My photos are darker in computer than in camera

[santoro80]

When I'm shooting with strobes with camera in "manual mode" I'm evaluating my exposure on camera LCD display. When I take some picture, the exposure is ok on camera LCD display, but when I open it in Bridge or Camera Raw, its suddenly much darker. I need to increase the exposure about 1-2 stops in order to achieve same exposure as it appears on camera LCD!
When I look on histogram on my camera, the image is maybe a little bit darker than it seems on LCD. That means my LCD display on camera is probably too bright (and I dont think I can darken it... maybe a little).
Strange thing is when I open that same RAW picture in Zoner Photo Studio, its exposure appears same as on my camera LCD. Why?
Is there some solution for this problem?

[madclark]

1. You should be evaluating your images on the camera by viewing the histogram. Relying solely on the LCD can give you a false reading of the image exposure if your LCD screen is too bright or too dark.

2. You need to buy a colorimeter for your computer screen to optimize the output. It will help make what you see as true as possible.

Now why this second program is rendering closer to the LCD screen is not immediately apparent to me. In any case, without having some consistency between your camera and your computer monitor, it doesn't really matter anyway.

[andrewrodney]

If you shoot raw, the Histogram is a big fat lie, its showing you a JPEG conversion built by the camera. It has little relation to the actual raw data. See:http://www.digitalphotopro.com/techn...g-for-raw.html

The LCD on the camera is far from accurate even when you shoot JPEGs compared to a well calibrated display system. Use it as a guide but its not at all locked in stone.

Strange thing is when I open that same RAW picture in Zoner Photo Studio, its exposure appears same as on my camera LCD. Why?

Expose correctly for raw, use the rendering controls in the converter to produce a color and tone appearance you desire. That’s why you shoot raw!

[madclark]

Wow! andrewrodney you have blown my mind and sent me down the rabbit hole on this issue. I always assume that the histogram reading was giving you direct information about the RAW image, not a processed jpeg. And from this thread I'm reading things about linear gamma, ETTR, etc. I realize I have a lot wrong about shooting RAW.

Santoro80, try Googling information about "UniWB" and your camera model. Using a universal white balance on your camera while shooting raw apparently helps neutralize the preview JPEG to give you a more accurate histogram reference. The reference JPEG may look horrible but it won't matter when you post-process the RAW file.

And if you weren't familiar, look for some articles about ETTR (expose to the right) as well. Again, I did not know that if your exposure wasn't pushed as far to the right of a histogram without clipping highlights you are actually losing significant dynamic range because of how digital cameras operate.

[santoro80]

Originally Posted by andrewrodney

Expose correctly for raw, use the rendering controls in the converter to produce a color and tone appearance you desire. That’s why you shoot raw!

Easy to say... but if I can only see picture or histogram of JPEG preview in RAW on my LCD, I really dont know how should I expose correctly for RAW in camera.

UniWB? I searched for it... and I dont know. it sounds really weird

I tried to decrease the brightness on my LCD, but its still much brighter than the actual image in Camera Raw. Maybe I should stick ND filter on my display )) or maybe I could try to change the picture profile for JPEGs somehow...