Digital BW, The Print

It is always amusing to watch the kind if discussion that LCD/CRT 
causes.

For a useful appraisal see www.displaymate.com

Basically on a LCD the greyscale is not as linear as it is with a 
CRT. Not that a CRT is actually linear but it is a lot smoother and 
more easily profiled.

Recently (well it started a few years ago with Sharp and Eizo and a 
few others) manufacturers started putting 10bit DAC's in their 
LCD's. That is the actual signal going to the LCD pixel is an analog 
signal and in these cases it is being driver by 10bit data.
Mostly this 10bit information is not surfaced to the computer driver 
normally 8 bits (8x3=24) are surfaced. The displays are then 
precalibrated with an internal (to the LCD) lookup table that 
translated 8bit values into 10 bit greyscale corrections. Some of 
the suppliers (Eizo for example) provide calibration software that 
can recalibrate the LCD and reload the LCD resident table. (Normal 
color calibration software cannot do this).

This is why a small, and only small, selection of LCD's will yield 
greayscale (and color) performance equivalent to a CRT, the rest 
will not.

Of course in every other way an LCD is better: lighter, brighter, 
less power and so on. But for photography (B&W or Color) the 
greyscale raggedness was and is a critical issue.

PS: just before posting I checked: and the Eizo ColorEdge CG220 with 
ColorNavigator is 14bits, as before translated back to 8bits.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Diane Fields" 
<picnic@c...> wrote:
> I've read over and over for the last several months on one 'pro' 
forum that almost all CRTs will stop being made the end of 2005.  
Mine is not quite at the end of its very good life but it will 
probably be time to replace it in 2006.  I've been wondering just 
what I will do since I will have to choose an LCD, want a very good 
quality monitor but probably not the 'best' which is what they (pro 
forum) were recommending (because of price).  I calibrate of course--
-but am wondering from those that have switched from CRT to LCD what 
you are finding as to being able to calibrate to your standards (I 
tend to find this group has 'high' standards for the most part).  
> 
> Diane
> -----------
> Diane B. Fields
> picnic@c...
> photo site  http://www.pbase.com/picnic
>   ----- Original Message ----- 
>   From: tariqgibranstudio 
>   To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com 
>   Sent: Friday, March 18, 2005 10:39 AM
>   Subject: [Digital BW] Re: Correcting exposure for Gray Gamma 1.8
> 
> 
> 
>   Your remark about monitors having their own "sweet spot" is the 
key I
>   think.  I have been back and forth with this issue and various
>   displays over the years.  Recently, I added a fairly high end NEC
>   2080UX LCD screen(the first LCD screen which was actually better 
than
>   the CRT Mitsubishi Diamontron and Lacies I had previously 
used!). 
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]