#Guideline Monitor Settings

85 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

icy dragon
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This is from a guide I initially created for work. Might be useful for some people here which want to play around with their monitor settings or doubt the look. It is very basic and intended to distinguish colors for web.

The following Steps, test Colormatch capabilities. If capabilities are not sufficient there are steps to change Monitor Settings to improve it. It's intended to assist in our Line of Work with color matching based on a file reference. However it does not focus on color accuracy. "Red Hands" might look different on your Monitor than anyone elses. For us this is a low priority but if you print or photograph and it's important for your line of work, it might make sense to invest in Calibration Hardware to improve Color Accuracy.

Test Colormatch capabilites

  • Do this surface Color vision test to see if you have a blind spot for specific colors https://www.xrite.com/hue-test.
  • Whats your Score? It might indicate a blind spot in your Monitor or even Vision. This is a very Basic Test for Color Vision and not to be taken very serious.
  • Open this Page http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/contrast.php
  • How many Bars can you differentiate? Are some bleeding into each other? Ideally you should see all Bars. If thats true your Color Settings are already fine.
  • Blacks http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php and Whites http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/white.php should be disthinguishable as well.
  • If all Blocks are visible no setting need to be changed.
  • Open these Pages here and here
  • Can you read the Text? If not, your Browser/Monitor does not support Adobe RGB color space
X-Rite
Free Online Color Challenge and Hue Test; X-Rite

X-Rite's online color challenge and hue test is a free tetrachromatic test that allows you to test your color accuracy and color vision.

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​Monitor Settings

  • Check your Monitor Settings.
  • Use a Default Mode. Adobe RGB when available or any suited for color accuracy with no/little post processing.
  • Avoid Gaming or TV Settings.
  • Color Temperature should be neutral 5000-6500 K when possible.
  • Set your Gamma to 1.8 in your Monitor Settings.
  • Disable any Color Management for now locally. For Windows/Mac there is an Explaination here where these Settings are http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/display_settings.php
  • Windows > Display properties > Advanced Display Settings > Adapter Setting for the Monitor > Color management > Profile). Set this to 'None' or add 'Adobe RGB'. Make sure its selected in Display Properties for the Monitor.
  • Apple > System Preferences > Displays > Color. If you have no color profile is fine. Use Adobe RGB when possible.
  • Adjust your Contrast first in the Monitor Settings.
  • Check if you can make more columns from [1] distinguishable. Here again is the Link http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/contrast.php
  • Blacks http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php and Whites http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/white.php should be disthinguishable as well.
  • If Contrast alone is not enough, work with Brightness.
  • If you can not manage to make all of the Bars differentiate, try using Chrome Browser.
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For Reference these are Settings we use at work

  • Adobe RGB Profile
  • 300 cd/m² Brightness
  • Whitespot D65
  • Gamma 2,20 for Adobe RGB / 1,8 for SRGB
  • Calibrated Adobe RGB and SRGB Presets with Color Navigator 7
ripe orchid
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dumb question.
so you say to put gamma to 1.8 but color profile to Adobe but then you write that your job uses 2,2 with adobe? or was that a typo?

icy dragon
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I think its one step too far but because we had all the same Hardware at work I just gone through all and made a standard

ripe orchid
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and why adobe rather than srgb? and what does your company do?

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I assume you use adobe colors in your software...

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like photoshop etc

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read some random webpage saying most web designers design for srgb, but thinking about that for a sec it surprises me considering how much ppl cried when adobe started copyrighting their colors

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and charging money for using them

icy dragon
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Adobe RGB is a bigger Colorspace and is able shows more Colors than SRGB. Not all Hardware Supports it though. SRGB is a safer bet if you want to appeal the Masses, if you use it as a Monitor Setting you will have an easier time distinguishing Shades from each other. If we would only need to deliver SRGB Files we would use it but we need to be able to disthinguish shades in Adobe RGB too is why we chose it. Without doxxing myself we do image editing for the web to show a lot of people is not limited to only a small amount of plattforms though.

ripe orchid
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interesting, my screen is supposedly set to 2,2, but the lines blur at 1,9

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there are so many conflicting settings on this screen, now discovered some eColor setting, which changed everything 😂

icy dragon
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Ecolor is probably Economy mode 👀

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If given the Option I would always use the bigger Colorspace but on my own PC I dont edit or publish a lot of Photos. Neither of my Monitors support Adobe RGB so I would just use SRGB 😄

ripe orchid
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it's some Acer thing... one of the settings for it is ecology though

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my options are:
sRGB off/on 😂

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it was default off, god knows what that was using

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the eColor thing also has standard and graphics which both made everything brigther.

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I guess it probably scrambled all other settings

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yeah, now brightness is 97 isntead of 80 as it was before

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so I guess this was just another setting of presets

icy dragon
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Yeah it's always a pain in my experience. Didnt encounter a lot of Monitors with clear and easy to use Settings

ripe orchid
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while in the graphics eColor everything definitely got darker when I switched on sRGB which I didn't notice with my previous setting 😂 I think I should probably just stop messing around 😂

ripe orchid
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it turns out, I found a solution to make my pictures look like my phone on my PC.

