(sigh) The screen just isn't as nice...
I don't know how to describe it. But the screen on my new 15" Aluminum Powerbook just doesn't seem as nice as the one on my old Titanium 867 Powerbook.
Does anyone else notice the difference? The screen on the Albook just has this grainy, less focused look to it. I like the obvious increase in performance, but the screen is driving me nuts.
Does anyone else notice the difference? The screen on the Albook just has this grainy, less focused look to it. I like the obvious increase in performance, but the screen is driving me nuts.
Comments
Macs look best using the PC gamma nowadays, if you are running Mac OS X. The default simply is too washed out.
Make sure you are in the native resolution too, if that's not too obvious. LCDs simply look awful outside the native resolution.
Dave.
Originally posted by the cool gut
I agree with Snot, the screens on the new 15" powerbooks are just not up to snuff. Another thing you can do to help "hide" the problem is change your "Display Profile" in you monitor settings to "sRGB profile" that'll add some definition.
Wow, thanks for the excellent tip! Choosing sRGB sure made a difference. Great, now that I put up a white screen, I can see a spot. I'll watch it to see if it multiplies or gets worse.
Clearly, to me, ever since Mac OS X Public Beta, a PC gamma yields the nicest display, and I'd wager a truer one.
We are using PC hardware (components) now, like it or not. NeXT was a PC-based OS. I don't know the technical reasons at all but I swear Mac OS X still thinks it's a PC. I never knew the technical reason why older Macs had their own gamma but I think it is outdated to use it on today's hardware, in Mac OS X.
Anyone have technical details on any of these points?
Yes, sRGB does help but it's still not as good as if you take 2 minutes to do the color calibration manually and save it. Ideally you should do multiple profiles depending on your lighting conditions. But just do one and you'll see what I mean.
If you have an image that is:
black, 75%, 50% 25%, white, you'll see that the default Apple profile (and many of the others) are skewed, such that the it will look more like black, 60%, 40% 15%, white (roughly speaking)...
Come on, Apple, let's revamp the default profiles to better match your actual hardware...
Originally posted by the cool gut
I agree with Snot, the screens on the new 15" powerbooks are just not up to snuff. Another thing you can do to help "hide" the problem is change your "Display Profile" in you monitor settings to "sRGB profile" that'll add some definition.
Well I'm glad somebody else has noticed it and I'm not just going crazy. I am getting used to it but every time I turn on my old 867 TiBook I'm reminded of the compromise. I guess I'll just half to wait until a better product comes out.
The fact that you feel that your display looks better with a higher gamma is not a consequence of hardware. The default gamma used by Apple is a function of their choice of Colorsync profiles and the graphics driver. While it's true that current Macs use many more commodity components than before, the display ganna is a direct result of software manipulation (as you obviously demonstrated by "fixing" it with a new Colorsync profile).
For what it's worth, I run both my iBook & 20" Cinema display at a gamma of 2.0. 2.2 is just too dark in the low tones for critical editing with Photoshop. The issue with most of Apple's laptop screens I've seen (including my iBook) is that the contrast appears to be optimum only when the screen is tilted back, i.e. screen is not normal to the axis of vision.
Originally posted by PBG4 Dude
Don't forget to check your font-smoothing settings. For some reason, the AA option isn't set for LCDs out of the box.
Should I set it for "medium - best for flat panel"?
Now it's set to "standard - best for crt".
Thanks.
I also changed to 2.0 gamma, and now the screen is absolutely perfect!
I didn't know it could even get better than before!
Thanks!
yes technically your video card can show 8 bits of grey... but with the gamma set so low you would never see others... that and yellows will appear a dull orange at times.
Also remember that white light does really have a blue tint to your eyes. when you sit inside to long you get used to 'yellow' light to commidity light bulbs, and remember the sun burns yellow light. so you're brain tells you yellow light is white... when in essence its its really not that way. the blue white is the only way possibly of getting close to true white light.
Originally posted by kraig911
and remember the sun burns yellow light. so you're brain tells you yellow light is white...
Minor point, but sunlight is actually blue-shifted. That's why, in film and broadcast, a "booster-blue" gel is used to add blue to the light from incandescent halogen bulbs so that they can be used with sunlight to achieve uniform color.
Originally posted by chikan
How do you check the font smoothing settings? Sorry for the ? Thanks!
On 10.2:
System Preferences -> General
Or on 10.3:
System Preferences -> Appearance
Originally posted by kraig911
eh well apple's gamma is supposedly truer so you can see more shades of grey dude...
yes technically your video card can show 8 bits of grey... but with the gamma set so low you would never see others... that and yellows will appear a dull orange at times.
Also remember that white light does really have a blue tint to your eyes. when you sit inside to long you get used to 'yellow' light to commidity light bulbs, and remember the sun burns yellow light. so you're brain tells you yellow light is white... when in essence its its really not that way. the blue white is the only way possibly of getting close to true white light.
Not sure what you are referring to when you say "so low", but a 2.2 gamma setting, on my iBook's LCD, shows a better range of grays than the Apple defaults.
Using the Photoshop swatches palette as my rough guide:
I can more easily discern White from 5% and 10% (Black). 95% is still discernable, but barely, admittably.
With Apple RGB or Color LCD (I forget which is default) White, 5, 10 are not easily discernable.
The thing about Gamma is white is always white and black is always black on LCDs. The slider will affect where the midpoint, the 50% black will lie. Of course it affects color too, but I use grays as my guide. I let the color fall where it may. If you truly care about color correction beyond merely making things look "nicer", you already have a $1000 spectrocolorimeter and can ignore me.
Originally posted by Rolo
Wow, thanks for the excellent tip! Choosing sRGB sure made a difference. Great, now that I put up a white screen, I can see a spot. I'll watch it to see if it multiplies or gets worse.
What's with that spot? I just noticed mine last night. Is there any way to fix or hide it?
Originally posted by spkurtz
What's with that spot? I just noticed mine last night. Is there any way to fix or hide it?
holy moly... i just custom calibrated my display settings and i now see a very small white spot too. noticeable only if you are looking for it, its just a little left of dead center. where is your spot?
but the display does look less washed out now than with the default settings. thanks to the dudes for the tips.
Sunlight as we see it on Earth, varies from place to place and with weather conditions. The number 5500 degrees kelvin ( daylight film standard) was measured in Washington DC at 12 noon on a clear day. On an overcast day, it can shoot up to 10000 k (more blue) The average home light bulb is around 2900 k. The point is that white is a subjective judgement based on a variety of factors one of which is your enviroment I have two profiles one for daylight and another for 3200k cause at night I run halogens lights.