Calamities with video screens :(

OKay well I have for reasons which seem obvious to me stuck to a glass monitor long beyond the time the lcd ones came out .. yesterday my monitor blew up the one for doing graphics...

I went out today and bought an LCD one with the best settings I could find I CAN'T see the colours properly and such

does anyone have or know of one that gives as good a representation as glass monitors do for this kinda stuff (i have scoured the net with this question)

I am sitting here with my brand spanking new "wide screen" 19 inch or 20 inch or whatever lcd monitor and it truly sucks for graphics

posted this question elsewhere not many answers yet this one which was the best the stores have to offer in downtown ottawa is 700:1 resolution and 5 ms response time

its "pretty" but I can't properly work on stuff as the colours seem wrong the blacks are all black I can't see shades I have sat here farting and adjusting for hours and I still can't see shades

so i am wondering what brand if any I can order on the net that will do a better job of showing up the subtle stuff so that i can see it and fix it..

pulls hair out and cries ..

I have two professional Viewsonic LCD's (vp211b) which I absolutely love. Viewsonic no longer makes them so you may be able to find a good deal on some used ones, or if you don't mind spending a bit more, check their current pro line monitors. The color reproduction is wonderful (far better than my old CRTs) and they were worth every penny.

Let us know what you have now and something a bit more specific about the problems you're having. Your monitor may be fine. You might have a graphics card or cabling problem instead.

I saw the viewsonics where i was but the resolution was lower hehe

this one is called an "xplio" never heard of it but I made the guy unplug them al and type in words (poor guy anyhow) so i could at least see how much ghosting is occuring

I have been attempting to set the colours I think I have them the best I can (they are vivid its very nice) the problem I am having is with shading like say your making something black (well almost everything I make is black right now but... anyhow) you need to make the folds and the shading etc well the differences in "blacks" is not as apparent as on the monitor that just blew up. I'm muddling through but my problem is and I know this is going to happen say I am matching seams but since I have been busy shading and farting the blacks on the front and back of whatever bit of clothing are not exactly the same. With the old monitor I could spot this. Now I opened up something I was working on before my monitor blew up to start working on the seams so that the blacks match etc I could see no difference yet I know they were there

So the range seems to be kind of off

I was looking at samsung's but again the ones that were in front of me had a slower rate of rate 8 ms or 10 or 12 and a lower resolution 500:1

I went online and found something called a samsung extreme it had a 1000:1 resolution but the rate was low its was 12 ms

I"M keeping this monitor obviously because I need something to use but need a new one so basicall i'm trying to find out what is working for others because this particular monitor is maknig large sucking noises

suffice it to say everything i do I will have to ask someone to put on and tell me if they see seams hehe

anyhow such is life I will go see if i can find the viewsonics (guess soon i will be a dual monitor person.. hehe)

ive got a 21 inch mitsubishi, or depending on which month you buy it may be a NEC (same company) out of the box it matches those color test strips (for crt calabration) perfectly, and its got an exclent viewing angle, which means if your sitting abit to the side it doesnt screw up your colors .. and you can clearly see the bugger from 100 yards away, its a great screen

that distance thing was one of the deciding factors, standing on the other side of "mega-compu-mart" every other brand just looked like a dimly lit black screen, but not this one, infact i could still read the (rather large) BUY NOW graphic on the screen

other good ones are the viewsonics mentioned above, samsung, and apple studio displays

theres also sillicon graphics, but if you crack one of those bad boys open the lcd is made by mitsubishi, so you are really spending some extra money on a grey case and a snotty name

That's really strange, Wilhelm. That's one huge advantage LCDs have over CRTs... they show the full lower color register where CRTs almost never do. When I first got mine I was completely amazed by how much of the low end I'd been missing previously because it all just displayed as black. If color and luminance reporduction is important to you you're probably not going to end up happy with a brand name no one's ever heard of purchased at your local computer mart. This is Viewsonic's current line of professional LCDs. When the ones I have bite the dust I'll buy Viewsonic again in a heartbeat. The model that replaced my current monitors is the vp2130b. 1600x1200 native resolution, 1000:1 contrast ratio, 8ms response time, and professional calibration software. Retails for $739.

well i went to open gl it appears to be more of a video card issue which in a way is a relief because i was about to change to a better one (the new series 8800 or whatever) so umm it is grainy but i can now see more of the shadows etc and colour ranges but i no longer think it sucks as much as I thought it did

the printing is grainy but the colour ranges seem better so maybe my video card is dying (although its 6 months old only but it was a cheapy that I had intended to replace like soonish..)

Anyhow my original intention was to get a new graphics card first then my monitor blew up hehe

its a new system with a monitor that has seen three computer changes so it was expected anyhow it seems much better the open gl I dont know what made me decide to try it but it seems to have helped?

inside SL was aweful so i guess i decided to try it in there to see if it helped it did so it seems to be graphics card related moreso then sucky screen (strange but that is a relief seeing as i had to talk myself into buying an LCD )

so now that i have the thing running in open GL its not so bad after all that's a relief because it was the best monitor on the shelf and not so cheap either ..

Glad to hear that You can get a good graphics card a whole lot cheaper than a new LCD. You should be able to get an nvidia 6000 series card for around $100, or 7000 series for around $200. I recently picked up a 7600 for $200 and it drives two LCDs at 1280x1024 each (dual desktop) and gives a very acceptable framerate in SL.

Hi Wilhelm!

I'm assuming that you have already tried adjusting the gamma on the monitor?

When I'm in SL, it's clear to me which designers have their gammas set much lower (brighter) than mine is. I have to decrease mine to even see what their stuff looks like; otherwise it's all just black.

Hope this helps!

if you can afford it i suggest a color probe, the entry price type, i use it for my dual screen so i see the colors in PS properly

mispost wrong guy... be back later with the right one..

okay as i was saying hehe

yes i am or tried to adjust the gamma its just so "black" as you say but i can see the differences but not as well as i should i'm also blamming it on the video card now i think

hopefully i will get this figured out i mean the thing does seem to take good screenies I might just not be used to it or something

right now I do think the monitor sucks but maybe some more farting around will make it better meanwhile i will replace what appears to be a dying 7900gt nvidia card with a newer 8800 one and more ram then i will get yet another monitor to add to this one

also i can't wait to get the new photoshop after humming and hawing what to do i find that i can't wait to get this new toy (yes its an expensive toy) but I will use it for work as well and that is my rational for buying it although for web design fireworks works pretty well I want to play with this other new toy and then all will be well with the world

meanwhile I struggle with this new monitor which is not going to make me happy over the long run as I like to make black stuff but obviously for it to have detail you have to fart with it a lot and shades are the key

so i can struggle with this for awhile it does do the job but not well