Monitor Calibration Help

[hgcn]

I while back I bought a new 22' LCD

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16824236043

I've been pretty happy with it, no dead pixels, gets the job done, etc.

But ever since I've bought it I've never been THAT happy with the colors on it....I've used the presets they provide (theatre, standard, gaming, night mode, etc) and they all seem to just be off. Either super faded, or dull, depending on what i try and setup. I was at a friends the other day who has a 22' Samsung (what I wanted, they were out).....and I was noticing just how CRISP and perfect his screen looked.

Maybe I'm missing something big but I'm trying to find a way to make mine look the same.

Can anyone recommend any calibration software or tools that might aide me in getting a more crisp clean monitor setup.

Thanks as always,

-J

 

[Cogman]

LCD's are hard to calibrate for brightness. For color, I like the NVIDA calibration too, it works pretty well (it is bundled with the drivers) barring that, http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html is where I usually go for calibrating my monitor with whatever tool my OS has available.

 

[octopus41092]

http://www.bryce-alive.net/calibrate/

That's a good site in order to calibrate your settings.

 

[Buck Armstrong]

Try this site: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/#gammacalib. Generally speaking, keep your contrast as high as possible (50-75), and your brightness lower (25-50). On most LCDs I've seen, 50 contrast and 25 brightness is a good place to start. Use the scales on the site to make sure that your contrast is as high as it can go without blending the lowest and highest ends of the scale together (ie, you should be able to tell the difference between the blackest black and the next step up, and same for the whitest white and the next step down).

Beyond that, one of the single most effective things you can do is lower your gamma! If you haven't done it, open up your video card control panel real quick and drag the slider down a bit. You should see an instant improvement. A couple of LCDs I've owned, including my current Planar PX2611W, just could not get anywhere near as vibrant and saturated as my old 21" Trinitron...until I turned the gamma down. Recommended is 2.2, I'm at about 1.8.

 

[Christobevii3]

Buy a huey, they are like $60. You're eyes will thank you and every monitor you ever buy.