Pages: 1 [2]   Go Down

Author Topic: Wasted many years with bad monitors  (Read 17360 times)

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #20 on: December 14, 2009, 08:42:05 pm »

Quote from: DaveCollins
However, if your prints don't match what  you see on your monitor and both printer and monitor are  calibarted/profiled, you may want change your hardware and up the  quality.

Of course! If a monitor simply won't calibrate properly for whatever reason, then you need to change something. I don't believe Dell monitors have a good reputation for lending themselves to accurate calibration. They tend to be cheap, budget monitors which are overly bright with a poor contrast ratio. It wouldn't surprise me if many of them had only a 6 bit dithered output per channel.

Having gone from one extreme to another, I'm not surprised the difference is so obvious.
Logged

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #21 on: December 14, 2009, 09:07:09 pm »

Quote from: Gigapixel
Even high-end CRT monitors cover little more than sRGB. Since nearly every sensor is sensitive to a much larger gamut than sRGB, especially in the greens, a monitor which covers at least AdobeRGB is necessary to show what the image contains. Calibrating monitors is a tedious task, which is made considerably easier by the concept of hardware-calibration, in which case the software is programming the monitor-LUT according to the target parameters and is therefore conserving the full 24bit color. No more fiddling with brightness- and RGB-settings to preset the monitor. For their SpectraView/ColorGraphic-Series NEC and Eizo use only hand-selected panels which are individually corrected for uniformity and linear grayscale.

This is a common argument and I wouldn't deny that expensive, wider-gamut monitors will display subtle shades that are not discernible on a basic sRGB monitor. There are also shades within the ProPhoto color space that can be printed on the latest Epson printers, but which cannot be displayed even on the best Eizo monitor, apparently. But I've never had the opportunity to see them.

I get a very strong sense here that we're into great subtlety. We're into the pixel-peeping equivalent of color.

What I'd find interesting is, if you could honestly report on the differences you see on your Eizo monitor when comparing, side by side, the same image with different embedded profiles, say sRGB and Adobe RGB. As you probably know, the later versions of Photoshop allow you to open an image using whatever embedded profile it has, even though it may be different to that of your working space.

I suspect that you might have to search for specific images which highlight such differences to an extent they are obvious. For most images, the differences may be of a pixel-peeping magnitude.




Logged

Gigapixel

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 25
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #22 on: December 15, 2009, 03:52:34 am »

Quote from: Ray
This is a common argument and I wouldn't deny that expensive, wider-gamut monitors will display subtle shades that are not discernible on a basic sRGB monitor. There are also shades within the ProPhoto color space that can be printed on the latest Epson printers, but which cannot be displayed even on the best Eizo monitor, apparently. But I've never had the opportunity to see them.

I get a very strong sense here that we're into great subtlety. We're into the pixel-peeping equivalent of color.

What I'd find interesting is, if you could honestly report on the differences you see on your Eizo monitor when comparing, side by side, the same image with different embedded profiles, say sRGB and Adobe RGB. As you probably know, the later versions of Photoshop allow you to open an image using whatever embedded profile it has, even though it may be different to that of your working space.

I suspect that you might have to search for specific images which highlight such differences to an extent they are obvious. For most images, the differences may be of a pixel-peeping magnitude.

Common examples where the advantage of a wide gamut could be easily seen are pictures of flowers or macro nature shots, which usually contain very saturated colors, exceeding sRGB by far. Other examples are beauty or fashion with colored make-up and fabrics etc, colored light sources etc. I admit that for most people and most images there is probably close to no benefit in using a monitor with a gamut much larger than sRGB. However, in the future this may change...

In my view and assuming a properly calibrated display, the subtleties are indeed not the reason for buying these expensive high-end monitors. At least for me the strong points in favor of the Eizo CG242W are the size, the extended gamut, the warranty, the uniformity of the backlight and last but not least the *comfort* of hardware calibration. Regarding precision of calibration and subtleties of shades, my old 17" Eizo 565 was equally satisfiying, if not better...
« Last Edit: December 15, 2009, 03:55:00 am by Gigapixel »
Logged

digitaldog

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 20630
  • Andrew Rodney
    • http://www.digitaldog.net/
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #23 on: December 15, 2009, 09:32:08 am »

Quote from: Ray
There are also shades within the ProPhoto color space that can be printed on the latest Epson printers, but which cannot be displayed even on the best Eizo monitor, apparently. But I've never had the opportunity to see them.

