they look like what you like. Then I would adjust those settings in camera to mirror what you see on the computer.

Denjw wrote:

OutsideTheMatrix wrote:

I have a question regarding the image as I see it in my LCD vs the actual picture. With my EPL6, when I take a picture taken which includes blue skies I like Natural Mode better than Vivid Mode, because in the LCD the sky colors look more blue. Vivid mode makes the skies look purple, or neon blue and not as accurate or as pleasing. However when I put the pictures on my computer, Natural mode does not make the blue skies look quite the same as it does on the camera. How can I change the settings to equate camera LCD to computer LCD? Should I tweak the picture settings or the settings of my computer LCD?

Are you shooting RAW or are the images OOC Jpegs?

Even if you only save RAW files, most cameras generate a preview or thumbnail JPEG and that is what you see on the LCD on the back of your camera.

The LCD on the camera is a much smaller viewing area and will give the impression of being sharper with more contrast and colour.

If you are then viewing a RAW file it will appear flatter on your computer screen.

Aside from a having a good quality calibrated computer screen I would be more concerned how the images look on the computer then on the LCD.

I would run a RAW file through OV3 and then tweak the colour and contrast settings so they look like what you like. Then I would adjust those settings in camera to mirror what you see on the computer.

Thanks, I do RAW+JPG and was just referring to the JPG aspect of it- I found Natural Picture Mode to keep the skies blue, while Vivid makes them appear Purple. The clouds also appear to stand out more with Natural vs Vivid.  The siding of a house in the image also appears to be orangeish-yellow  in the Vivid picture instead of white, as it in in the Natural picture.

See page 71 of  the manual . You can adjust the brightness and color temperature of the LCD screen and, what's more important, you can switch it between natural and vivid display modes (note: this is separate from the natural and vivid picture modes that affect your actual JPGs). So, hopefully it will turn out that your LCD was set to Vivid and you can get more accurate colors by switching to Natural.
Obviously, in the end it's important that your images look good on your (and other people's) computer screens, but it would be nice if they looked similar to that on the camera's LCD.

Danielvr wrote:

See page 71 of the manual . You can adjust the brightness and color temperature of the LCD screen and, what's more important, you can switch it between natural and vivid display modes (note: this is separate from the natural and vivid picture modes that affect your actual JPGs). So, hopefully it will turn out that your LCD was set to Vivid and you can get more accurate colors by switching to Natural.
Obviously, in the end it's important that your images look good on your (and other people's) computer screens, but it would be nice if they looked similar to that on the camera's LCD.

Oh I hadn't seen that before! Is the camera LCD set to saturate by default?

So maybe vivid LCD + vivid picture mode was too much?

Danielvr wrote:

See page 71 of the manual . You can adjust the brightness and color temperature of the LCD screen and, what's more important, you can switch it between natural and vivid display modes (note: this is separate from the natural and vivid picture modes that affect your actual JPGs). So, hopefully it will turn out that your LCD was set to Vivid and you can get more accurate colors by switching to Natural.
Obviously, in the end it's important that your images look good on your (and other people's) computer screens, but it would be nice if they looked similar to that on the camera's LCD.

I don't see natural and vivid display modes for the LCD mentioned on that page, or which is the default.

I don't see natural and vivid display modes for the LCD mentioned on that page, or which is the default.

Well, it's there, in the section about Monitor brightness adjustment.

Danielvr wrote:

I don't see natural and vivid display modes for the LCD mentioned on that page, or which is the default.

Well, it's there, in the section about Monitor brightness adjustment.

Oh I just found it thanks- by pressing the INFO button.  The monitor is set to Vivid by default?

Oh I just found it thanks- by pressing the INFO button. The monitor is set to Vivid by default?

Well, it does suggest that. But I don't have an EPL6, so I guess it's up to you to try and find out. Actually I was hoping that the LCD was already set to Vivid, as that would explain the over-saturated colors that you're seeing..

Danielvr wrote:

Oh I just found it thanks- by pressing the INFO button. The monitor is set to Vivid by default?

Well, it does suggest that. But I don't have an EPL6, so I guess it's up to you to try and find out. Actually I was hoping that the LCD was already set to Vivid, as that would explain the over-saturated colors that you're seeing..

Yes it is, thanks! And changing it actually makes Vivid Picture mode look better!

OutsideTheMatrix wrote:

Danielvr wrote:

I don't see natural and vivid display modes for the LCD mentioned on that page, or which is the default.

Well, it's there, in the section about Monitor brightness adjustment.

