New Monitor- does this look right?

[itznfb]

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.

Yea. Dell monitors are certainly usable out of the box from what I've seen. Better than most. But after a lot of criticism on my shots I finally purchased a Spyder3 and realized how bad my edits were because of the minor color inaccuracies. Without calibration I was over-saturating everything.

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.

In LED back-lights the light are actually custom fitted within the panel. There is a board of lights that sits flush with the panel. I believe this is the way they are all done. The only one I've taken apart is my Dell Studio.

 

[Garbz]

Yeah thought as much. New technology those ,

 

[itznfb]

I'd be interested to know if uplander decided to get a calibration device or not..... any update?

On a side note speaking of bang for your buck editing monitors; I got a chance to play around with the Samsung F2380 (cVPA) last night and I have to say it's quite impressive. Especially at a $300 price tag. Not sure if cVPA is a proprietary technology to Samsung or if other manufactures will start building with cVPA panels but it seems to be a way of doing away with low end over priced IPS panels. 1 big downside to this monitor though is 16:9 instead of 16:10.

 

[uplander]

I'd be interested to know if uplander decided to get a calibration device or not..... any update?

On a side note speaking of bang for your buck editing monitors; I got a chance to play around with the Samsung F2380 (cVPA) last night and I have to say it's quite impressive. Especially at a $300 price tag. Not sure if cVPA is a proprietary technology to Samsung or if other manufactures will start building with cVPA panels but it seems to be a way of doing away with low end over priced IPS panels. 1 big downside to this monitor though is 16:9 instead of 16:10.

Been busy but I ordered a Spyder 3 and it should be here on Fri. I knew I needed to get a calibrater but hadn't thought to order it at the same time.

I was just concerned that the monitor seemed very dark. The minute I hooked it up I knew I needed to calibrate it but there was still this concern of the darkness and how the detail was lost in the shadows.

The horse pics were prolly poor choices to post but they were handy as I was just editing them. The scene itself made for very difficult exposures.

Thanks for all the comments. I'm leaving for Argentina on Monday and I hope to get a bit of time to calibrate and get back to you all before I leave or else I'll let you know what happens when I get back.

 

[Garbz]

Good to hear.

Dark screen and screen that can't display shadows are two different things. My screen the contrast ratio varies between about 600:1 and 500:1 depending on brightness. Even if I turn my screen down all the way, if I turn my room lights down too the tonal range is still accurate.

I'm inclined to believe a calibrator will help you with exactly that problem. But do remember that darkness is arbitrary and matched to the environment. A lot of calibration softwares recommend 160cd/m^2 for brightness, which is incredibly dark but also assume the room lighting to be a meagre 70lx (about a 30watt lightbulb).

Not sure if cVPA is a proprietary technology to Samsung or if other manufactures will start building with cVPA panels but it seems to be a way of doing away with low end over priced IPS panels.

There really are only a small handful of manufacturers of LCD panels, Samsung is one of them. Even if cVPA is a Samsung proprietary technology, if it's good you'll likely find it in monitors from a large variety of different brands.

Dell 2209WA = LG e-IPS panel.
Dell 2408WFP = Samsung S-PVA panel.

 

[uplander]

Syder 3 came in, calibrated monitor and it has improved the darkened shadows. color hasn't appeared to change much but overall vastly better image.

Anyway , thanks all.

 

[Garbz]

Is there something wrong with the colour as is? Remember eyes typically adjust to the natural light. If you're shooting under fluros the screen could easily appear tinted slightly to the green or purple. In my room I run dark halogens so the screen looks visibly blue when calibrated to 6500k (thus I calibrate to 5000k) but if I turn my lights off it doesn't matter, my eyes will adjust to the screen in that case.

 

[itznfb]

When you calibrate and switch between non-calibrated and calibrated desktop you won't notice much of a difference. You should however notice a big difference in final product while editing. I also calibrate with no light, and edit with no light. Easiest way to keep things consistent.

 

[Garbz]

Indeed. Unless you calibrate to a very different white balance than the native screen white balance. A friend complained bitterly at how blue his image looked. I changed the subject to steer him away from it and then later that evening I told him to turn his calibration off, and he was amazed at how orange it then looked.

Damn our eyes.