Monitor Calibration and existing prints

[Tamara-Dawn]

Hi,  I have a Spyder 5 Elite and I did follow Damien's instructions.  My workspace is in the basement and I typically edit at night so I was surprised at how much I had to lower my brightness from 43% (120) to 17% (75)!  Is this typical?

At first I was worried that my calibrator was off because the whites in my screen were kind of a green tint after calibrating.  Then, I took existing lab prints and held them up to my monitor and they also had that slight green and were a good match to my calibrated screen.  

When I pictured calibrating, I thought it would make my monitor appear better.  After I saw my prints match my calibrated monitor and not the way I had my monitor set before calibration, (bright, warm even tones) it clicked that I maybe had it backwards.  At least that is what I want to confirm.  So if my calibrated monitor matches my existing prints, I would need to edit future photos to get my desired colors, correct?  Or is the slight green instead of white wrong?   I have a 27" Dell Ultrsharp.  I plan to get new prints this week to compare.  I am struggling with how low the brightness is, but hoping to adjust soon.  Also worried it may be too dim, but wanted to match as close to my prints as possible.  

Sorry to ramble, I am hoping the results will be good and I am looking forward to the RAW class!

Tamara

Edited January 5, 2017 by Tamara-Dawn
Misspelled word

[Damien Symonds]

18 minutes ago, Tamara-Dawn said:

Hi,  I have a Spyder 5 Elite and I did follow Damien's instructions.  My workspace is in the basement and I typically edit at night so I was surprised at how much I had to lower my brightness from 43% (120) to 17% (75)!  Is this typical?

Actually, if we took a poll, I expect we might find that 17% was slightly higher than average.  So yes, very typical.

19 minutes ago, Tamara-Dawn said:

When I pictured calibrating, I thought it would make my monitor appear better.

Yeah, no.  At first, you'll think it's worse.

The purpose of calibration is not to make your screen look lovely.  It's to make it match your prints, period.  As long as it does that, it doesn't matter how much you hate it.  Believe me, when you receive your first new set of post-calibration prints, and see how they turned out exactly the way you expected, THEN you'll love it.