Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

I recently stumbled upon an Eizo monitor test url.

https://www.eizo.be/monitor-test/

Appeared to be some good tests one of which was monitor gamma.

https://www.eizo.com/library/basics/lcd_display_gamma/

Running the gamma test appears to indicate that my monitor is 1.1 Gamma and under the Eizo ColorNavigator 6 calibration prog. there is in fact a
 80cd 6500K 1.01.cntarget.

Question - (prob for Terry) should I be using 1.01 ?

Jeff.

 

 

Hi Jeff,
My Color navigator Help says:
All Eizo C-N the built in calibration options ie., Photography, Printing and Web design give gamma 2.2 so that's what I use in my custom Target.
See attached screen shot.
It seems to me that you are not using the recommended setting if gamma is 1.1  :o
Terry

Hello Terry

I am using gamma 2.2

I am curious regarding the results of running the Eizo screen gamma test.

Attached two screen dumps.

Gamma One - as per Eizo test
Gamma Two - as adjusted (note actual screen shows logo blended into background.  Dumped screen still shows faintly the logo.

I can just read the text box on these reduced images.

Jeff

     

Hi Jeff,
I must have misunderstood about the gamma you are using.
I'm puzzled as the why you are getting a gamma value that is nowhere near the calibration value. Your second shot shows significant contrast on the logo. So is that really what you can see on the monitor?
I tried a reduced size screen shot but it does not show does not what I see on the screen in the test, too much contrast for some reason.
The actual test does work for me and I get  gamma 2.2 but it takes a little practice to use and it's better to stand back from the monitor to judge it.
Terry

I am also puzzled, all the other tests are OK.

Leaving well alone for now.  I will do more checking later.

Off line rest of day.

Jeff

 

I think Eizo has a menu on the monitor itself where you can set gamma.  Maybe that's set to 1.0?  All of the popular color spaces are gamma 2.2 and Windows also assumes gamma 2.2 so the monitor should really be set to gamma 2.2 in order to match your images if there is a setting for it on your monitor.

A monitor can work at any gamma including 1.0 but best results are achieved when your images and your monitor have the same gamma.  If your monitor is running at gamma 1.0 and you have images that are in gamma 2.2 (sRGB, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto color space), your software such as Qimage, Lightroom, Photoshop, and even Windows, will have to convert your image from it's native gamma 2.2 to the monitor's 1.0 and you'll lose steps and end up with less than 256 shades for each RGB channel: you may get noticeable banding, particularly on JPEG images.  As a result, all Windows monitors should be set to gamma 2.2 for best color reproduction when the monitor lets you choose.

Regards,
Mike

I've just checked  my Eizo menus, there's nothing there for gamma. It's probably because it's disabled when the monitor is hardware calibrated to set parameters in the software (ColorNavigator6).
Terry

Thanks to Mike and Terry.

I checked the Eizo menus before starting this subject, and nothing menu wise was working.

Just checked again and the menus are now there, but the color item is greyed out, so I think the ColorNavigator 6 is in charge.

I just find it interesting, A little or no knowledge is a dangerous thing :)

Jeff 



   

Further to above.

I emailed the question to Eizo.

They 'phoned me at 11am and we had a chat.

It appears the Gamma Test is for when there is a problem with a monitor, presumably the results are helpful to those who know what they are talking about. That gets me off the hook :)

Also, when using the ColorNavigator it takes control and some of the menu items are disabled to keep those like me from meddling and messing things up :)

I must say I am impressed with Eizo support, they were most concerned that the monitor was performing OK.

So I now have two support ratings at 100%+     ddisoftware and Eizo


Jeff
 

Terry- why do you set D65 and not D50 for print jobs?

I assume you are referring to the screen shot of my monitor calibration result in post#1 above where the white point is set to 6500K. It's not directly related to printing as it's the monitor setting.
I've always understood that for photography, 6500K is the usual setting. For other tasks such as graphic design, lower values may be used.
Lower values (5500K or 5000K) do give a "warmer" look to the screen but our eyes get used to this so the warm look becomes normal. I don't think it affects the appearance of the print as that is controlled by the print profile and I get very good matching monitor to print. see http://ddisoftware.com/tech/printer-media/the-wonders-of-colour-management-my-recent-experience/ (http://ddisoftware.com/tech/printer-media/the-wonders-of-colour-management-my-recent-experience/)
Maybe someone with a better technical knowledge (eg. Mike) can comment.
Terry

Thank you!