New Monitor: Calibration question

eoren1

So I just bought a beautiful new monitor: the NEC Multisync 20WMGX2. 20 inches of s-ips greatness! Such a difference from the Dell 17 inch (TN panel) I used for the past 2 years.
I have the Monico Optix XR pro and went through the entire calibration procedure including setting the monitor's RGB values to a white point of 6500K and a gamma of 2.2. I settled on a brightness of 60% with contrast at 100% by following the wizard. However, the final settings read:

White point: 6500 K x=0.314, y=0.324
White Luminance: 329.78 cd/m2
Black Luminance: 0.61 cd/m2
Gamma 2.20

That white luminance seems awfully high. Do I need to go back to through the calibration procedures and choose a brightness closer to 35% to reach a target white luminance of 100-150? Any other thoughts?
Thanks,
E

eoren1

Update:
I realized that that white luminance was way too high so I went back to the monitor and adjusted to:

Brightness 40.6%
Contrast 100%
Black level 25.1%
Sharpness 16.6%
Adv DV mode off
DV mode Standard

RGB (set by me during calibration)
R 75.2%
G 71.3%
B 72.9%

LED brightness 50.2%

Current white luminance of 152.75 and black luminance of 0.43.

This was all done with the Monaco Optix XR pro using the included software and the calibrate and profile option.

I feel that I'm still not quite there for accurate photo reproduction. Can some kind soul please help guide me as to which of the above settings to adjust to shoot for a target white luminance of 120 or so? Can you explain the role of LED brightness as well as Black level and sharpness?

Any help is greatly appreciated. It's a beautiful monitor and I would hate for my stupidity in calibration to keep from enjoying it to its fullest.
E

eoren1

Ended up figuring this out and thought I would post in case the info is useful to anyone. I had cross-posted on dpreview and someone there mentioned that Black Level was a VGA thing (which I'm using because of an old video card but will change as soon as I get a Macbook) - I realized I needed to fix that first.
Went here:
http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_black.htm
And adjusted the black point until I could just barely see step 2 as different from step 1.
Then calibrated and, for the first time, realized that the Monaco Optix XR pro software tells you the white luminance as you adjust the white point. Pushed all up to the 90's (they had fallen due to repeated calibration/tweaking) and ended up with:
Brightness: 17.9
Contrast: 50
Black level: 51.9
Sharpness 16.6

R 96.0
G 90.5
B 91.3

LED brightness 50.2

Gave me a black lum of 0.41 and white lum of 116.11.
I think that the screen looks more correct now and will need to compare to a print soon.
E

Elaine

I just received this same monitor. It was so bright at first it nearly gave me an instant headache! Now I'm trying to figure out how to make it look its best. Did you leave it in "standard" viewing mode, or change it to "photo"? I copied your settings for brightness, etc..., but I haven't done any official calibration yet. My grays appear to have a slight green twinge, I think. I'm thinking of getting the Spectraview II calibration software from NEC. Do you have anything more to report regarding your calibration experience?

EDIT: I read in the manual that putting it in photo mode makes "native" the only color preset available.

After some more poking around and reading, I ended up with the same levels as you except for:
R 93.3
G 88.2
That seemed to help my grays look more gray.

I'm amazed at the amount of shadow detail I can see in pics with this monitor! Definitely a better viewing experience.

nicled

Elaine wrote:

I just received this same monitor. It was so bright at first it nearly gave me an instant headache! Now I'm trying to figure out how to make it look its best. Did you leave it in "standard" viewing mode, or change it to "photo"? I copied your settings for brightness, etc..., but I haven't done any official calibration yet. My grays appear to have a slight green twinge, I think. I'm thinking of getting the Spectraview II calibration software from NEC. Do you have anything more to report regarding your calibration experience?

EDIT: I read in the manual that putting it in photo mode makes "native" the only color preset available.

After some more poking around and reading, I ended up with the same levels as you except for:
R 93.3
G 88.2
That seemed to help my grays look more gray.

I'm amazed at the amount of shadow detail I can see in pics with this monitor! Definitely a better viewing experience.

A friend has this SPYDER2Colorvision LCD and Monitor calibrator. He said he got it for $99. Maybe this is a better alternative? Its supposed to calibrate the monitor (and LCD) with the camera's color. Has anyone heard of it?

eoren1

Hi Elaine,
Sorry for not replying sooner - had to rebuild my PC which took a little while...

That being said, I'm now running the monitor off a DVI connection so I recalibrated. Here are my current settings in case this is helpful to you:

Menu of 20WMGX2
Brightness 15.6
Contrast 50
Sharpness 16.6
Advanced DV mode Off
DV mode Standard

RGB: selected #5 (user)
R 100
G 92.9
B 95.2

I can also email you my monitor profile which will hopefully help a lot.
Congratulations on the purchase.
E