Oh I just found it thanks- by pressing the INFO button. The monitor is set to Vivid by default?

According to Page 116 of the manual the default is Vivid. Amazing what you find out reading the manual! 

Denjw wrote:

OutsideTheMatrix wrote:

Danielvr wrote:

I don't see natural and vivid display modes for the LCD mentioned on that page, or which is the default.

Well, it's there, in the section about Monitor brightness adjustment.

Oh I just found it thanks- by pressing the INFO button. The monitor is set to Vivid by default?

According to Page 116 of the manual the default is Vivid. Amazing what you find out reading the manual!

Ugh I remember reading that somewhere about a year ago but I forgot to change the settings.

And now I have all my MyModes set up I guess I will have to set them all up again

Danielvr wrote:

Oh I just found it thanks- by pressing the INFO button. The monitor is set to Vivid by default?

Well, it does suggest that. But I don't have an EPL6, so I guess it's up to you to try and find out. Actually I was hoping that the LCD was already set to Vivid, as that would explain the over-saturated colors that you're seeing..

Another question I have is that since I have Live Boost turned on, is it going to affect the saturation of the image? I use it for night time photography but keep it turned on all the time.

Uniqumm wrote:

OutsideTheMatrix wrote:

Danielvr wrote:

See page 71 of the manual . You can adjust the brightness and color temperature of the LCD screen and, what's more important, you can switch it between natural and vivid display modes (note: this is separate from the natural and vivid picture modes that affect your actual JPGs). So, hopefully it will turn out that your LCD was set to Vivid and you can get more accurate colors by switching to Natural.
Obviously, in the end it's important that your images look good on your (and other people's) computer screens, but it would be nice if they looked similar to that on the camera's LCD.

Oh I hadn't seen that before! Is the camera LCD set to saturate by default?

So maybe vivid LCD + vivid picture mode was too much?

You could say that your trying to integrate or reconcile several different 'color spaces' to be consistent with each other. To start with, you have "reality". That's one of the wildest, and worst, non-standards. It can change and shift in innumerable ways. The other biggie is the observer of said reality. That's an even more variable platform. The rest are easier to adjust, usually!'

I've been wrestling with this in various ways on various devices over the years, many years. Not everyone sees things the same way. If anything, no one sees things exactly the same way. Decades ago a good friend was house-sitting and invited me to enjoy the sunshine outside the City. Her friends had this BIG Mitsubishi TV set in the LR. The faces were mostly green. After a couple of days I reasoned that contrary to her impressions of the situation, her friends couldn't possibly want it that way. After some effort, I set the colors to very close to what they should be. She wasn't happy, but she had enough faith in me. When they returned, I heard she worried. They saw the TV and asked "What happened to the color???" When she explained, they were ecstatic! They had thought of chucking it and buying a new one (this set had been expensive!). They were very happy!

To get to your query, start with your monitor. If you can't or won't use a calibration system, use known good photos from preferably good Nikons, especially nature shots, but good portraits too*. The lighting has to in prime daylight. Nikons perform very well in that. Also use color wheels. Look on Wikipedia. Next, see if you need to change he camera's screen, but don't get hung up on that too much early on. A lot of tweaking is in redundant cycles that hopefully converges to an optimum setting. Depending on the manufacturer, you may want to tweak the color parameters for photos. And, I'm not entirely sure that those setting will be in the RAW data, but from what I've seen, that seems to be the case. Others here may be more knowledgeable on this. For months now I've been going through these various tweaks on a Pentax K-50. I use mostly the 'Natural' tone menu, but that needed tuning too, and I'm far from finished, especially with the other color tone menus. Out of the box, I wasn't too happy with the color results and the screen is still giving me pains. All-in-all, it's been an uphill fight. I think I noticed similar results in some other Pentax camera's sample shots. I never had any problems with color in my Nikon J2. A fairly cheap Coolpix wasn't that great on color.

* I know Nikons are good at this, usually slightly better than Canons, I think.

Pentax have a reputation for being oversaturated- is that the case with your camera?

Some cameras tend towards greener than green grass and cyan skies ...

Some always show the sky as an even blue, regardless of the fact that the sky's colour varies quite a lot from zenith to horizon.

Colour is indeed tricky and complex.

JaKing wrote:

Some cameras tend towards greener than green grass and cyan skies ...

Some always show the sky as an even blue, regardless of the fact that the sky's colour varies quite a lot from zenith to horizon.

Colour is indeed tricky and complex.

Would Live Boost also affect the colors I see on the camera screen or is that just to make it easier to shoot in low light?