I have an HP LP2465 S-IPS lcd panel combined with an ATI Radeon 9550 video card. Unprofiled the monitor is bright and a gradient from black to white shows no banding. I can create a black document in photoshop, create a selection and use curves to step up through the levels of black and I can see each individual gradation and they are all fairly neutral.
However, once I calibrate with my Optix XR Pro I get lots of color shifts as well as banding throughout the spectrum of grays.
I’ve used matrix and table based profile options (3d table seems to give less banding but shows a higher delta e when I analyze it) as well as advanced settings, target luminance, etc.
I know it 's not an Eizo. But is this normal? Further, do Eizo’s show completely smooth and neutral gradients when profiled with my equipment?
Well I suppose if you want to reduce banding, you would try to have as much of your color & density corrections done in the on-screen monitor adjustments. That way, the graphics card will have less dramatic corrections to make when it comes to reproducing your calibration and profile. When the graphics card has to do a lot of correction, it reduces how much “space” it has to do things like give you lots of even steps in your grayscale.
I know this goes against some current advice which is to leave your LCD monitor at its native white setting, and let the graphics card do the job of yanking all your color into shape. This would be fine, except that it can sometimes lead to banding. So if you want to reduce banding, then some heavy lifting in the monitor itself might help.
Are you sure it’s banding that you’re seeing? A neutral gradient image is one of the easiest ways to see it. Try the White Balance target from the Hutchcolor site.
One of the nice things about an Eizo or other LCD with an internal graphics processor is that they have higher resolutions ( a finer ‘grid’) than can be had with the 8-bit graphics card on your computer. When you have 1024 or more steps (instead of just 255) it pretty much eliminates banding.
I’m creating a grayscale in Photoshop using the gradient tool with no dithering. For added measure I convert to grayscale to neutralize all the numbers.
I see rainbows of green and red (very faint but noticable).
I can’t open the files you referenced – I’m on a pc. Not sure if .sit files are mac.
I’ll try tuning the white point on my monitor and see what that does.
Regarding Eizos – is the CE series not recommended? I could get the CG if necessary but the price difference is steep. What benefits do you get for the extra bucks?
Here’s a quick overview of the similarities between the CE and CG:
Both have 10-bit LUT memory for higher bit-depth
Both have at least 14-bit processing for better greyscale
Both have a patented backlight sensor
Both have a 5-Year Warranty
Both are factory measured for Gamma and Greyscale
Both have Brightness Stabilization for quick warm-up time & consistency and brightness stability over time
Both include Eizo ColorNavigator calibration/profiling software
Here’s a less-than-quick overview of the more relevant practical differences (other than mere technical specifications) between the CE and CG:
The CG has an IPS panel, CE has a PVA panel. IPS is better.
The CG comes with the FULL version of Color Navigator, CE has limited version. This will change though and full version will soon work on both.
The CG is the higher tier product (panel & components) and considered commercial/industrial level and therefore better product than CE. This impacts longevity, including in-gamut viewing period and stability over time. Newly out of the box, both CE and CG compare closely though.
Also, we’re reluctant to qualify the CE models as ‘Color Critical’ viewing, whereas the CG certainly qualifies. Although this is a subjective matter to some degree, the CG series compares well against Trinitrons/Artisans and Diamond Pro CRT’s of yesteryear (which were regarded as the top CRT commercial monitors).
The CE is a Wide Screen and has different perspective that a CG (not bad or good… just different). The CG series conforms to a 4:3 aspect ratio (horizontal/vertical relationship), which also was a feature of the best CRTs used in color evaluation. The CE will slightly ‘stretch’ your image. But the extra real estate on a CE-240 screen has value in itself.
The CE series has better contrast and speed refresh specifications than the CG. In an Photoshop image editing studio with lower (darker) viewing conditions, this is not much of a benefit, if any, but it does help with the more demanding other secondary functions of DVD, video, gaming playback and viewing. However, there is some benefit to the the CE’s greater contrast in lighter environments.
I would put the CG-211 up against any monitor in the world right now and know with confidence that it is the current standard to beat (detail, tonal balance and smooth gradations, dynamic range, etc.)
The CG-210 and CG-211 models include monitor hood and rotate vertically (re-orientes the pixels in vertical perspective). This is a feature the CE’s don’t have.
The CG-211, CG-221 and CG-221 models have the ‘Uniformity Regulator’ technology which measures screen differences (uniformity), then reduces and balances these differences. No other model has this yet. However, Eizo is planning to incorporate this into upcoming models CG and CE apparently. The CG-221 is the model that closely emulates Adobe 1998 color space at around $5000. There are some instances where it is justified, but for most photographers, it’s overkill and likely to be underutilized.
There’s probably more that I’m missing and certainly more specification differences than mentioned here… so feel free to call me or take a discussion off-line.