And considering one of the primaries fall outside human vision, you never will!

These color spaces are containers. ProPhoto is a huge one and in order to build such a theoretical color space from bits of math, those who design them can place the primaries where they wish, even if that means they define “invisible” colors, colors humans can’t see (meaning they are not colors but that’s another post).

And if you shoot a gray card Raw and encode into sRGB then ProPhoto RGB, you will not see much differences (well the numbers will be) but point is, one container is using far, far less of the possibly defined color than the other.
« Last Edit: December 15, 2009, 11:31:04 am by digitaldog »
Logged
http://www.digitaldog.net/
Author "Color Management for Photographers".

DaveCollins

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #24 on: December 15, 2009, 10:34:21 am »

Quote from: digitaldog
And if you shoot a gray card Raw and encode into sRGB then ProPhoto RGB, you will not see much differences (well the numbers will be) but point is, one container is using far, far less of the possibly defined color than the other.

Note sure what you are saying here. If I have an image in sRGB in which there is a gray card and its RGB value is (80,80,80), wouldn't that theoretically map into the same value (80,80,80) in ProPhoto RGB. If it mapped to a different value then switching between the spaces would change all colors in an image. I thought the value of ProPhoto RGB was that some wavelengths of light which are clipped in sRGB get mapped into ProPhoto RGB, but that colors which are common have the same value. I am asking, I don't know the answer.
Logged

digitaldog

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 20630
  • Andrew Rodney
    • http://www.digitaldog.net/
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #25 on: December 15, 2009, 11:27:57 am »

Quote from: DaveCollins
Note sure what you are saying here. If I have an image in sRGB in which there is a gray card and its RGB value is (80,80,80), wouldn't that theoretically map into the same value (80,80,80) in ProPhoto RGB. If it mapped to a different value then switching between the spaces would change all colors in an image. I thought the value of ProPhoto RGB was that some wavelengths of light which are clipped in sRGB get mapped into ProPhoto RGB, but that colors which are common have the same value. I am asking, I don't know the answer.


80/80/80 isn’t the same color in ProPhoto versus sRGB. G255 uses the same numeric value in both but vastly different in terms of where it falls within human vision when plotted on a CIE chromaticity diagram.


You can see that blue in ProPhoto isn’t visible. The tip of the green plotted here is what G255 as solely a number in a defined scale would fall based on “human vision”.
Logged
http://www.digitaldog.net/
Author "Color Management for Photographers".

DaveCollins

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 11
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #26 on: December 15, 2009, 12:41:26 pm »

Quote from: digitaldog
80/80/80 isn't the same color in ProPhoto versus sRGB. G255 uses the same numeric value in both but vastly different in terms of where it falls within human vision when plotted on a CIE chromaticity diagram.

You can see that blue in ProPhoto isn't visible. The tip of the green plotted here is what G255 as solely a number in a defined scale would fall based on "human vision".

I appreciate the response, but I am still unclear on one aspect of this. Maybe you answered it and I didn't understand.

Consider this theoretical situation:

I have a camera which can capture the entire ProPhoto color space.
I have a monitor which can display the entire ProPhoto color space.
I take an image using this camera of a scene which only contains colors from the sRGB color space.

I process the image as an sRGB image and view it in Photoshop as Image_A.
I process the image as a ProPhoto image and view it in Photoshop as Image_B.

Will my human nervous system see Image_A and Image_B as identical images on my special monitor with respect to the colors perceived?
« Last Edit: December 15, 2009, 12:42:34 pm by DaveCollins »
Logged

Jonathan Wienke

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5829
    • http://visual-vacations.com/
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #27 on: December 15, 2009, 01:48:39 pm »

Quote from: DaveCollins
Will my human nervous system see Image_A and Image_B as identical images on my special monitor with respect to the colors perceived?

