Compensating for LCD Monitor Brightness

"John Winkelman" posted:

My CRT monitor died recently and I replaced it with a 19" NEC 90GX LCD monitor. The NEC is very bright at the factory default settings, which is what the calibration software says to set it at prior to calibration. When I correct an image in PhotoShop so that it looks good on the monitor, it prints very dark at normal printer (a Epson 1280)settings (which I used with the previous CRT monitor). That says to me that the monitor is w-a-a-y toobright (although displayed look great. If I turn down the brightness before I run a calibration, I can’t adjust the monitor to display all of the steps (patches) in the greyscale at either the black or white ends. Any thoughts?

From what you write, it seems that you should calibrate with the full brightness.
—
MisterMax

http://buten.net/max/
Slideshows of Egypt, Jordan, Angkor Wat, Bali, Crete, France, Hudson Valley, Malaysia, Maui, Morocco, Mt Holly, Myanmar, Shanghai, Sicily, St Tropez, Singapore, Thailand, Tour de France.

http://pbase.com/mistermax – Shadows and Reflections

I did calibrate it at the factory default, which is full brightness. But then, if I balance images to look good on the monitor, they print much too dark. I can get normal prints only by making the images way too bright (and washed-out looking because of the excessive brightness).

"Mister Max" wrote in message

"John Winkelman" posted:

My CRT monitor died recently and I replaced it with a 19" NEC 90GX LCD monitor. The NEC is very bright at the factory default settings, which is what the calibration software says to set it at prior to calibration. When I correct an image in PhotoShop so that it looks good on the monitor, it prints very dark at normal printer (a Epson 1280)settings (which I used with the previous CRT monitor). That says to me that the monitor is w-a-a-y toobright (although displayed look great. If I turn down the brightness before I run a calibration, I can’t adjust the monitor to display all of the steps (patches) in the greyscale at either the black or white ends. Any thoughts?

From what you write, it seems that you should calibrate with the full brightness.
—
MisterMax

http://buten.net/max/
Slideshows of Egypt, Jordan, Angkor Wat, Bali, Crete, France, Hudson Valley, Malaysia, Maui, Morocco, Mt Holly, Myanmar, Shanghai, Sicily, St Tropez, Singapore, Thailand, Tour de France.

http://pbase.com/mistermax – Shadows and Reflections

John Winkelman wrote:

My CRT monitor died recently and I replaced it with a 19" NEC 90GX LCD monitor. The NEC is very bright at the factory default settings, which is what the calibration software says to set it at prior to calibration. When I correct an image in PhotoShop so that it looks good on the monitor, it prints very dark at normal printer (a Epson 1280)settings (which I used with the previous CRT monitor). That says to me that the monitor is w-a-a-y toobright (although displayed look great. If I turn down the brightness before I run a calibration, I can’t adjust the monitor to display all of the steps (patches) in the greyscale at either the black or white ends. Any thoughts?

Just buya Spyder2 – it works great and will avoid any manual settings

John Winkelman wrote:

I did calibrate it at the factory default, which is full brightness. But then, if I balance images to look good on the monitor, they print much too dark. I can get normal prints only by making the images way too bright (and washed-out looking because of the excessive brightness).

You should be doing your calibration with the Adobe Gamma in the control panel. My LCD monitor was factory set way too bright and had to calibrate it to Gamma 2.65 so the boxes and stripes were correct.

"Mister Max" wrote in message

"John Winkelman" posted:

My CRT monitor died recently and I replaced it with a 19" NEC 90GX LCD monitor. The NEC is very bright at the factory default settings, which is what the calibration software says to set it at prior to calibration. When I correct an image in PhotoShop so that it looks good on the monitor, it prints very dark at normal printer (a Epson 1280)settings (which I used with the previous CRT monitor). That says to me that the monitor is w-a-a-y toobright (although displayed look great. If I turn down the brightness before I run a calibration, I can’t adjust the monitor to display all of the steps (patches) in the greyscale at either the black or white ends. Any thoughts?

