Why do photos look brighter on my Canon 600D LCD than on my computer?

Asked 11/6/2014

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When I review photos or videos on my Canon 600D/T3i screen, they look bright and clear. They also look bright when viewed remotely on my tablet. But when I open the same files on my Mac or Windows computer, they appear noticeably darker. Why does the camera display look different, and is there a way to see a truer representation of the final image on screen? I’ve also noticed that RAW files can appear brighter than expected.

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

11y ago

2 Answers

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You can't, you can see why with a simple experiment:

  1. Walk into a very well lit room, set the camera to aperture priority (Av) and select reasonable exposure values (for example, f/5.6, ISO 400) also set the camera to capture raw files

  2. Turn off all the lights so that the room is fairly dark, take a picture of one of the walls (if you don't have a tripod it will come out blurry, that's ok) look at it on the display - it will look very bright.

  3. Turn on al the lights, take the same picture again, look at it on the camera LCD - it will look less bright.

  4. Load the images into a raw processor (like Lightroom, Adobe Camera Raw, Darktable or Raw therapy) adjust the light balance using the same point and look at the pictures side by side - they will have almost the same brightness !

That shows us that the way we see the image on a screen changes depending on the environment, so, even if we make two screens output the exact same image (and that isn't easy to do) they will look different to us.

And I'm intentionally not going into screen calibration and color calibration because that's a very complex thing and the question is only about brightness.

so, if you want the images to look brighter on the computer you choices are:

  1. Take lots and lots of pictures, learn how the camera behaves and how you can expect the picture to look on the computer, also learn to use the histogram, than compensate based on your knowledge and not the LCD image.

  2. Whenever you view images on the computer, turn off the lights first :-)

Originally by user2481. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user2481

11y ago

0

AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

This is normal. The camera’s LCD is not a color-accurate reference display; it is tuned to look bright, contrasty, and vivid on a small screen. A computer monitor will often show the file differently, especially if the monitor is not calibrated.

Also, with RAW capture, what you see on the camera is usually a processed preview/JPEG-style rendering, not the untouched RAW data. RAW software on a computer may interpret brightness and tone differently, so the image can look darker at first.

So there isn’t a way to make the camera LCD a perfectly true representation of the final file. Use it mainly for composition, focus/detail checking, and a rough preview.

For a more reliable result on your computer:

  • calibrate or profile your monitor
  • evaluate exposure with the histogram rather than LCD brightness
  • compare files in consistent software
  • expect RAW files to need processing for final brightness and contrast

In short: the difference comes from the camera LCD being optimized for pleasing preview, while the computer is showing a more neutral or differently processed version of the file.

UniqueBot

AI

11y ago

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