I just bought a 1440p qled and replaced my old 1080p 😂 (not because of this, my old screed died)

icy dragon
ripe orchid
icy dragon
ripe orchid
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honestly, phones are better than pc screens

icy dragon
novel oracle
icy dragon
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Yeah Mac's are also really good color wise and resolution too

icy dragon
novel oracle
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"Used to" is probably saying a lot. I did a few and found out it wasn't for me. 😄

icy dragon
novel oracle
# icy dragon Oh! I'm also coming from print background but worked mainly in agencies for adve...

A basic understanding of colors is definitely a help, but I also found that I had to unlearn a few things.
I think any kind of "creative" background is helpful (in quotes because I've definitely always been more technical than creative, but it's still a creativity-filled profession) when going into mini painting, be it photography, digital art or something else.

Yeah, photographers can be a real special breed for sure.

Sorry to derail your thread. 🙂

ripe orchid
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I just got home from work where I have a screen of the same size and resolution and it's crazy what a difference in brightness and color definition it is.

novel oracle
ripe orchid
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strangely the HDR made everything look washed out and boring in comparison but I guess it only really shines (hoho) if you're looking at really bright stuff

novel oracle
icy dragon
icy dragon
novel oracle
# icy dragon There is a lot of wonky default presets and fake HDR modes which just brighten s...

HDR isn't something you enable from the monitor. I know that some monitors will offer to "upscale" (for lack of a better term) SDR content to HDR, but that's not something you should ever touch.
If your output source supports HDR and provided you have compatible cables (which I've found is often not the case) the monitor will automatically show the correct format.

I haven't played with HDR on Windows but I know it's supported in Windows 11 at least. But you'll still need a game, video or other content that's actually in an HDR format for it to show.

ripe orchid
novel oracle
ripe orchid
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some cable.. not hdmi, the bigger kind, forget what they are called

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DisplayPort I guess it's called?

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the screen is a alienware aw3423dwf

novel oracle
ripe orchid
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didn't touch anything on the screen, turned on the HDR support in windows

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no, I have one that came with the monitor though, maybe I should switch to that one

novel oracle
ripe orchid
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but like... would HDR make a difference for all scenes (given it's a proper HDR source) or will it only look better if there are light bright light sources on screen? lights like the sun etc

novel oracle
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Check your firmware as well, it seems there's been some issues with it.

ripe orchid
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alright, yeah... that sounds exactly like what I was seeing

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I bet it probably just tweaks the HDR preset 😂

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also not sure if I would've reacted had I gone from my old screen to this screen's HDR, it just became really noticeable compared to the contrast it normally has

novel oracle
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HDR is it's whole own signal format (several different formats, even) and lots of TV's and monitors have historically had issues interpreting it correctly even if they do have all the hardware for it. See if the firmware is up to date first. If it is, the issue must be something else. HDR doesn't and shouldn't look washed out in any way. An SDR image properly converted to HDR format will look exactly the same.

ripe orchid
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what I mean is that it might be that it isn't really washed out. it's just that this screen makes a lot of darker elements like apps in night more etc look a lot darker than they did on my old screen, making the contrast against the bright stuff like text be a lot more apparent, so when you turn on the HDR, a lot of stuff loses contrast, giving a feeling of washed out or over exposure compared to how it was before. It might just be that they tweaked the HDR mode's general settings a bit differently or that they went back and tweaked the contrast in the SDR mode to feel more contrasty in windows (to make new users feel "wow, this is a big difference" when they first connect the screen) and forgot to do the same for the HDR mode

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or maybe I'm just cynical 😄

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but we'll see what this firmware update does

novel oracle
ripe orchid
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alright. but would your regular windows desktop be a proper HDR source?

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(if windows is set to HDR mode obviously)

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it just seems unlikely they didn't test HDR at all before shipping the screens

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I guess it could be some other rare compatability error

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that needs the firmware update

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hmm... the firmware update, if it did anything made parts of the desktop look even more over exposed

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the finals banner in steam, which used to be very bright red now looks kind of iron oxide colored 🤔

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need to see how it looks in game though

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aw crap, we don't have a HDR setting... will have to test OW

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ok, yeah... overwatch 2 looks brighter and more dynamic in HDR, however it looks more saturated in SDR but it definitely looks the flattest if I have windows set to HDR but overwatch set to SDR

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the difference is kiiiind of marginal though, I had to switch back and fourth and i picked route66 because it has a lot of directional natural light as I figured maybe that'd make most difference

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but it kind of sucks, because I'll have to turn it on in windows right before starting the game every time as I don't like how windows looks when it's set to HDR

novel oracle
ripe orchid
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definitely not dimmer. brighter if anything

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and like there's a too strong sharpen filter applied to everything

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The transition from SDR->HDR mode often leaves the user wondering why HDR is less saturated, often this is because SDR is incorrectly over saturated, stretching the Windows SDR color to the display’s maximum color range. HDR, by contrast utilizes the full color range, but for the majority of SDR applications which are designed to only use the sRGB color gamut, these images will become constrained to sRGB rather than the display’s full range, and thus look de-saturated versus their appearance in SDR mode.

hah, this sounds kind of like what I was saying

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that they set the SDR mode to be over-saturated and over-contrasty than intended to make the wow effect of the screen feel bigger

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basically to show off the contrast the screen is capable of