New Monitor- does this look right?

[uplander]

I got a new Dell 2209WA and hooked it up. Right away it seemed dark at the factory defaults of 75 & 75 for B & C. I hooked it up to my laptop so I could see SxS comparision. The laptop screen was way brighter and less contrasty and the new monitor all the shadows were very dark with no definition.

I turned the laptop screen away and edited some pics so they looked fine on the new monitor. When I veiw them later (on two different screens) they looked blown out.

How do they appear you on your screen?

Is my new Monitor defective? or what?

Pics

 

[Double H]

You need to calibrate your new monitor using a colorimeter to be sure that what you see on your monitor is "correct." It's all about color profiling. The images don't look too bad other than blown out sky and snow, white balance looks decent

 

[Shockey]

Hard to tell on these. The first two backlit pictures look.....backlit....with associated lack of contrast.
The snow looks blown in the top one but not in the second.
The last one with front light looks pretty normal, the snow looks blown.
Post a well exposed photo of a person, that is the easiest type of photo to tell from.

 

[STOFFEL]

Well while that looks like an absolutely great deal I think 120hz for TVs differs for 120hz on desktop monitors. Very nice deal there though I am sure that is a great display.

 

[itznfb]

Dell monitors need to be calibrated... period.
Their eIPS panels are not back-lit either so they do seem a bit dark.

 

[Big Mike]

As mentioned, you need to calibrate. And to do that properly, you need a hardware calibration device like the Spyder.

Without proper calibration, how do you even know that either of your screens is accurate? You could go back and forth between them all day and still not get it right.

b.t.w. It's hard to calibrate a laptop screen (not very accurate) especially if you are using it in different locations.

 

[margadigi27]

Wow not bad at all. Maybe the pictures would look different with other brands of monitor.:thumbup:

 

[Garbz]

Dell monitors need to be calibrated... period.
Their eIPS panels are not back-lit either so they do seem a bit dark.

The one at my work looks perfectly fine straight out of the box. Also you'd re-think your wording if you ever tried to read a screen with a failed backlight

Wow not bad at all. Maybe the pictures would look different with other brands of monitor.:thumbup:

That is exactly what you don't want. And calibration as mentioned several times is the key.

Well while that looks like an absolutely great deal I think 120hz for TVs differs for 120hz on desktop monitors. Very nice deal there though I am sure that is a great display.

Understatement. Completely ignoring panel technology for a moment the processing on TVs is very different. Is black a value of 0 or a value of 16? Is white 255 or 239? Depends on the TV, depends on the inputs. Heck it depends on the video card too. My ATI card needed endless tweaking of settings to get it to play nice with my TV, whereas my NVIDIA card seems to correctly send the 16-239 range out.

I got a new Dell 2209WA and hooked it up. Right away it seemed dark at the factory defaults of 75 & 75 for B & C. I hooked it up to my laptop so I could see SxS comparision. The laptop screen was way brighter and less contrasty and the new monitor all the shadows were very dark with no definition.

In my experience a desktop monitor is nearly always darker than a laptop monitor (there are exceptions though this is not a rule). Simple reason is that desktops are for indoor use, laptops need a powerful and very adjustable blacklight to cope with many variances in conditions.

Ignore the brightness issue. Turn down your room lights will fix that one quite easily. Use some reference images like this site here: LCD monitor test images to check how your screen is going in contrast / white and black reproduction / viewing angle / gamma / etc.

 

[itznfb]

Dell monitors need to be calibrated... period.
Their eIPS panels are not back-lit either so they do seem a bit dark.

The one at my work looks perfectly fine straight out of the box. Also you'd re-think your wording if you ever tried to read a screen with a failed backlight

I've never taken apart a 2209 but I've taken apart to repair several 2007wfp and 2009wfp's which have the same construction and CCFL "back-light". They are two light tubes reflected to bounce light onto the screen. There is no true back-light being projected from the rear of the panel. Which is why they are more dim than other LCDs. They use bargain bin parts from random vendors. That's why they couldn't use a custom fitted back-light.

I setup 15 of these 2209's and calibrated them all for our graphics guys and none of them were even close to accurate out of the box. Either were any of my previous 10 or so UltraSharp monitors.

Aside from a $5000 eizo I've never seen a calibrated monitor out of the box. If yours has accurate colors out of the box I'd say you just lucked out.

I still think the Dell UltraSharps are the best bang for your buck editing monitors. Don't want anyone to think I'm saying they are bad. Just don't trust them until it's hardware calibrated.

 

[chip]

LCD monitors are extremely directional. The angle at which you are viewing the monitor makes a huge difference! This is a negative feature of the LCD. I have never had this problem with CRT monitors. I mean even after you have calibrated your monitor you still have to look at it at the proper angle to get the picture right.

But your pictures do look washed out (too bright) and low contrast on #1 and 2. #3 looks different - higher contrast, too high.

 

[itznfb]

LCD monitors are extremely directional. The angle at which you are viewing the monitor makes a huge difference! This is a negative feature of the LCD. I have never had this problem with CRT monitors. I mean even after you have calibrated your monitor you still have to look at it at the proper angle to get the picture right.

But your pictures do look washed out (too bright) and low contrast on #1 and 2. #3 looks different - higher contrast, too high.

That's the point of VA and IPS panels though. Everything should be consistent at 178/178

 

[KmH]

Dell monitors need to be calibrated... period.
Their eIPS panels are not back-lit either so they do seem a bit dark.

The one at my work looks perfectly fine straight out of the box....... .

Mine too. Didn't have to adjust anything, out of the box.

 

[itznfb]

Pretty much every monitor will "look fine" out of the box. If you could accurately edit off a monitor that "looked fine" then they wouldn't sell calibration hardware. Saying you didn't need to do anything out of the box.... I'm guessing you're saying it's accurate color? I'd bet my next paycheck it isn't.

 

[inTempus]

You should calibrate your monitors, period.

You can do it quite inexpensively by using a Huey Pro. That was my first calibration tool before getting the ColorMunki. The Huey Pro does a great job and is only $90. It's worth every penny.

 

[Garbz]

Aside from a $5000 eizo I've never seen a calibrated monitor out of the box. If yours has accurate colors out of the box I'd say you just lucked out.

Accurate vs looks perfectly fine is a big distinction. I doubt mine is accurate, but the way you were talking about the screen made me think that they all came completely screwed up and unusable. Like my dad's cheapo LCD came with the contrast turned up so far by default that it looked simply nasty even when just looking at the operating system. We're on the same page now, and I fully agree for colour critical work you always need calibration.


Also I've only opened a few screens and they were all reasonably old, but I typically thought that a lot if not most of the non fancy new LCDs were backlit with a tube at the top / bottom and a prism / reflective plate in the middle. They sucked in other ways but brightness never seemed to be an issue. Maybe it's just crappy design.