Ideally yes, if the monitor profile is optimal and everything is configured properly. What will be very different is the RGB values in the sRGB and ProPhoto versions of the files needed to get those identical-appearing colors.
Logged

kjkahn

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 91
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #28 on: December 15, 2009, 04:19:05 pm »

Quote from: Jonathan Wienke
Ideally yes, if the monitor profile is optimal and everything is configured properly. What will be very different is the RGB values in the sRGB and ProPhoto versions of the files needed to get those identical-appearing colors.
If I open a wide-gamut (e.g. Prophoto RGB) image on a WG monitor (e.g. NEC LCD2690WUXi2-BK-SV) in Photoshop and select View|Proof Setup|Windows RGB (or Macintosh RGB), will it show what the image will look like on an sRGB monitor?
Logged

Jonathan Wienke

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5829
    • http://visual-vacations.com/
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #29 on: December 15, 2009, 06:58:53 pm »

Quote from: kjkahn
If I open a wide-gamut (e.g. Prophoto RGB) image on a WG monitor (e.g. NEC LCD2690WUXi2-BK-SV) in Photoshop and select View|Proof Setup|Windows RGB (or Macintosh RGB), will it show what the image will look like on an sRGB monitor?

Windows RGB and Macintosh RGB are not the same as sRGB necessarily, so I doubt it. If you proof to sRGB instead, theoretically yes, if the second monitor is perfectly calibrated to sRGB. But unless the monitor in hardware calibrated with an internal LUT (like an Eizo or NEC with Spectraview), it isn't going to match sRGB--it will have its own color space. If you wanted to engage in some mierenneuken, you could use the monitor profile from the quasi-sRGB monitor to soft-proof an image displayed on the WG monitor and see a close approximation of what the image might look like if displayed on the quasi-sRGB monitor. But I'm not sure what practical benefit there might be in doing so...
« Last Edit: December 15, 2009, 07:01:31 pm by Jonathan Wienke »
Logged

Ray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 10365
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #30 on: December 15, 2009, 08:23:10 pm »

Quote from: DaveCollins
I appreciate the response, but I am still unclear on one aspect of this. Maybe you answered it and I didn't understand.

Consider this theoretical situation:

I have a camera which can capture the entire ProPhoto color space.
I have a monitor which can display the entire ProPhoto color space.
I take an image using this camera of a scene which only contains colors from the sRGB color space.

I process the image as an sRGB image and view it in Photoshop as Image_A.
I process the image as a ProPhoto image and view it in Photoshop as Image_B.

Will my human nervous system see Image_A and Image_B as identical images on my special monitor with respect to the colors perceived?

As I understand, if you process an image in ProPhoto RGB, you have the potential to create degrees of color saturation which would be 'out of gamut' in sRGB.

The answer depends on what you mean by 'processing'. I would say, if you process an image in the sRGB space so that nothing is 'out of gamut' in proof-colors mode, then convert the image to Prophoto without further processing, then the image should look the same on the monitor and print the same, provided you get the printer settings right.

However, the numbers that represent a specific shade in sRGB will tend to be larger than the numbers that represent the same shade within the ProPhoto color space, because the ProPhoto space is larger.

As regards the true visual improvement of a high quality monitor such as the Eizo models, I would like to see a comparison of two images side by side, such that one image is a RAW file converted and processed into the ProPhoto RGB space, and the other is a straight conversion of that processed image to sRGB.

Colors within the original ProPhoto space which are outside the gamut of the sRGB space, will be clipped or reduced to fit inside the smaller sRGB space. Fully saturated yellows, for example, should appear marginally 'less' yellow, with a hint of cyan.

There may be certain shades of green that can be differentiated in the ProPhoto image, but may be merged into one shade in the sRGB conversion.

However, even the best current monitors are not able to display the full gamut of ProPhoto RGB, but very close to the full gamut of Adobe RGB, so it might be better to conduct the experiment using Adobe RGB and the same image converted to sRGB.

My own limited experience would suggest that the difference in appearance between two such images, on an Eizo monitor for example, will be subtle. Just how subtle I would like to find out.
Logged

Plekto

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 551
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #31 on: December 20, 2009, 11:28:10 pm »

I'd like to add that there are only a couple of major makers of LCD panels in the marketplace.  Everything else, including EIZO, is just labeling, packaging, and a few different electronics and features.   It gets confusing, though, as often most makes aren't clearly labeled or they chance panels for different models.


