The Optical Illusion of Your PS and ACR backgrounds

[Jill Morgan]

I was sitting here doing PP for a whole pile of shots I took in Toronto on Friday. It was a dark cloudy day (of course, it always is when I go out shooting) so I had to do a lot of playing with exposure, shadows and whites in ACR to get the image right. Now I use a light grey background in ACR.

 

When I put the images into PS, they looked darker. Hmmmm. So I brought the image back up into ACR and lo and behold it looked lighter. 

 

Then the brain twigs and I realize I have a dark grey background in PS, instead of having it match the light grey I have in ACR.

 

So I changed PS to light grey as well, and presto, it now looks the same as in ACR. And since on Alamy all shots are in a white background, thought I should stick with the lighter shade of grey.

 

Have any of you made sure to match the backgrounds in PS and ACR? Can't believe it took me this long to notice.

 

Jill

[Martin P Wilson]

When I visited Tate Modern in London (a few years ago). There were a range of pieces (I forget the artist) that demonstrated the difference that different colour frames and background made to the perceived colour of the main work. She was using the effect Jill has noticed as an artistic tool.

[Russell Watkins]

It's called the "simultaneous contrast illusion". (I studied the physiology of it 30 years ago).

[Ed Rooney]

We used to use an 18% gray card . . . but in fact I always used a handheld incident light meter to measure the light falling in an area. Then I would make smaller adjustments from experience, sidelight, backlight, black and white things and so on. 

 

Having now reread the OP, I realize I have no idea what you people are talking about. I think I'll go back to watching my film, which is about cannibalism in America in the 1800s. 

[David Kilpatrick]

I now edit against white. Otherwise, my images look dull and dark when processed on Alamy and in print.

[Martin P Wilson]

It's called the "simultaneous contrast illusion". (I studied the physiology of it 30 years ago).

 

The time I first noticed the effect was as a child after spending some time in a green tent on a sunny day. When I came out everything looked pink!

[Jill Morgan]

I now edit against white. Otherwise, my images look dull and dark when processed on Alamy and in print.

 

On this advice, I have changed my PS background to white. I don't think I can change my ACR background.

 

Jill

[Dyn Llun]

One of the best exhibitions I ever had of my B&W work, in terms of the prints looking good on the walls, was when I pursuaded the gallery to paint the walls an 18% reflectance grey. (In reality it could have been 18% anything). With most B&W prints averaging out to roughly 18% grey overall, a pure white gallery wall can appear to depress the highlights in the prints due to the high uniform values of the vast expanse of bright white wall space on the eye. I have only managed to convince a couple of galleries to do this over the years, as the expense of re-painting the whole gallery before and after one show is too much for most. Or too much trouble. Luckily the sales - and their commission - made it more than worthwhile! 

[Pearl]

This is why I don't process in LR as there is no way of changing the background, unless I have missed something.

 

Pearl

[spacecadet]

Preferences>interface>background.

[Pearl]

Preferences>interface>background.

Yes I know that but I can't seem to change the side bars which remain black and take up a large part of the screen.

 

Pearl

[H_J]

 

Preferences>interface>background.

Yes I know that but I can't seem to change the side bars which remain black and take up a large part of the screen.

 

Pearl

 

Just click on the little triangles in the borders. You can also adjust the width of the bars by placing the cursor at the margin of the bar next to the image (a symbol with arrows will appear) and dragging.

[Pearl]

 

 

 

 

Preferences>interface>background.

Yes I know that but I can't seem to change the side bars which remain black and take up a large part of the screen.

 

Pearl

Just click on the little triangles in the borders. You can also adjust the width of the bars by placing the cursor at the margin of the bar next to the image (a symbol with arrows will appear) and dragging.

Yes I know that too but I need to be able to access the tools so can't make right border too small.

 

Pearl

[losdemas]

 

 

 

Preferences>interface>background.

Yes I know that but I can't seem to change the side bars which remain black and take up a large part of the screen.

 

Pearl

Just click on the little triangles in the borders. You can also adjust the width of the bars by placing the cursor at the margin of the bar next to the image (a symbol with arrows will appear) and dragging.

Yes I know that too but I need to be able to access the tools so can't make right border too small.

 

Pearl

 

 

You know that you can use the Tab key to quickly show/hide the side panels?  Aside from that, I don't think that there's anything you can do to remove or change the colour of the black border.

[Pearl]

 

 

 

 

Preferences>interface>background.

Yes I know that but I can't seem to change the side bars which remain black and take up a large part of the screen.

 

Pearl

Just click on the little triangles in the borders. You can also adjust the width of the bars by placing the cursor at the margin of the bar next to the image (a symbol with arrows will appear) and dragging.

Yes I know that too but I need to be able to access the tools so can't make right border too small.

