Monitors setups in a digital darkroom
Feb 5, 2020 0:20:13 GMT
on Feb 5, 2020 0:20:13 GMT
Last Edit: Feb 5, 2020 0:23:09 GMT by lumiworx
After 3 decades in IT and dealing with everything from green/amber (as in, monocolor) CRT screens, to LCD/LED and dual TV/Monitor displays, I thought there wasn't much new to be learned.
This might be old news to many of you, so bear with me if it's old-hat. In my previous home setup, I used a couple of displays that were primarily TV's, but had PC inputs. [Long story - don't ask :)] I upgraded the video card about 6 months ago, and I wanted to now replace one of the displays with a new factory calibrated monitor-only model that covered all of the sRGB color space out of the box, to use as my primary display. Once installed, I dug around a bit to find a couple of semi-hidden options to optimize both displays, and they made a remarkable difference in how well things are viewed.
The options may or may not be readily available to set for everyone's hardware setup in the same way they are for me - but - you might be able to peek and poke around to find something similar. My Windows PC's use nVidia video cards (more suited to the 3D rendering I do), and in my case, these settings are in the nVidia Control Panel, under 'Display' > 'Change Resolution'.
[BTW... this is a test of the new Gallery 'Upload' function via the new button. More info in the announcement topic.]
The 2 Displays I use now are selectable at the top of the settings panel shown above, and the video output is modified separately for each one. The BenQ GW2480 is the calibrated sRGB monitor, and the MStar Demo is actually a Pyle PC (as in, Pyle Audio) model PTVLED23 LED TV. By default, Windows sets every display to use the "Limited" selection for Output Dynamic Range, and uses the lowest Output Color Depth applicable for the display... in this case, that can only be 8bits for the BenQ, but the real shocker was the selections for either 8bit or 12bit on the Pyle. Having 10 would be great but 12 is even better. There's one down side on the Pyle though. There's no 'Tint' adjustment with any input, no matter what it is. Luckily it's fairly good as-is, but acceptable enough as a 2nd monitor.
If you haven't already set these options on your own monitor(s), it really might be worth the time and effort to find them and adjust them where you can. It doesn't matter how many displays you use either. Even single monitor setups can benefit if the options are available. I imagine these are even more important if you're doing color grading on video editing projects.
This might be old news to many of you, so bear with me if it's old-hat. In my previous home setup, I used a couple of displays that were primarily TV's, but had PC inputs. [Long story - don't ask :)] I upgraded the video card about 6 months ago, and I wanted to now replace one of the displays with a new factory calibrated monitor-only model that covered all of the sRGB color space out of the box, to use as my primary display. Once installed, I dug around a bit to find a couple of semi-hidden options to optimize both displays, and they made a remarkable difference in how well things are viewed.
The options may or may not be readily available to set for everyone's hardware setup in the same way they are for me - but - you might be able to peek and poke around to find something similar. My Windows PC's use nVidia video cards (more suited to the 3D rendering I do), and in my case, these settings are in the nVidia Control Panel, under 'Display' > 'Change Resolution'.
[BTW... this is a test of the new Gallery 'Upload' function via the new button. More info in the announcement topic.]
The 2 Displays I use now are selectable at the top of the settings panel shown above, and the video output is modified separately for each one. The BenQ GW2480 is the calibrated sRGB monitor, and the MStar Demo is actually a Pyle PC (as in, Pyle Audio) model PTVLED23 LED TV. By default, Windows sets every display to use the "Limited" selection for Output Dynamic Range, and uses the lowest Output Color Depth applicable for the display... in this case, that can only be 8bits for the BenQ, but the real shocker was the selections for either 8bit or 12bit on the Pyle. Having 10 would be great but 12 is even better. There's one down side on the Pyle though. There's no 'Tint' adjustment with any input, no matter what it is. Luckily it's fairly good as-is, but acceptable enough as a 2nd monitor.
If you haven't already set these options on your own monitor(s), it really might be worth the time and effort to find them and adjust them where you can. It doesn't matter how many displays you use either. Even single monitor setups can benefit if the options are available. I imagine these are even more important if you're doing color grading on video editing projects.