***
17" Eizo L557 25ms PVA (Samsung LTM170E6-L03) panel
17" Eizo L560t-c 25ms PVA (Samsung) panel
17" Eizo L560t-c-k 25ms PVA (Samsung) panel
17" Eizo L568 25ms PVA (Samsung LTM170E8-L02) panel
17" Eizo L578 12ms PVA (Samsung LTM170E8) panel
19" Eizo L760t-c 20ms PVA (Samsung) panel
19" Eizo L760t-c-k 20ms PVA (Samsung) panel
19" Eizo L767 25ms PVA (Samsung LTM190E1-L03) panel
19" Eizo L768 25ms PVA (Samsung LTM190E4-L02) panel
19" Eizo L768-AS 25ms PVA (Samsung LTM190E1-L03) panel
19" Eizo L778 (M190) 12ms PVA (Samsung LTM190E4) panel
19" Eizo L788 25ms PVA (Samsung LTM190E4-L02) panel
19" Eizo L795 25ms PVA (Samsung LTM190E1-L03) panel
***
A sampling.  A few models have LG panels in them (Sony being the third major maker), though.   There are also a dozen or more smaller firms in China and elsewhere of essentially no importance other than they are to be avoided if possible.

This can be helpful, though, as often the same panel can be found in something for less money if you shop carefully.   I do know that the no name version of the CG241W is much less expensive.  Eizo likes to use Samsung panels, and NEC likes to use LG, as a rule.  But not always.  Check first:

I mention this because the Eizo CG241W is a re-branded Samsung panel(!)

http://www.flatpanels.dk/panels.php
Here is a site - type in the model and it will tell you (most of the time) what the panel maker is.

**results for the CG241W**
Eizo CG241W (widescreen) has a 24 inch 6 ms (g2g) S-PVA (Samsung LTM240CS) panel

http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate....p;ci_sku=501078

The only difference is the lack of calibration software that comes with the EIZO, essentially, plus a few differences in the buttons and case and such.
Logged

Gigapixel

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 25
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #32 on: December 21, 2009, 12:45:04 am »

Quote from: Plekto
I mention this because the Eizo CG241W is a re-branded Samsung panel(!)

http://www.flatpanels.dk/panels.php
Here is a site - type in the model and it will tell you (most of the time) what the panel maker is.

**results for the CG241W**
Eizo CG241W (widescreen) has a 24 inch 6 ms (g2g) S-PVA (Samsung LTM240CS) panel

http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate....p;ci_sku=501078

The only difference is the lack of calibration software that comes with the EIZO, essentially, plus a few differences in the buttons and case and such.

Nothing new, we all know that Eizo and NEC are using third-party panels (LaCie apparently only relabels complete NEC and Samsung monitors and chose a different calibration software).

But by calling this a simple repackaging you miss the point alltogether. Eizo and NEC build very specialized and expensive electronics for hardware calibration around the panels. Being able to program the LUT of a monitor with extreme precision is no simple thing. Eizo also equips its CG-monitors with some circuitry to stabilize the brightness from start and to ensure the uniformity of the screen. These "additions" together with selecting prefect panels that are individually adjusted, a mechanically sound casing and a warranty of 5 years (Eizo) are worth much more than the panel alone.

I for one would buy an Eizo CG-monitor or any other expensive monitor with hardware calibration, even knowing that the price for the "original" monitors is approaching zero...
Logged

NoahJackson

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24
Wasted many years with bad monitors
« Reply #33 on: December 24, 2009, 11:06:57 pm »

There are some canned profiles of the new dell that are very good. I used that as a baseline and then tweaked it with colorsync software. My dell screen (U2410) is an extremely close match to my epson 3800 and 7900 prints. The key is turning down the brightness; my studio setting -- during the day is generally not brighter than 30 units. I will upgrade at some point, but it's nice to have a decent mid to high range monitor that I can actually pay in cash for. This is a good stepping stone for me; something that I can sell locally or give to an assistant down the road when I trade up.  I'm looking forward to owning my own color calibration device shortly! Thanks to the forum for helping me take the plunge and purchase a nice monitor.

Noah
Logged
Pages: 1 [2]   Go Up