Can't tell if it's my monitor or my sanity..

[ch3w2oy]

I just got a 4k 32" Acer. It says it has HDR but it's a VA, and well, we know how that goes.

 

Anyways, I'm like really confused because I added a wallpaper to desktop but now it's appearing different. Last I noticed, it was the original which is the picture I took with my phone below. I turned my computer on and my desktop was blank (because windows isn't activated as I cloned my drive from another computer and have yet to purchase). So when I went looking for the image to set as my background again, this is what I found...

 

This is what it looked like just the other day (it's also attached, the pic that I took of monitor):

https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/999406-zotac-gtx1060-6gb-to-zotac-gtx1080-8gb/?tab=comments#comment-12019385

 

This is what it looks like now (attached as a wallpaper bg).

 

 

Did I change some setting on my monitor that would fuck this up? I didn't think I downloaded two different copies, and the one of the picture I took looks 100x better!!!

[ch3w2oy]

I absolutely cannot find a copy of it on the interwebs at all! And I deleted some of my wallpapers but I really don't think I had this same wallpaper in different colors.

[ch3w2oy]

11 minutes ago, Andrew.Schickowski said:

it honestly looks the same but a bit darker on the first one

There's no where near as much color..One is like rainbow and the other is red and black.

[ch3w2oy]

2 minutes ago, Andrew.Schickowski said:

did you ever go in and change any settings ? the wall paper looks very similar besides the color is brighter on the picture you took

Yea, I did. I just played with a little and it brought it back to life a little. I really didn't change many settings, but now it looks like it wont even let me adjust the HDR setting and I'm pretty sure I could of before. Guess I'm going to reset the monitor. Does windows 10 limit features when it isn't activated that may effect it? Pretty sure it was normal last time I adjusted the settings as I'm normally looking at my background when I do it lol.

[Exaco]

Your monitor needs calibrating imo, its overexposed alot and oversaturated. It could also be Windows 10 color profile issues ( i get them if i install monitor drivers ).

Here's some adjustements in PS ( tried to recreate what ur monitor shows, its +34% saturation, pretty high amount of curves/levels ): 
 

[ch3w2oy]

1 minute ago, Exaco said:

Your monitor needs calibrating imo, its overexposed alot and oversaturated. It could also be Windows 10 color profile issues ( i get them if i install monitor drivers ).

Here's some adjustements in PS: 
 

It needs calibrating when it looks like the red and black one I posted above? Or the one with multiple colors? Or needs calibrating period?

 

And that's what it was looking like^^

[Exaco]

5 minutes ago, tomswife said:

It needs calibrating when it looks like the red and black one I posted above? Or the one with multiple colors? Or needs calibrating period?

Never had HDR monitor and tbh idk whats the point of them ( besides use for Digital Artists to see the color in more accurate darkness/brightness ), but HDR for me is only High Dynamic Range, here i converted the image into HDR in PS so i guess ur monitor should show something like that:

[ch3w2oy]

1 minute ago, Andrew.Schickowski said:

you need to calibrate it from the monotone looking one because its way off

I can't even find any HDR settings in windows. And it wont highlight on my monitor menu like it would the other day..and I don't see the reset option like most of them have. Let me do some googling quick.

 

Thanks a lot for the help!