From what you write, it seems that you should calibrate with the full brightness.
—
MisterMax

http://buten.net/max/
Slideshows of Egypt, Jordan, Angkor Wat, Bali, Crete, France, Hudson Valley, Malaysia, Maui, Morocco, Mt Holly, Myanmar, Shanghai, Sicily, St Tropez, Singapore, Thailand, Tour de France.

http://pbase.com/mistermax – Shadows and Reflections

I have a Spyder 2, and that’s what I use to calibrate the monitor. However, its instructions are to set the display brightness to the factory default setting, which is full on. The Spyder calibration does fine at setting color balance, but it doesn’t correct for the excessive brightness of the display. "humungus" wrote in message

John Winkelman wrote:

My CRT monitor died recently and I replaced it with a 19" NEC 90GX LCD monitor. The NEC is very bright at the factory default settings, which

is

what the calibration software says to set it at prior to calibration.

When I

correct an image in PhotoShop so that it looks good on the monitor, it prints very dark at normal printer (a Epson 1280)settings (which I used

with

the previous CRT monitor). That says to me that the monitor is w-a-a-y toobright (although displayed look great. If I turn down the brightness before I run a calibration, I can’t adjust the monitor to display all of

the

steps (patches) in the greyscale at either the black or white ends. Any thoughts?

Just buya Spyder2 – it works great and will avoid any manual settings

"John Winkelman" wrote in message

My CRT monitor died recently and I replaced it with a 19" NEC 90GX LCD monitor. The NEC is very bright at the factory default settings, which is what the calibration software says to set it at prior to calibration. When I
correct an image in PhotoShop so that it looks good on the monitor, it prints very dark at normal printer (a Epson 1280)settings (which I used with
the previous CRT monitor). That says to me that the monitor is w-a-a-y toobright (although displayed look great. If I turn down the brightness before I run a calibration, I can’t adjust the monitor to display all of the
steps (patches) in the greyscale at either the black or white ends. Any thoughts?

are you using the 1280 drivers or the PS printer settings?? you might try changing the gamma settings in the print options worked for me with new printer (kept same monitor, bought new printer, nothing matched, all prints were too light from PS and Windows) now my prints match my screen from PS but any prints from Windows apps are a little off in red and too light)

John Winkelman wrote:

My CRT monitor died recently and I replaced it with a 19" NEC 90GX LCD monitor. The NEC is very bright at the factory default settings, which is what the calibration software says to set it at prior to calibration. When I correct an image in PhotoShop so that it looks good on the monitor, it prints very dark at normal printer (a Epson 1280)settings (which I used with the previous CRT monitor). That says to me that the monitor is w-a-a-y toobright (although displayed look great. If I turn down the brightness before I run a calibration, I can’t adjust the monitor to display all of the steps (patches) in the greyscale at either the black or white ends. Any thoughts?

Most LCDs are ridiculously, unusably bright at default settings. I just calibrated my Dell 2005FPW effectively with the Spyder2 Pro by turning the brightness to 0, and then further reducing the brightness by trimming the RGB controls by about 30%. This resulted in a luminance value of ~105 cd/m2, a far cry (and a big relief) from the Dell’s native value of 280 cd/m2, which, unconstrained, was rather like looking into a searchlight beacon.

The luminance, and the control of it, is a confusing issue with low to mid range LCD screens. Color gurus say that those RGB sliders should be left alone because moving them will reduce the dynamic range of the display and will thus limit the color gamut and perhaps introduce banding into the images one views. While I agree that those are not good things, I see little evidence of such artifacts on my display. Using Microsoft’s Color Applet, I compared my Spyder generated profile to the standard sRGB profile and I found that my monitor’s corrected gamut is *very* close to sRGB, about what it was in its previous state. Further, and most important, I have a near perfect monitor to print match with my Epson 1270.