trying to master my new monitor

belgiantrotter · November 5, 2013

For all the pro's out there

I'm just an amateur and having hard time making sure what I see on screen will be how it's going to be printed.

I just recently replaced my oldest monitor with a ASUS PA249Q. (http://www.asus.com/Monitors_Projectors/PA249Q/) it comes precalibrated from factory for sRGB, Adobe RGB and other native modes such as movie/theater, ....

since I'm doing picture editing in Lightroom I'm using the sRGB mode. (also the mode I shoot my RAW pictures)
however using the mode I often must admit my pictures miss the "punch" in color compared to another monitor I use as a second screen which is a much cheaper LCD flatpanel from Samsung.
the colors on the sRGB monitor look more faded then the other one.

my gut feeling is that this is probably the most true representation of the colors anyway. If I then edit them to make them look good on that monitor it may look ''over the top''/over satured on the other one...
(i still need to test viewing these pictures on another laptop + tablets to see how they show there)

any tips/opinions on the matter?
I guess my safest bet would be to make a few prints and compare. (but i'd like to be closest to the real thing before I do

)

thanks for any tips or advice :thumb:D

greets

Newsy · November 5, 2013

oh, this is a big can of worms. When I get more time I'll come back to it but right away when you say the colors looked more faded it set off alarms about the color space you are saving the images into, and if you have the Windows Color Management app pointed to the correct monitor ICC profile.

belgiantrotter · November 5, 2013

let me clarify a bit here

I do not save the images right now.. (no jpg's created, no prints created)

I shoot in RAW and my Nikon is set to sRGB
I'm just talking about less vivid colors (hence faded) on my screen when I compare a picture on my new monitor to the old one... I just don't know what feels fully representative to the pictures..
again my gut feeling is telling me to trust the expensive, factory calibrated monitor of course!

the Monitor came with a CD containing just the ICC color profile that I loaded into Windows 8.1 color profile for that monitor
I have not changed any settings on the software (lightroom) if that is also required...

I also don't know if that faded/less vivid color is normal when using sRGB. (first time using a ''pro'' monitor)

Again I'm talking about using a default RAW file that was just imported into lightroom with no adjustments whatsoever. the default file looks less vivid/faded and when I start to move the vibrance slider (or another one) it starts to look nice on the expensive monitor but it looks over saturated on the other monitor. (but that could just be the monitor set way too ''vivid" maybe I should at least reset that one to factory settings)

basically I'm just wondering
''should I trust what I'm seeing''?

or am I doing anything wrong (or forgot to configure something important)

thanks
Greets

belgiantrotter · November 5, 2013

found someone on dpreview that basically has same remarks/info

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3228181

I believe you actually even commented on that thread! same smugmug website signature

don't understand the comment not to use the srgb preset on the monitor. isn't that the reason i bought this monitor? I've had calibration software before and I just take it. for me to have to take the decisions what looks better...that's what I'm trying to avoid in the first place

Newsy · November 6, 2013

I have not seen a monitor yet where the so called factory "calibration" would not benefit from a fine tuning with a colorimeter - less so on a NEC PA series or an EIZO but more so on a mid-level monitor like yours. Given time, the monitor's electronic's age and wander from the original set-up and will need recalibration. IMHO, this latest trend by manufacturers is a bit of marketing fluff designed to lure in people, a bit like the 10,000,000:1 contrast ratio game they play or like with digicams, the "we got more" mega pixel count game.

In the case of the thread you referred to - the OP's monitor was problematic and I wanted the OP to have access to to the RGB sliders that are locked out in the sRGB preset mode.

Now, your old Samsung.... what was it's model number? Did it have a glossy front screen or a matte anti-glare finish?

Are you using this with a laptop or a desktop? and if a desktop with what video card?

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belgiantrotter · November 6, 2013

Fair enough on the calibration. Might need to buy a better kit for that. I had one but it was a pain because the thing asked questions on what I preferred around brightness and then did a few automated tests...

as for the hardware I have
the Samsung is a 22 inch SMBX2250 (http://www.samsung.com/ca/consumer/office/monitors/led/LS22B5HVFH/ZA)
the graphics card I have is a MSI NVIDiA Geforce 460 GTX. The samsung connect through HDMI, the Asus with DVI

I have read somewhere assigning the color profile ICC file of each monitor is not good but I should instead choose for srgb for instance: sRGB IEC61966-2.1
what i did is assign that one to both monitors in color profile management.

what I also did is reset the samsung to factory settings and they look a little bit more alike now but not that close (which is fine, I'm not trying to align them anyway as this is a cheap monitor) I just use it as second monitor
all my develop/edits are done on the ASUS anyways

greets

Newsy · November 6, 2013

belgiantrotter wrote: »

Fair enough on the calibration. Might need to buy a better kit for that. I had one but it was a pain because the thing asked questions on what I preferred around brightness and then did a few automated tests...

