Digital BW, The Print

Andre:

If you have a Samsung Synchmaster, adjustments made to color,
contrast, gamma and everything else using the controls on the monitor
itself (except the intensity of the backlight, which is the only
analog adjustment) are written to the video card anyway.  If you are
hooked up to the monitor through a digital connection, you will
generally get better results.  My 24" Synchmaster is hooked up to a
Matrox Parhelia video card, and during calibration, ALL monitor
controls are disabled, except the intensity of the backlight.  All
adjustments will be written to the video card anyway, so it is a moot
point.  

If you hook your LCD up to an analog connection, you will be able to
adjust color, contrast, gamma, etc using the monitor controls, but
again, they are written to the video card anyway.  I have a second
Synchmaster monitor hooked up to the analog port, so I can adjust it
independently (my video card does not have two independent VLUTs).  I
just use it for palettes anyway, so it doesn't have to be perfect.

Even on my large monitor (hooked up to the digital port) my grayscale
is not perfect, but it is mighty close.  Probably has to do with 8 bit
rounding error and limitations of the software.  Simple curves are
used to correct the colors in your video card's VLUT, so not all of
points will be perfectly neutral.  

If you want to approach perfection, be prepared to spend money for a
monitor that has adjustments that can be made independent of the video
card (like a high end Eizo).  

Frankly, I don't really sweat it even if my grayscale is not perfect.
 It may be noticeable when dealing with computer generated grayscale
ramps, but rarely noticeable in a continuous tone image.  When I have
a critical gray (and am working in RGB) I just use the info palette to
make sure my tones are neutral.  

Hope this helps.

Lou

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "andre1moreau"
<andre1moreau@...> wrote:
>
> Thanks to Jon and C.David for their replies.
> 
> I'll try to provide more information that I hope can shed more light
> unto the observation of traces of color appearing when displaying  a
> grayscale 21 stepwedge on both Samsung LCD monitors.
> 
> The Samsung monitors (22" and 30") are connected to different WinTel
> machines.
> 
> Brightness and contrast adjustments were done during the calibration
> procedure with the software at hand.
> 
> With both monitors, the color temperature was at 6600K before
> calibration and it was adjusted for a target of 6500K
> 
> Further verification shows that basICColor did not produce the same
> results as the Match v3 on the 22" LCD monitor. The 21 stepwedge shows
> some traces of blue in the highlights with the BasICColor. 
> 
> On the 30" monitor, there are no visible differences in the generated
> profiles by both software.
> 
> Regards,
> Andre
>