2407WFP-HC Brightness/Calibration Issues For Photshop Use

Question

I recently bought this monitor and I'm having a heck of a time getting it calibrated. I primarily got it for photo editing type work, but the factory settings seem WAY too bright for this. Using a Spyder2 it shows a color temp of 7235K and a luminance of 248 c/m^2. That's way too bright, I feel like I should be wearing sunglasses. The industry recommendation calls for a luminance of 120 c/m^2, color temp of 6500K, and a gamma of 2.2 when using an sRGB colorspace. No problem if a can calibrate it properly, but I'm beginning to wonder if that's possible. If I put Brightness at 30, Contrast at 100, and RGB at 100/100/98 I can get the luminance to 120 c/m^2 and color temp to 6508K. However the gamma seems to end up at about 2.4 instead of 2.2. Besides that, there appears to be significant compression of black levels, and some noticeable (not terrible) banding. If I put Brightness at 50, Contrast at 50, and RGB at 68/68/66 I get about the same result. This brings up the question of what I am really controlling with these OSD controls. The Spyder2 docs caution against changing Brightness and Contrast very far from the factory settings. On the other hand, changing RGB levels far from default values is said to risk screwing up channel dynamic range, causing banding, etc. Does it matter if I decrease RGB levels instead of Brightness and/or Contrast? Which controls, (Brightness, Contrast, RGB) are preferred for getting best results from this monitor when using a hardware calibrator? Is there a better way to set/determine gammma. The Spyder2 will let me specify it during the calibration, but it doesn't read the result at the end. I have to rely on other calibration charts to estimate it, and they all differ somewhat. The problems I really want to fix are black level compression, some banding, and inaccurate gamma when desired luminance of 120 c/m^2 is set. I'm using a NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS, monitor at native resolution, desktop mode. Thanks. Greg

gpro · Answer

You might find TFT Central's 2407WFP-HC calibration some help.

dalpilot · Answer

Well I have tried and tried to calibrate this thing and it simply won't work. The closest I can get requires backing off the RGB sliders so that brightness is reduced to the sRGB spec level of 120 cd/m^2. Unfortunately, that results in a degradation of the color channel dynamic range. No matter what I do to the Contrast and Brightness controls I'm not able to eliminate compression effects on both the black and white ends at the same time. Even worse, after calibration (hardware based) the color curves for the RGB channels are not monotonic. To explain, if I look at a gradient fill of a single color such as red going from (0,0,0) to (255,0,0) I should see a pure black at one end increasing in intensity until the brightest red is displayed at the other end. On this monitor you can see that as you go from dark to bright across the screen, there are numerous bands where the intensity goes DOWN and then back up. It is a fact that the curve for a given color channel is not supposed to be linear, however it is supposed to be monotonic. There should be no reversals of intensity in a test like this. I really want to return the thing. Problem is - today is day 21 and guess what? No one at customer service is working today. They did make me wade through their phone tree for 5 minutes before telling me though. Any idea if they will take returns in this situation? Thanks. Greg

LeChucksBeard · Answer

I also just bought this screen to use as external screen for my laptop, just coming here to find more information. I am a photographer and need color accuracy. I bought this screen based on all the glowing user reviews touting the wide color gamut and accuracy. This thing is terrible. Probably perfect for playing games and watching video because it's so bright and colorful but that makes it terrible for color work. It is much too bright and impossible to calibrate to a decent level without, as you mention, compromising the color components. I spent hours trying to calibrate with a Greta Macbeth tool and in the end it just cannot fix all the issues. The color saturation is way too high, reds are wild, greens look like neon lights, and some shades of blue are way too purple. Strangely, it seems that the saturation goes down to a better level and better tones by itself after the monitor has been on and displaying stuff for hours, but that's it. I've never seen that before. I have not been able to fix these issues and I will probably have to go through the pains of returning it.

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2407WFP-HC Brightness/Calibration Issues For Photshop Use

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