as for the hardware I have
the Samsung is a 22 inch SMBX2250 (http://www.samsung.com/ca/consumer/office/monitors/led/LS22B5HVFH/ZA)

I dug around....

http://www.samsung.com/us/news/newsRead.do?news_group=productnews=consumerproduct=monitors&news_seq=19709

- the BX2250 is a sRGB (not wide gamut) gamut TN paneled monitor but it uses some kind of treatment/film to deal with the usual falloff in gamma/color you have with a TN panel. It also has a matte anti glare coating (seen in a YouTube video - I'm doing a lot of extra work to get to the bottom of this).
- I'll speculate that “Magic Angle” technology is doing something to boost contrast but alone it should not be enough to make the other monitor seem faded.

the graphics card I have is a MSI NVIDiA Geforce 460 GTX. The samsung connect through HDMI, the Asus with DVI

- Every image I could find for this card shows two DVI ports and one HDMI port.
- I'm not sure that this card has a LUT (Look Up Table) for each of those ports. I seem to recall that the HDMI port shares a LUT with the DVI port closest to it.
- there is a way to test this, see below.

I have read somewhere assigning the color profile ICC file of each monitor is not good but I should instead choose for srgb for instance: sRGB IEC61966-2.1
what i did is assign that one to both monitors in color profile management.

This is just simply out and out wrong. You've assigned a profile normally used for printed output to a monitor. I know of several threads where people used this profile and it fixed a problem for them of where in one program the screen did not look the same as other programs but ultimately this was because something else in their color management was messed up.

Every monitor has its' own unique electronic character, even monitors of the same model, that if left uncorrected will produce a non standard output. The OEM supplied ICC profile is the one you should be using to correct the electronic variance so that the output is closest to standard on the screen.

what I also did is reset the samsung to factory settings and they look a little bit more alike now but not that close (which is fine, I'm not trying to align them anyway as this is a cheap monitor) I just use it as second monitor
all my develop/edits are done on the ASUS anyways

Download and install (I think you just run it from the downloaded executable) the following utility from X-rite. You load it and it will show you what profile is active for the monitor on which the utility is being displayed. Then drag it to the second monitor - normally you should see it switch to a different profile but in your case it won't as you have both monitors using the same profile.

http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=1007&Action=Support&SoftwareID=539

You can use this utility to test if each port off your video card has its' own LUT, unshared.

gtg - bbl

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Newsy · November 6, 2013

The above is just house cleaning prior to the real issue I think you are dealing with.

The ASUS PA249Q is a wide gamut monitor similar to the Dell U2413 (probably from the same OEM in Taiwan/China).

Being that they are wide gamut, interesting things can happen if you display an image that is not properly embedded & tagged as sRGB or AdobeRGB.

Viewing a sRGB image can cause it to have colours that are over saturated in appearance - skin tones will be ruddy.

Like wise, viewing an AdobeRGB image on a sRGB gamut monitor can cause it to appear faded.

gtg - bbl here are some links to review....

http://cameratico.com/tools/web-browser-color-management-test/

http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/embeddedJPEGprofiles.html#

http://www.gballard.net/photoshop/srgb_wide_gamut.html

http://petapixel.com/2012/06/25/is-your-browser-color-managed/

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belgiantrotter · November 7, 2013

wow lot of info thanks for helping out and having me learn all this stuff !!

OK so I did a few things here

1. reverted back to each monitor using it's default monitor profile ICC file. Using the tool and dragging it from one screen to another confirms that
2. did all the tests around managed color browser and in photoshop too. Most settings are ok and did not have to change a lot

for the wide gamut setting http://www.gballard.net/photoshop/srgb_wide_gamut.html
I did have to change something in firefox (value 1) for not seeing the red tint when hovering over the image

I still have my monitor set to sRGB mode for working in lightroom.
My camera settings are set to sRGB but since i shoot in RAW, that setting is apparently ignored and Adobe Lightroom prefers Adobe RGB in a sense I've read...

when I want to make prints or export for the web, that's where i need to make sure i choose sRGB in lightroom
so not really sure here.

since I'm doing a lot of web browsing too I still figure keeping it on sRGB mode is the best..

Ive used that test file from the above site PDI_Target_sRGB.jpg and opened it up in photoshop and dragged it from one monitor to another
colors on both monitor are "comparable" only my Samsung is darker

it looks like to make sure, I'll buy a new monitor calibration kit so I can run it on both monitors and try to align colors as much as possible.
then my next step will be having a few images printed and see what i see on screen is comparable to the prints ...

thanks!!!
if you still read silly things let me know

Newsy · November 7, 2013

How have you adjusted the brightness of the two units so that they match?

This is hard to do by eye. A good calibrator will give you the white luminance value so you can match each exactly.

Newsy · November 7, 2013

I should also add that a slight difference in screen gamma can also account for the difference in appearance.

trying to master my new monitor

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