 

Pearl

 

 

You know that you can use the Tab key to quickly show/hide the side panels?  Aside from that, I don't think that there's anything you can do to remove or change the colour of the black border.

 

Thanks Danny, yes I do know that too but the black is still influential I find.

 

Pearl

[Peter Jordan]

Thanks all for that, now I have LR5 with a white background and the images I am editing look dull.   New brighter pics on the way!

 

Can anyone tell me please how to do the same thing for PS CS2?

[Guest]

Thanks all for that, now I have LR5 with a white background and the images I am editing look dull.   New brighter pics on the way!

 

Can anyone tell me please how to do the same thing for PS CS2?

 

IIRC, CS6 introduced the changeable UI grey in preferences>interface.

[Peter Jordan]

 

Thanks all for that, now I have LR5 with a white background and the images I am editing look dull.   New brighter pics on the way!

 

Can anyone tell me please how to do the same thing for PS CS2?

 

IIRC, CS6 introduced the changeable UI grey in preferences>interface.

 

 

Thanks Geoff,

 

I just received an e-mail from Adobe offering me PS and LR subscription for £8.75 per month.   That is £105 per year.   I have not looked into it yet to see if that is a long term pricing or a limited time cheap offer.   If a long term price, it does not seem too bad as in recent years updating  LR has cost £60 per year.

 

I will still have LR5 in my laptop if, like last week, I am somewhere with no internet connection.

 

What do you think?

[Guest]

 

 

Thanks all for that, now I have LR5 with a white background and the images I am editing look dull.   New brighter pics on the way!

 

Can anyone tell me please how to do the same thing for PS CS2?

 

IIRC, CS6 introduced the changeable UI grey in preferences>interface.

 

 

Thanks Geoff,

 

I just received an e-mail from Adobe offering me PS and LR subscription for £8.75 per month.   That is £105 per year.   I have not looked into it yet to see if that is a long term pricing or a limited time cheap offer.   If a long term price, it does not seem too bad as in recent years updating  LR has cost £60 per year.

 

I will still have LR5 in my laptop if, like last week, I am somewhere with no internet connection.

 

What do you think?

 

 

That price, it's effectively what I pay (I don't pay the VAT element), AFAIK is good for one year. There's been lots of threads on the CC. i can't see Adobe suddenly making CC prohibitively expensive, sure it will go up but the economics of software are very much down to the individual - at the moment CC, IMO, is really cheap, I don't know where the level is for me to change my mind.

 

How useful is it? that depends on how much work you do on images. I use CC a lot, if you do little more than spotting/minor adjustments in Photoshop, get a copy of say CS5 at some point (you would get all the major spotting/cloning tools that you would probably need). I have a boxed copy  - may sell it...may not You don't need to be glued to the internet for CC to work.

 

Lightroom 5 is about £75 for the full flava pack - upgrading is often based on how things like how long you keep/change cameras. For me, that's not very frequent - I seemed to get rid of my gear acquisition syndrome when digital came along.

[Peter Jordan]

 

 

 

Thanks all for that, now I have LR5 with a white background and the images I am editing look dull.   New brighter pics on the way!

 

Can anyone tell me please how to do the same thing for PS CS2?

 

IIRC, CS6 introduced the changeable UI grey in preferences>interface.

 

 

Thanks Geoff,

 

I just received an e-mail from Adobe offering me PS and LR subscription for £8.75 per month.   That is £105 per year.   I have not looked into it yet to see if that is a long term pricing or a limited time cheap offer.   If a long term price, it does not seem too bad as in recent years updating  LR has cost £60 per year.

 

I will still have LR5 in my laptop if, like last week, I am somewhere with no internet connection.

 

What do you think?

 

 

That price, it's effectively what I pay (I don't pay the VAT element), AFAIK is good for one year. There's been lots of threads on the CC. i can't see Adobe suddenly making CC prohibitively expensive, sure it will go up but the economics of software are very much down to the individual - at the moment CC, IMO, is really cheap, I don't know where the level is for me to change my mind.

 

How useful is it? that depends on how much work you do on images. I use CC a lot, if you do little more than spotting/minor adjustments in Photoshop, get a copy of say CS5 at some point (you would get all the major spotting/cloning tools that you would probably need). I have a boxed copy  - may sell it...may not You don't need to be glued to the internet for CC to work.

 

Lightroom 5 is about £75 for the full flava pack - upgrading is often based on how things like how long you keep/change cameras. For me, that's not very frequent - I seemed to get rid of my gear acquisition syndrome when digital came along.

 

 

Well you have a point there, I have been managing OK with CS2 for 10 years now I got LR when it could no longer cope with RAW files on my 2009 model camera.  LR5 looks good for me for some time to come.   I tend to use PS for minor adjustments only.   I did look around for a cheap copy of CS5 a few months back without success, maybe I will have another try to find one. . .