FEEDBACK Criticisms against 1.E.2. Display Calibration

[sgtnapalm]

Hello! I read your screen calibration guide and there are a few things I would like to mention:

 

The first is the relationship between the driver's color management utility vs Windows' built-in color management utility. In your guide you mention that if you should go through the Windows utility so that colors are at their default settings, where (at least in AMD's case,) adjusting colors at the driver level will automatically throw away the settings used by Windows. This makes that step a bit redundant, and I feel like it would only confuse some people.

 

The second is the reference image you provide. I think that a much better guide would be the Lagom LCD monitor test pages. In addition to ensuring that you have proper brightness and contrast, this guide will ensure that you have correct gamma and sharpness. Also, I find the Photo Friday reference image you provided to be too extreme: by adjusting brightness and contrast in accordance to the Photo Friday guide (adjust until the shapes are just batrely visible,) it will make the test fail for the Lagom LCD test for the "Black level" and "White saturation" tests, and makes my screen far too dark and high-contrast.

 

Third, I think that you should at least mention tools such as the Spyder 3 Pro as an option for enthusiasts (and this guide is geared towards enthusiasts,) who insist on nothing less than the absolute best color reproduction their monitor can offer. It won't be neccesary for most users, but I feel like acknowledging the existence of these tools would make it a much rounder guide.

 

Finally, I think that you should mention that apps like f.lux can mess with the color settings because it demands control over both Windows and driver colors and should be fully closed before calibration work is started.

 

Thank you for all of your effort put into your guide! Despite my criticisms, you still have the best modding guide for both new users looking to get the essential utilities and mods needed to start modding their game, and enthusiasts looking to get the best graphics available. I regularly reccomend it to friends, and will continue to do so!

[Aiyen]

While I agree with most of what you are saying then I also think that we at some point is going to have to think about being user friendly. Monitor calibration is almost an art in itself since it highly depends on the monitor type in question.. as well as the locale that said monitor is in. There is no point in calibrating a monitor in pitch black if your general lighting while you use the monitor is always going to be entirely different from this. Just because you have the best settings in the dark does not mean it is the best settings during other scenarios. 

 

Lagom is a great guide and most who do a quick search for monitor calibration will find it. However it is like the name says for LCD monitor, people with other panel types will get different results. (I know this since I am on a 99% perfect factory calibrated IPS panel and it does not agree entirely with all of the lagom tests anymore.) 

 

It would perhaps be worth it to mention Spyder, but people who are that into it most likely are going to buy a proper monitor to begin with. At least I like to think that any color enthusiast would know not to just get the most cheap panel on the market and expect it to be able to compete with the more (much more) expensive and detailed models.

 

Another issue that many people have is that they are not aware that their monitor have some weird profile enabled which is most likely going to skew the results of any test since they are focused on highlighting something else. Also most new monitors have multiple profiles which each are aimed at something different. Movie viewing profiles are rather popular since the shift in the color spectrum and contrast can really help make movie details look better. However they are not good for gaming. 

 

Oh well enough ranting. I guess we will have to look over that particular part of the guide again since it could most certainly be better! 

[sgtnapalm]

A lot of what you say is true, monitors will look different in different lighting conditions. Some people prefer to play in nice, sun-lit rooms, some prefer the pitch black, some prefer some sort of bias lighting (like myself.) And being user friendly is a big part of this guide. I suppose that throwing in all this additional information may just confuse people with unneccesary information. I, too, have a decent factory calibrated IPS (Dell U2212HM,) and while the Lagom tests report that my monitor is more or less perfectly calibrated when left at default settings, some people might not even use LCDs. (Some enthusiasts still use the Sony Trinitrons, for example.) While I would imagine that most of the brightness, contrast, and gamma tests would still apply it's still unneccesary information that may confuse, and is probably beyond the scope of this guide.

 

So yeah, on second thought the current Photo Friday test might be "good enough" for most use-cases.

 

Also as an aside, calibration can go off as the monitor gets older, which is why your monitor might not agree with the tests anymore. Maybe a line about recalibrating and cleaning your monitor every few months wouldn't be a bad idea.

Edited August 11, 2014 by sgtnapalm

[Aiyen]

I have the bigger brother of yours the 2713HM.. it is only about a year old so color degradation have not hit in yet. The only thing I adjusted from my default profile is the overall brightness which due to the distance I am from the monitor and sitting in almost always pitch black was just too intense. So I go away from the super perfect settings under optimal conditions in favor of some that fit my conditions better. But when I did the test it was perfect.. but it was a bit off which I kinda expected. 

 

Another thing to consider is that a lot of people mess with the gamma in the options which is just a bad idea since it is silly difficult the get a proper gamma if your monitor is off to begin with and software adjustments are just... not good enough compensation.. you will get washout really easily due to the power nature of gamma. 

 

Most cases of people playing with ENB´s who then come and say "Nights/interiors are too dark" it is rather often the case that their gamma was way off, and their contrast as a result suffered immensely.. making everything pitch black. 

 

Anyways we are always open to more suggestions on how to improve the guide! I just wanted to mention the fact that it is worth remembering that there is something to be said for not confusing users with too much technical detail.