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Author Topic: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?  (Read 909 times)

midix

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How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« on: March 18, 2021, 04:55:32 am »

I cannot figure out how to change actual color contrast on PA271Q, similar to how contrast adjustment works on almost all LCD displays. I mean the one where you can turn down the contrast itself and/or all RGB levels individually, and the image gets darker.

There is no contrast adjustment setting as such on PA271Q.

There's 6-axis color adjustment feature but it only shifts colors around without affecting black&white contrast.
There is this setting
Offset:  Adjusts the color brightness of each color
and I expected to get reduced brightness for all colors when I turn all of them down, including also white levels because, well, mathematically white is made out of all the other color components, and that's how it works on all other LCDs. However, on PA271Q these offsets seem to have no effect on grayscale levels at all. How do I adjust grayscale contrast then to reduce white levels?

There is also gamma setting but it affects only black levels and does not reduce white levels.

It's no big deal for most people, I guess, but I'm somewhat photosensitive and prefer darker settings when working with texts and also when watching movies in the evenings. PA271Q has minimal brightness of 20 nits. My old VP2365WB has about 43 nits. Because of this difference, I really hoped PA271Q will provide even darker image than VP2365WB at minimum settings. However, when I adjust both brightness and contrast down on VP2365WB I can get it to look darker than PA271Q at its minimum settings. If only it was somehow possible to adjust contrast down on PA271Q, it could potentially become much darker. Am I missing some setting?
« Last Edit: March 18, 2021, 09:31:53 am by midix »
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digitaldog

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #1 on: March 18, 2021, 12:01:37 pm »

Spectraview has a contrast control setting; use that.
Page 43 of the manual.
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midix

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #2 on: March 18, 2021, 12:58:50 pm »

Unfortunately, I don't have Spectraview software; I bought PA271Q alone without any bundled software. Not sure if it's worth paying 100$ now just to get the contrast option. I guess I'll have to adjust it in my video driver settings then.

Also, reading the manual, I'm not sure if Spectraview can actually adjust contrast down more than reducing it with 6-axis and black level settings? I have black level at 0 already.

I actually bought PA271Q not for its accurate color calibration features but because I am a visually handicapped programmer, having to use my display at closer-than-normal distances, therefore I'm very sensitive to the uniformity issues of most mainstream displays. I was tired of backlight bleeding & uniformity issues I experienced on multiple IPS displays I tried, and I hoped to get much better luck with PA271Q. I partially did - in some ways, it is superior to my old, almost broken VP2365WB, but also in one way worse (I explained that weakness in another thread).
« Last Edit: March 18, 2021, 01:03:50 pm by midix »
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digitaldog

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #3 on: March 18, 2021, 01:00:19 pm »

Unfortunately, I don't have Spectraview software; I bought PA271Q alone without any bundled software. Not sure if it's worth paying 100$ now just to get the contrast option.
There is far, far more to SpectraView than just that. Without that software driving the display calibration (or if you must, Multiprofiler), you are crippling that fine display.
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midix

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #4 on: March 18, 2021, 01:09:27 pm »

Multiprofiler - that one I do have. It essentially doubles all the menu settings and is pretty convenient, except that I could not find Gamma setting in Multiprofiler; but I usually do not need to touch it anyway. If only it had a simple contrast slider...

Yeah, I know it's a bit of a shame to have a monitor with powerful calibration features and not actually calibrating it. But, well, there seemed to be no better options if I wanted perfect uniformity and little IPS bleed&glow.
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digitaldog

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2021, 01:15:43 pm »

Page 12 of MultiProfiler manual.
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midix

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #6 on: March 18, 2021, 01:43:48 pm »

That page talks about brigtness and Reduced CR warning. I have set my brightness to the lowest value it allows, which is 20 cd/m2, but MultiProfiler does not show any warnings for me and does not allow entering any lower values. Still, a white image is brighter than on my old VP2365WB at minimum brightness and reduced contrast (which is strange because VP2365WB was supposed to be the brighter one with its minimum of 43 cd/m2).
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digitaldog

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #7 on: March 18, 2021, 01:52:49 pm »

That page talks about brigtness and Reduced CR warning. I have set my brightness to the lowest value it allows, which is 20 cd/m2, but MultiProfiler does not show any warnings for me and does not allow entering any lower values.
As there is a limit to how low you can go. 20cd/2 is ridiculously low.
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midix

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #8 on: March 18, 2021, 02:01:28 pm »

It depends on the environment. For late reading in a very dimly lit room 20cd/m2 could be still reduced for even more pleasant feeling. I know that Eizo EV series display can go even lower, but I've heard multiple complaints about their bleeding and uniformity issues lately, so I decided to go for NEC instead.

I'll have to use my nvidia adjustments - I found I can squeeze some more "darkness" out of it. Definitely the LCD panel itself can be dimmed even more, after backlight has gone down to 20 cd/m2.

