Also, with SLCD2 on the One X it's capable of plenty...
No need to continually defend the One X. In fact, if you can find a single sentence where I have claimed the one X screen to be bad, inferior, or even that I prefer the GSIII screen to the One X, I'll owe you a coke.
I also didn't state that anybody should try to undo the work of a director or artist that purposely makes something look like something other than reality.
Personally, that's exactly what I recommend for people to do.
If you know you like your media a certain way, by all means have it that way. The director will get over it after doing a bit more blow and kicking some models out of his mansion.
As a content creator myself, I would like you to see the image I created, the way I created it, but if it brings you more pleasure to see it differently, go for it.
If the display is calibrated correctly then it'll look exactly as the director/artist intended.
Indeed, but does that *really* matter for a phone in the grand scheme of things? I mean, Scorsese didn't really have a 4"-something screen in mind while Mr. Bickle was asking if anyone was, "Talking to me?"
But to that end, it would be interesting to measure what the output of the One X screen does display at.
Just to clarify, are you saying that you don't try to make your pictures as close to reality as possible?
What's reality?
Here's an example from a shot I did for a buddy a while back:
Does that look like reality to you? Yeah it looks like a car you've seen on the road plenty of times right?
But at the same time, when you're just walking through a parking lot (all be it an empty parking lot) does the light hit the car just so to make the skyline reflect off the hood but little else? Does the horizon reflect in the light cluster to give it more contrast, yet leave the windshield devoid of reflections? Heck, do you routinely get down and look at a car from about 3 feet off the ground? (Hint, the camera lens is below the height of the side view mirror.) To say nothing about what the colors actually looked like, have you ever stopped to appreciate the ghastly quality of light in a ball-field parking lot?
So I would say that reality is always in the area with my work, but it isn't the most important thing by a long shot.
Because if you are, then you obviously choose paper, ink, and a printer that will accurately print what's on your display.
When you look at the print in one of these, yes.
http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=1191
But you've bought my print and hung it on the wall with a dingy CFL light hanging above it? Not much I can do about that.
And your display should be calibrated to display pictures as close to reality as possible,
Again, not reality. To a measured known that I want to mimic.
But at the same time, when my pictures are viewed on the web by other people, I *know* they are not being viewed the same way I am viewing it. I *know* that few people have the properly calibrated system required to see it exactly the way I do. In fact, for screen display, I process the image differently than for print. Most people have their displays way too bright for example, with the whites somewhat crushed. I can make an effort to compensate for it, but ultimately I know it is going to look really different to anyone at home looking at it on their screen. That's reality. Heck, that car pic above, I can almost guarantee that you're seeing it as brighter than I intended it to be. In the physical print, it is printed on metalic paper and it looks dark and brooding. But that's life.
and I'm just making a natural assumption that you're using a really good camera (DSLR) that takes awesomely accurate pictures (with proper white balance and such).
Actually, the cameras are not *that* accurate by themselves, believe it or not, they have to be profiled too, to compensate for inherent inaccuracies in the camera.
As for white balance, quite truthfully, most of the time I use an intentionally incorrect white balance. For example, see my little assistant/model here. All those 10 white patches on the top half of the checker represent a slightly different white balance, just for skin tones. Which one is correct? All of them!
-Suntan