Titan portrait in progress 13 - An ongoing challenge

Here’s a problem that crops up with every single portrait.

When I have finished a portrait to the best of my ability, I send a high-resolution jpg of it to the client so they can zoom in and check details. I ask if there is anything that needs to be adjusted. Sometimes a client requests a small change like darkening under the chin or remove a spot that I thought was part of the dog’s coat but was a piece of dirt in the photo. The client is usually right-on, the changes improve the piece. 

Alicia kept saying she wanted me to darken it. She asked me to darken Titan’s rust areas, and I did. Then she asked me to darken his black coat. (The highlights on the coat.) Normally I would make the client’s changes without question. But I really did question this. To me the artwork looked just right. This is the problem:

My client and I were looking at the same jpg on two different computer monitors. 

I carefully adjust the jpg of the portrait to be as accurate to the artwork as possible, holding the actual artwork beside my monitor. That’s done on my office computer, a high-end display color-balanced with a spectrometer. As I was struggling to understand what looked too light to Alicia, I opened the jpg on my studio computer. No wonder she thought it looked light. It was….on a different monitor.

When I adjust the colors to match the artwork on my office computer, on my studio computer it looks too light. If I adjust the colors to match the artwork on my studio computer, on my office computer it looks too dark, and too red. Every monitor displays color differently. That’s an ongoing challenge when sharing artwork with clients. 

Here are the two jpgs side-by-side so  you can see the difference. I have no idea how the colors will look to you. 

Adjusting the color on my studio computer with the actual artwork in front of it. On the monitor is the scan (on the left) that I had adjusted on my office computer. A duplicate of the scan is on the right, and I’m just starting to adjust it in the studio to match the artwork. 

🎨 Prismacolor pencil on “Sky Grey” Canson Mi-Teintes paper

Portrait of Titan

Commissioned by Alicia McCarthy.