It's just strange that NEC do not care to implement contrast adjustment setting on their monitors :D Compromises everywhere, I guess.
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digitaldog

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #9 on: March 18, 2021, 02:02:26 pm »

Your questions were answered, maybe you should just buy that Eizo.
I think we're done here.
AdiĆ³s
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John Nollendorfs

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #10 on: March 18, 2021, 03:41:45 pm »

Maybe buy a neutral density filter to put over the face of the monitor? You can flip it up or down as you need it.
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digitaldog

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #11 on: March 18, 2021, 03:48:36 pm »

Maybe buy a neutral density filter to put over the face of the monitor? You can flip it up or down as you need it.
Or sun glasses  ;D
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midix

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #12 on: March 18, 2021, 05:02:55 pm »

 :D yeah, lots of options.

Still, none of them as convenient as simple good old contrast slider, or at least RGB level adjustments that proportionally reduce also the transparency of grayscale LCD pixels, instead of the colored ones only; as the Offset setting for 6-axis adjustment currently does. For some reason, it reduces color saturation rapidly and has little effect on grayscale pixels - not sure if that's how it's supposed to work. I hope my monitor is not broken.

Also, that makes me wonder about Prad.de test results. How can it be that something they measured as 43cd/m2 at minimum brightness is actually darker than a monitor measured (and specified by the manufacturer) to have minimum brightness at 20cd/m2.
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kers

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #13 on: March 18, 2021, 06:48:25 pm »

It depends on the environment. For late reading in a very dimly lit room 20cd/m2 could be still reduced for even more pleasant feeling. I know that Eizo EV series display can go even lower, but I've heard multiple complaints about their bleeding and uniformity issues lately, so I decided to go for NEC instead.

I'll have to use my nvidia adjustments - I found I can squeeze some more "darkness" out of it. Definitely the LCD panel itself can be dimmed even more, after backlight has gone down to 20 cd/m2.

It's just strange that NEC do not care to implement contrast adjustment setting on their monitors :D Compromises everywhere, I guess.
My displays will have a problem with projecting the right colors at that low brightness...
I just went up from 90 to 100 to see skintones look better ( less red)
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midix

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #14 on: March 19, 2021, 05:59:00 am »

I guess, it depends on the use case.

For color-critical work - no doubt one should use calibrated settings at recommended brightness levels.

However, when a monitor is being used as a universal device for photo/video editing, programming, watching movies, reading lots of articles, then sometimes it makes sense to have very low levels (especially for visually handicapped photosensitive people like myself).

Wondering, is it possible to reduce contrast (not backlight luminance, but actual transparency of LCD pixels) through a LUT profile?

Maybe I would buy Spectraview if I knew it can adjust contrast through LUT without using a calibrator to achieve exactly the thing they promised (reducing contrast through LUT) even for Multiprofiler but that does not seem to be working for my PA27Q1.

Is there a trial version of Spectraview? Also, I've heard NEC has different Spectraview editions for US and EU - I need the one for Europe.

Is there any other software that can access PA271Q LUT and create new profiles manually without a calibrator?

Getting a bit rant-ish now  :D

It's a bit strange that even the best premium LCD technologies still cannot reach some properties of (cheap) CRTs that could be turned to completely black, if desired so, and also did not have any issues with brightness loss at the corners when viewing closer-than-normal; and also no uniformity issues and no backlight bleeding and no IPS glow.

Fortunately, PA271Q is great regarding uniformity and backlight; that's why I chose it in the first place.

Of course, LCDs have their benefits, too, but for my broken vision, these benefits sometimes do not counterweight the losses and there is no way to test for it before buying. Official specs do not tell the entire story and Rtings.com do not have NECs and Eizos tested.

I'll have to live with PA271Q and use some workarounds to get what I need.

In 10 years or so we might have microLED displays. Hopefully, they will have much fewer compromises and will finally be true replacements for CRTs.

Also, I might try OLED one day. LG recently promised new generation OLED displays for professionals, but I've heard (and seen from Rtings.com tests) that OLED green color might behave a bit unstable at different viewing angles. Also, the announced prices of the new monitors seem unreasonably high. But I would buy a 27" OLED for like 1000$ if I knew that it will not burn in just a few years after its warranty expires.
« Last Edit: March 19, 2021, 07:24:38 am by midix »
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midix

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Re: How to achieve "old-school" contrast adjustment on PA271Q?
« Reply #15 on: March 19, 2021, 09:18:21 am »

Oh, I found it. I "just" had to use the powerful Multiprofiler custom LUT through an image modification feature.

I have to do exactly what they say not to do - adjust the contrast and brightness of the image and reimport it back into the wizard. Hey presto! I got a new profile with a very dim image, exactly as I wanted. Named it "Extra low brightness" and can switch to it whenever I need it. Awesome.
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