digital rebel shots coming out very dark

[livin4lax09]

When I shoot my pictures with the digital rebel, the meter reads that the picture has the correct exposure, and they look great on my LCD, but then when I transfer them to my computer they become very dark. Here's two pictures. The first one is what the picture looks like on my camera, the second is what happens when I transfer. what's going on here? the metering is correct, and the shutter/aperture combination seems right to me, and the picture looks correct on the LCD, just when I transfer it, i always have to fool around with it to get it back to where it was originally. I can do it, it's just a pain to have to adjust brightness and contrast for every picture.

[Ryguyinlj]

it could be your computer screen. make sure the gamma is set to the standard setting (2.20 I think)

[livin4lax09]

did that. Still very dark.

[Peter_AUS]

Do you shoot in RAW mode or Jpeg mode ?

What is your work flow ?

Check your settings on your camera, have you inadvertantly set the setting to under expose by x amount ?

Reset the camera settings to normal.

Is there a firmware upgrade for your camera ?

What do you save you images as for the web, they should be sRGB ?

What is your work space setup as in the software you are editing your photos in ?

Also LCD is deceptive.

[livin4lax09]

Well I went over a couple of them again and I'm glad that I changed the things that I did because my pictures didn't have much contrast to them when I changed my settings. I upped the contrast, and then darkened them a bit. My monitor is now a bit lighter, but it's still not matching what I see on my LCD.

[Peter_AUS]

And it won't. Two different environments.

What software are you editing the pictures in.

[livin4lax09]

Do you shoot in RAW mode or Jpeg mode ?

What is your work flow ?

Check your settings on your camera, have you inadvertantly set the setting to under expose by x amount ?

Reset the camera settings to normal.

Is there a firmware upgrade for your camera ?

What do you save you images as for the web, they should be sRGB ?

What is your work space setup as in the software you are editing your photos in ?

Also LCD is deceptive.

jpeg, i have found so far that RAW takes too much time to record to my CF and I need to shoot before it's done recording.

don't know what you mean by workflow,

i haven't changed anything as far as settings go, but for the sake of being safe, i rechecked and it's not underexposing,

i only got this camera a couple days ago and haven't changed much so i don't think it's necessary to revert settings

i don't know if there's a firmware upgrade, I'll check though

yes, they're sRGB

I'm using photoshop elements

and yeah, i have noticed that


thanks for the help.

[Peter_AUS]

Workflow,

How do you take your images, are they in RAW mode or Jpeg mode.

If RAW, there are no in camera corrections done on the file, it is like a negative, you get to play with it afterwards in software.

Does the rebel allow you to capture in aRGB, is so try in that setting, see if there is a difference.

Don't rely on the LCD screen of the camera. What does the histogram show.

If shooting in RAW, how do you convert the images to use in photoshop elements.

[Michael Fanelli]

My monitor is now a bit lighter, but it's still not matching what I see on my LCD.

The camera's LCD was never meant to be an accurate color, contrast, and brightness representation of your image. Use the histogram, not the LCD image.

I am not clear what you used for color calibration of your computer monitor. Don't rely on built-in profiles, even the PS calibration tool will do a much better job.

What color calibration do you use for your printer? Is it a generic or custom?

[another view]

I'm going to second Michael's advice. Even after thousands of shots with my DSLR, I can't tell much about the exposure by looking at the LCD until I look at the histogram. The amount of light in the room makes a big difference to how that LCD looks, too. After some time, you may find that your camera always underexposes 1/2 stop or whatever - and dial that compensation in on the camera when shooting in that kind of environment. Be careful doing this though - overexposure can give you blown highlights (no detail) and that can't be fixed.

It's important to calibrate your monitor. I use Monaco Optix and it's made a huge improvement. For starters though, try Adobe Gamma which is part of Photoshop. I think you get to it from Control Panel > Display but I don't have it here to check.