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Author Topic: Dell FS w/Mac  (Read 6768 times)

Curt

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Dell FS w/Mac
« on: April 02, 2006, 10:14:21 am »

In my quest to convert from PC to a Mac G5, I am hoping that my Dell 20" Ultrasharp will work properly on the Mac?
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61Dynamic

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« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2006, 01:51:47 pm »

It'll work just fine.
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Roy

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« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2006, 03:11:32 pm »

Quote
In my quest to convert from PC to a Mac G5, I am hoping that my Dell 20" Ultrasharp will work properly on the Mac?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=61575\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

It will work well, but Dell displays are very bright, have limited brightness adjustment range, and a slightly cool colour balance. A Dell 2005FPW using the DVI input, native 1680 x 1050 resolution, brightness set to minimum, measured with a GM eye-one display 2 colourimeter, gives:

luminance 194 cd/m^2 (minimum 0.4 cd/m^2)
colour temp (display native) 6800K
gamma 2.2

On the 2005FPW go into the on-screen display setup menu and create a custom colour setting of R, G and B all 100% to get the display into native colour mode which will give you the best results if you are going to profile it.

Once profiled, it looks very nice.
« Last Edit: April 02, 2006, 03:48:45 pm by Roy »
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Roy

61Dynamic

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Dell FS w/Mac
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2006, 04:19:14 pm »

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It will work well, but Dell displays are very bright, have limited brightness adjustment range, and a slightly cool colour balance. A Dell 2005FPW using the DVI input, native 1680 x 1050 resolution, brightness set to minimum, measured with a GM eye-one display 2 colourimeter, gives:

luminance 194 cd/m^2 (minimum 0.4 cd/m^2)
colour temp (display native) 6800K
gamma 2.2

On the 2005FPW go into the on-screen display setup menu and create a custom colour setting of R, G and B all 100% to get the display into native colour mode which will give you the best results if you are going to profile it.

Once profiled, it looks very nice.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=61597\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Don't change any of the RGB settings. Select "Factory Reset" and then "Color Settings" before calibrating (which should put it around R100, G97, B94). At defaults it should be 6500K. Roy is right otherwise; it is very bright for photo-eding.
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Roy

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« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2006, 05:59:33 pm »

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Don't change any of the RGB settings. Select "Factory Reset" and then "Color Settings" before calibrating (which should put it around R100, G97, B94). At defaults it should be 6500K. Roy is right otherwise; it is very bright for photo-eding.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=61603\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

The point is NOT to have the RGB values scaled in the display. Sure, you can mess around with these values and achieve any apparent colour balance you wish, but at the cost of less accurate colour reproduction and more posterization, particularly in the shadows. Once you scale in the monitor, you no longer get 256 steps in each channel and you get jumps in the response.

LCD monitors perform best at their native colour temperature, unless you are dealing with a sophisticated and expensive display like an Eizo with 10-bit LUTs. That's why well-designed medium-price displays like the ones from Apple give you no colour controls.

Run the monitor in native mode, let the monitor profile do what it is meant to do, and you will get the most accurate colour.
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Roy

61Dynamic

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« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2006, 11:18:42 pm »

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The point is NOT to have the RGB values scaled in the display. Sure, you can mess around with these values and achieve any apparent colour balance you wish, but at the cost of less accurate colour reproduction and more posterization, particularly in the shadows. Once you scale in the monitor, you no longer get 256 steps in each channel and you get jumps in the response.

LCD monitors perform best at their native colour temperature, unless you are dealing with a sophisticated and expensive display like an Eizo with 10-bit LUTs. That's why well-designed medium-price displays like the ones from Apple give you no colour controls.

Run the monitor in native mode, let the monitor profile do what it is meant to do, and you will get the most accurate colour.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=61610\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
No need to tell me all this!  Your points are exactly right but you achieve native settings by reseting to the factory defaults. By setting all RGB values to 100 you are altering the displays LUTs.
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Roy

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« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2006, 11:37:59 pm »

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No need to tell me all this!  Your points are exactly right but you achieve native settings by reseting to the factory defaults. By setting all RGB values to 100 you are altering the displays LUTs.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=61637\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Don't think you're right on that. Care to give some source for your opinion?

On the Dell 2005FPW I have, default tries to imitate sRGB. Panels and backlights don't come in sRGB, they come as they are and may need to be pushed in one direction or other to give something like sRGB, which is why factory default isn't a setting of 100 on each of R, G and B.
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Roy

61Dynamic

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« Reply #7 on: April 03, 2006, 05:37:22 pm »

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Don't think you're right on that. Care to give some source for your opinion?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=61639\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Experience. I've calibrated a good number of displays and have always obtained the best results by leaving the display at its defaults and not altering anything in the OSD. There has been nothing to indicate the Dell 2005FPW would be different. Suggesting Dell altered the displays LUTs in order to be more like sRGB is purely speculative. To be fair, it is not out of the realm of possibility (even though it goes against the currently popular methodologies of making things shiny and bright opposed to color-accurate since shiny sells more).

Out of curiosity and to quantitate this, I calibrated the Dell at the factory defaults and again at your suggestion of setting everything to 100. I used ColorEyes after each calibration/profiling to verify the profiles to see how accurate they were. Attached are screen grabs of the results. The Factory defaults resulted in a more accurate profile with an average Delta E of 0.35 compared to 0.43 and a max of 0.87 compared to 1.20.

Both are very useable and the differences won't have any significant effect on color perception. However, if you want to have absolute accuracy (or as much as possible), then setting the factory defaults seems to be the way to go.
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Roy

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« Reply #8 on: April 04, 2006, 02:50:28 pm »

Interesting.

I ran a similar test using the GM monitor validation tool in eye-one match 3.6.

Similar results to yours: delta e avg 0.55, max 1.50 with RGB all set to 100. Avg 0.36, max 1.34 with RGB set to the default sRGB. (I don't think the difference in max values between your measurements and mine are significant; the GM tool measures more colours and only one in each case was that far off.)

I haven't checked gray ramps to see if there is any difference in banding, but it does seem that sRGB gives slightly more accurate colour.

Strange indeed that RGB all 100 would not be a "native" setting.

Cheers
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Roy
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