Calibration Issues

[marcus]

Hi there,
I'm just after getting some prints done with a professional (not high street) lab and they turned out perfect. Only problem is, before printing he also calibrated my laptop with Eye-One and since then all my images appear extremely light on my screen. An example of this is the following image of a lilly opening.
Previously, the background had looked black but now I'm seeing a brown tone with lots of blocks of colour instead of smooth tone transitions.
I appreciate that my laptop has been calibrated to his equipment but even shots that haven't been processed look odd.
What do others see in the above image and should I revert back to my original screen settings?
Thanks for any insight or help ye can give.
Marcus

[Cathus]

the image is definitely brownish-red in the background.

sampling a section of it I have color code #170201 or RGB 23 2 1

[GeoffWessex]

Fair enough.... it's not black - but you've got a great range of tones and it looks very 'balanced'. I'd say leave the monitor as it is - or turn the Brightness down a fraction.

[KeithT]

I would say leave your monitor as it is too. It looks fine on my monitor. If I adjust my monitor at all, it is in the gamma. I usually do this tweak about once a month and everything is fine. To test colours on my monitor I generally look at some pro images, like the ones that are in the adverts to the right of the website here.

[marcus]

Ok. Thanks for putting my mind at ease re colour. Kind of explains some of the critique I got in the past that didn't make sense to me. I never knew a screen could be off by so much. Only thing I have to figure out now is why my screen is showing darker areas as ugly blocks of colour.

[nick_gray]

Originally Posted by marcus

Only thing I have to figure out now is why my screen is showing darker areas as ugly blocks of colour.

Check that the 'Colors' is set to True Color (32 bit) and not Hi Color (16 bit), in the display/monitor settings.

[marcus]

Yeah, did that yesterday Nick - thanks anyway.