The brightness is mostly what's reponsible for the eye strain. Factory default is way too high. I used an Eye-One to calibrate my 2407WFP, and so I can tell you that I use a Brightness of 9 (default is 50). I also use the Mac Normal color setting, because I have a Mac.
A brightness of 9 comes out to be 140 cd/m2, by the way (give or take). 120 is usually recommended for LCDs, but the 2407WFP won't even go that low.
One thing to watch out for is blocking in of shadows at low brightness levels. I haven't decided what to do about mine yet, but I can tell you that brightness 9 is a little too dark. If you don't care much about shadows in photos/graphics, don't worry about this, but if you do, read on. =)
The 2407WFP's brightness control, though it claims to adjust backlight only, also controls some sort of a nonlinear brightness CURVE in the software, probably designed to make images "pop" more when the brightness is cranked up (darker shadows).
A test you can do to make sure you are seeing shadow detail is to create a 2" x 2" Photoshop (or other image editor) document. Fill the left half with RGB 0 0 0 (black), the right half with RGB 8 8 8, and then draw a 1" x 1" square in the middle that overlaps the two halves. Fill it with RGB 12 12 12. You should be able to distinguish all 3 shades (though just barely).
On a normal monitor, as you increase the brightness from 0 the square and right half will gradually come into view. On the 2407, there's one point where they suddenly pop into plain view. It's as if there's a gate that only shows colors that are brighter than a certain level.
Contrast is the answer. I have brightness around 20. Darkness devours shadows and light is still enough for eyestrain. And NO there is no contrast setting in DVI mode (why? My pervious 1900FP had contrast when in DVI). So, I had to play with ATI settings, to decrease contrast through the driver.
Keep brightness around 20 and reduce contrast to a level that dark greys and light whites are visible.
I believe that the essence of all this stuff is that Dell used two (?) badly performing backlight elements, excessively bright, that amass heat on top of the monitor (in Greece this is a problem!). On top of that, in order to deliver punchy colours, they probably added this curvish brightness you mention. This monitor can not be calibrated.
BTW, calibrate which side? Right 10cm is (gradually) darker than the rest of the screen? Is that a problem everyone gets, or should I ask for replacement?
I've seen a lot of posts about the brightness being not very regular across the screen (darker on one side), though it's hard for me to say if mine suffers from that. After reading things like that and staring at it I can see it being darker on one side but I'm not sure if that's just me playing mind tricks on myself.
It's very common for DVI monitors not to have a contrast setting. I think it probabaly stems from the fact that contrast is a correctional adjustment, not so much a preference one (as brightness is). With a digital signal, there's no need to correct it, since it's theoretically perfect. In fact, if I measure contrast with an Eye-One device it sits right in the middle, perfect. And on DVI LCDs that DO have a contrast adjustment, it generally won't affect the contrast measurement at all (it will read perfect no matter what the setting is), since it's an artificial adjustment and isn't actually correcting for the shade difference issues that CRTs can have.
It turns out that if I keep my 2407 at Mac Normal, I can calibrate it to 140 cd/m2 (9 brightness) and actually still get acceptable shadow detail for graphics work. If I switch to a different profile though (such as the default automatic DELL2407WFP or whatever it's called) I lose all that shadow detail.
Yorb
23 Posts
0
August 21st, 2006 12:00
A brightness of 9 comes out to be 140 cd/m2, by the way (give or take). 120 is usually recommended for LCDs, but the 2407WFP won't even go that low.
One thing to watch out for is blocking in of shadows at low brightness levels. I haven't decided what to do about mine yet, but I can tell you that brightness 9 is a little too dark. If you don't care much about shadows in photos/graphics, don't worry about this, but if you do, read on. =)
The 2407WFP's brightness control, though it claims to adjust backlight only, also controls some sort of a nonlinear brightness CURVE in the software, probably designed to make images "pop" more when the brightness is cranked up (darker shadows).
A test you can do to make sure you are seeing shadow detail is to create a 2" x 2" Photoshop (or other image editor) document. Fill the left half with RGB 0 0 0 (black), the right half with RGB 8 8 8, and then draw a 1" x 1" square in the middle that overlaps the two halves. Fill it with RGB 12 12 12. You should be able to distinguish all 3 shades (though just barely).
On a normal monitor, as you increase the brightness from 0 the square and right half will gradually come into view. On the 2407, there's one point where they suddenly pop into plain view. It's as if there's a gate that only shows colors that are brighter than a certain level.
Weird.
2407
7 Posts
0
August 23rd, 2006 06:00
Keep brightness around 20 and reduce contrast to a level that dark greys and light whites are visible.
I believe that the essence of all this stuff is that Dell used two (?) badly performing backlight elements, excessively bright, that amass heat on top of the monitor (in Greece this is a problem!). On top of that, in order to deliver punchy colours, they probably added this curvish brightness you mention. This monitor can not be calibrated.
BTW, calibrate which side? Right 10cm is (gradually) darker than the rest of the screen? Is that a problem everyone gets, or should I ask for replacement?
Yorb
23 Posts
0
August 23rd, 2006 15:00
It's very common for DVI monitors not to have a contrast setting. I think it probabaly stems from the fact that contrast is a correctional adjustment, not so much a preference one (as brightness is). With a digital signal, there's no need to correct it, since it's theoretically perfect. In fact, if I measure contrast with an Eye-One device it sits right in the middle, perfect. And on DVI LCDs that DO have a contrast adjustment, it generally won't affect the contrast measurement at all (it will read perfect no matter what the setting is), since it's an artificial adjustment and isn't actually correcting for the shade difference issues that CRTs can have.
It turns out that if I keep my 2407 at Mac Normal, I can calibrate it to 140 cd/m2 (9 brightness) and actually still get acceptable shadow detail for graphics work. If I switch to a different profile though (such as the default automatic DELL2407WFP or whatever it's called) I lose all that shadow detail.