IPS Calibration Settings Help?

[Shaqo_Wyn]

Sup LTT members!

 

I got my Dell U2414H and I've been fiddling with it all day.

Don't plan on doing any color work with it but I did have a feeling I could get better colors out of it than how it came stock.

I was right. 

 

This is what I ended up doing:

Installed the latest drivers for the monitor, installed TFTcentral's ICC profile for the monitor and changed the OSD settings to the TFTcentral recommended:

brightness - 35

contrast - 75

red - 99

green - 92

blue - 98

 

I'm wondering about something though. Right now I'm pushing the monitor with a simple laptop with Intel HD graphics.

I went to graphics properties > color enhancements and stupidly clicked on restore defaults which reduced the great colors I was getting from the above mentioned ICC and OSD tweaks.

 

Question (if TL;DR):

Can't remember what the old settings were, can anybody help me with this? I did find one forum where someone recommended:

brightness - 15

contrast - 48

gamma - 0.7

and it's pretty close to how it was before.

 

Also, what settings are you running if you have an IPS panel? What are you preferences?

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Shaqo

[Geekazoid]

Are you talking about the Intel Graphics colour settings? I assume you are.

[Shaqo_Wyn]

Are you talking about the Intel Graphics colour settings? I assume you are.

 

Yes, when you right click the home screen and go to graphics properties. Can you help me? (Since your the only one who answered )

[GoodBytes]

Do not adjust colors via the graphic cards control panel (or any other software for that mater). These are adjusting colors at a SOFTWARE level. Meaning, to reduce the tax on the CPU to alter colors, it does a quick job. Meaning you are reducing possible colors your can have displayed. For example, if you draw a large gradient from lack to white in your favorite picture editor software, you'll realized that after adjusting the colors in the Nvidia, AMD, Intel or what other software, you'll see stepping, the gradient won't be smooth.

You'll get the left image, and not the smooth one from the right:

If you want to adjust the monitor colors, you need to adjust them from the monitor itself.

Also, monitors don't have drivers.. so I have no idea what you installed.

And, you can't just use an ICC profile and use it from your monitor. Consumer grade monitors uses different manufactures for different parts to meet demand. If you go out now, and buy a new monitor, exact same model, and put it side by side, unless you are lucky, the colors won't be matching exactly. One will be warmer or colder than the other. That is why it is recommended, for those planning in getting a dual monitor setup, to buy all the monitor at the same time, from the same place, to diminish the chances that the 2 monitors are from different batch. The color offset can be due to the monitor revision, or simply the back light. It might be using the back light from manufacture A and B to meet demand, for example, where the lights are close, but not the same white.

[Shaqo_Wyn]

Do not adjust colors via the graphic cards control panel (or any other software for that mater). These are adjusting colors at a SOFTWARE level. Meaning, to reduce the tax on the CPU to alter colors, it does a quick job. Meaning you are reducing possible colors your can have displayed. For example, if you draw a large gradient from lack to white in your favorite picture editor software, you'll realized that after adjusting the colors in the Nvidia, AMD, Intel or what other software, you'll see stepping, the gradient won't be smooth.

You'll get the left image, and not the smooth one from the right:

If you want to adjust the monitor colors, you need to adjust them from the monitor itself.

Also, monitors don't have drivers.. so I have no idea what you installed.

And, you can't just use an ICC profile and use it from your monitor. Consumer grade monitors uses different manufactures for different parts to meet demand. If you go out now, and buy a new monitor, exact same model, and put it side by side, unless you are lucky, the colors won't be matching exactly. One will be warmer or colder than the other. That is why it is recommended, for those planning in getting a dual monitor setup, to buy all the monitor at the same time, from the same place, to diminish the chances that the 2 monitors are from different batch. The color offset can be due to the monitor revision, or simply the back light. It might be using the back light from manufacture A and B to meet demand, for example, where the lights are close, but not the same white.

 

Thanks for your input. I didn't just do plop a ICC profile in there just for the lulz. I did a considerable amount of reading first and knew that it would either help or it wouldn't and it did. Along with my own adjust through the monitor OSD itself I reached a level of color reproduction that I'm quite happy with.

 

It just that the graphics cards settings kinda messed with the lighting. Thanks though, its clear now that I shouldn't be playing around with those. 

[Geekazoid]

@GoodBytes, sorry mate, but I'm not sure that you're entirely correct on that. TFT Central calibrate all the monitors that they test using a hardware colour calibrator. Unless the monitor can be calibrated internally through its own hardware (aka at the hardware level), the monitors are adjusted at the software level (aka graphics card level). So adjusting a monitors colours with software is perfectly fine because most professionals, like Simon Baker of TFT Central, do it.

The hardware colour calibrators actually correct all the colours at the software and, if the monitor supports,

hardware level as well. Believe me I know, I've looked and read many of TFT Central's monitor reviews.

[GoodBytes]

ICC profile is fine. That is a color profile.

the graphics card doesn't actually do the work on the GPU, for the video output. Try it for yourself. You'll see you'll reduce colors.

ICC profile will not do that,

[Geekazoid]

ICC profile is fine. That is a color profile.the graphics card doesn't actually do the work on the GPU, for the video output. Try it for yourself. You'll see you'll reduce colors.ICC profile will not do that,

Aah okay, now I see what you're saying.

Yes, most hardware calibrators do create software calibrated ICC profiles and these

profiles can be stored in the monitor if the display supports hardware level calibration.

Well, that clears that up.