I'm in shock...

Some might remember that I've been concerned that my ageing CRT monitor is simply not bright enough - with the result that pictures I edit myself to appear fine on it, appear noisy and over brightened on other people's displays.

And conversely, of course, a lot of others' photos appear very dark to me.

Well I've finally taken the plunge and bought a new 'puter, including a Samsung 226BW monitor, which came as part of the system. It has 1680x1050 native resolution, and it has completely blown me away.

It really is much, much brighter, and I can see detail in people's pictures that I couldn't before.

And, not surprisingly, many of mine, in particular this one, on which one of our competition judges remarked recently, do indeed look horribly noisy.

So, the moral of the story is, one has to move with the times, or suffer the consequences. I'll have to re-edit quite a few of my better photographs, but hopefully it'll be worth it.

Welcome to the 21st Century Chris. A little late, but you'll catch up.

Tip: If you haven't got one already, get a Spyder or a Huey for even better colour results.

Most kind.

Hmm. In my language, one of these is an expensive Alfa Romeo, and the other is a military helicopter.

I'll chance my arm and guess you mean neither of these.

Could you elaborate?

Sure. They are colorimeters for screen calibration to produce more accurate images on screeen than with 'out of the box' defaults. Colorvison produce the Spyder and the Huey is from Pantone.

Have a look here.

Chris, is it a true 8-bit display? I've got a BENQ 22" FP222W 1680x1050 and it is really a 6-bit panel that does 8-bit (interpolated). This is glaringly obvious when you look at many nature photos.

If you are not aware of it, I suggest you look at the free (no spyware - no unpleasant surprises), good quality wallpapers uploaded by the public at www.interfacelift.com. Here's a link to the 1680x1050 wallpapers, sorted by date. I often check for new additions using this link:

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/index.php?sort=date&aspect=widescreen&...


Some of the photos are really great. Try this, from a recent upload:

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details.php?id=1506


I'm not a fan of the graphic design/virtual world stuff. Having said that, I liked this creation:

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details.php?id=1495


And here's a semi-abstract representation of the solar system:

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details.php?id=1331


Dan Bridges

What should I look for? The pictures you posted look nice enough, but whatever is glaringly obvious to you is sadly not to me.

Ah.

Thanks for the link... all is now clear.

Chris, the specific links I posted don't show interpolation effects on my LCD monitor. I've deleted the flower one that did. I'll see if I can find it again.

Dan Bridges

Congratulations, Chris! A wise choice. I have always had high thoughts of the Samsung monitors.

As for colour depth, Samsung specifies 16.7 mill colours, which is the equivalent of 24 bit colour depth.

Chris, look at the photo at this link:

http://interfacelift.com/wallpaper/details.php?id=1235

Towards the right-hand side of the photo, it appears "noisy" in my monitor because it can't use enough colours and has to rely on interpolation. What about yours?

It would be good it someone with a CRT looked at it too in case it's a JPG limitation.

It does look a bit grainy.

How do we tell whether this is a monitor limitation, or something else?

Chris, if it's a overly-processed photo problem or JPG encoding artifact, the colours on the right will appear grainy on a CRT too. If it's a LCD monitor colour rendering problem, the CRT will look OK.

Let's hope either a CRT user or a dual-screen CRT & LCD user responds.

Chris, the colour graduation in that flower photo look much smoother on my ACER Aspire 5720 (1280x800) laptop. It's a cheapie.

Dan Bridges

Just to return to that picture of Melbourne by night, thought I'd show you the version I've just re-edited, with the original from before the monitor change.

This is the original version:




And now, with the brightness adjusted for the new monitor (no noise reduction applied - just brightness and contrast):




Interesting, huh? The top one on my old monitor looks like the bottom one on the new one.

Chris,

On my monitor the original looks 'terrible' and the re-edited version looks great