Painting from a Monitor instead of a Print

[Garth Herrick]

Hi Michael,

Congratulations on your gorgeous new monitor! I think you made an excellent choice.

I have been painting from a monitor for four years. I got my Apple Studio Display two years ago which was a tremendous improvement over my old CRT monitor. I personally rate Apple Studio Displays as the best available, especially the new generation like your's. Since my monitor is of the previous generation, it is only compatible with a Macintosh computer.

Since mine doesn't tilt like yours, and I needed it to tilt, my solution was to attach it to a very heavy duty 1950's movie camera tripod, which is quite sturdy and portable. A great benefit is that I can adjust the height of the monitor from 3 feet (1 meter) to 8.5 feet (2.55 meters). This enables me to always have the monitor at a comfortable viewing height.

Actually I am returning to the use of reference prints in conjunction with the monitor. I can do a lot of work from the print and save the monitor from overuse. The prints are calibrated to the exact values I intend to use.

Pictured below is my setup on the tripod.

Allan: The round disk is my gray reference scale calibrated to Photoshop Lab Color. This is my way around the problem you just described.

Michael: As you can see, I have used your olive green studio paint recipe (but I forgot which thread it was that you mentioned it). Thanks for the tip! Also we can visually compare the Photoshop interfaces in both PC (in your photo above) and Mac (in my photo).

Garth

[Allan Rahbek]

Garth,

Interesting to see your tools.

Actually I got the idea of using the monitor, directly as reference, from you, when mentioned in a tread somewhere.

As I understand it, you measure from the monitor by pointing with the arrow (mouse) and get a code that referrers to a value on your round card. With the card you can compare with the color/value you are painting, right?

Allan

[Garth Herrick]

Originally Posted by Allan Rahbek

Garth,

Interesting to see your tools.

Actually I got the idea of using the monitor, directly as reference, from you, when mentioned in a tread somewhere.

As I understand it, you measure from the monitor by pointing with the arrow (mouse) and get a code that referrers to a value on your round card. With the card you can compare with the color/value you are painting, right?

Allan

Right!

Allan, I generally only need to refer to it a few times. After a few initial comparisons, most the values seem to fall into place with visual comparison. But it does help me to get onto the right value path sooner.

Garth

PS: You know, it is kind of weird standing at my computer monitor while working at my easel and looking at a photo of the same in my previous post!

[Elizabeth Schott]

Michael, I looked at those lovely monitors too. They are the first generation of "flat" screens that are actually good for artist, is this what Bill is using too?

My questions is; since they are measured on the diagonal, are you finding the size hard to work with. Do you have to scroll with the reference full size to your canvas, or do you keep your image smaller. On my PowerBook, it frustrates me having to scroll, especially when I am trying to protect my keyboard if using pastels.

Thanks, Beth

[Michael Georges]

Hello Beth:

Thus far, no problems. The monitor measures 10.75 on the vertical. You might have to scroll a bit, but the benefits far outweigh the slight inconvenience of having to scroll around the image, IMO.

Allan: I too have a grayscale that I use to try to judge what I am getting out of my reference. The nice thing that I will be doing in the future is setting the model up, taking my shots, selecting the best one, and then pulling that shot into PS and color correcting it while comparing it to the model - to get it as close to life as I can.

Garth: Glad this is working so well for you! It is nice to hear that others have had success with it. In our business, we cannot always get the person to pose for the whole portrait from life. Thus it becomes imperative that we use the very best reference we can get outside of the live person. I think this is a major step up from using printed reference.

[Holly Snyder]

I've been using our old computer and old CRT monitor in my studio for a few months now. I've also found, however, that the images on the Dell LCD monitor of our main computer are far superior to any print I've been able to create. While the CRT monitor is a far cry from our LCD monitor, it's still convenient. It's nice to be able to enlarge or shrink the image at will, and not have the expense of printing out copies. Thanks for showing your setup Garth.

Holly

[Garth Herrick]

Elizabeth, and everyone,

The new Apple monitors come as large as 30 inches (less scrolling; see the whole width of your portrait at once)!!! But they are probably too expensive and precious to use at an easel, at least for most of us. It's okay to dream of having one, isn't it?

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPL....2.1.3.0.0.1.0

Another option to consider is the all-new iMac G5. This is a self contained 2 inch thick machine with a built in flatscreen 17 inch or 20 inch display:

http://www.apple.com/imac/

Garth

[Linda Nelson]

This winter I bought a Sony Viao laptop, which I set next to my easel and use as reference instead of prints. I still make prints, but as a complement to the laptop. I have black and white and other variations all on file, and so can flip amongst them as needed. Having multiple versions I think helps me break free from just "copying" too literally any one version.

I completely love it. It is much more accurate and flexible than using prints alone. I particularly like being able to zoom in at out as I work through the canvas. I also like that I can just turn the image off altogether, and paint without any references - just concentrate on the painting by itself and work on it as you see in front of you.

Another bonus is that this has dramatically cut down on my printing costs (photo paper is expensive!) and the HOURS of wasted labor getting prints that are satisfactory to use.

I bought the sony viao in particular because of the screen - it has a great contrast ratio.

Since it's a laptop, I can also bring it to the client, and show them the initial layouts for their approval - again circumventing the wasted time of making a print to show them. I still show them prints as well, but the monitor can help the approval process.

my next big purchase eventually will be to get a HUGE flatscreen monitor - so that I can make the image even larger and therefore step back from the canvas better.