Hi Guys, Bit of an strange/strong request, but I have recently purchased an Samsung SE790C. I'm really loving the monitor but cant quite get the colour correct. I wanted to purchase an Spyder Display Colour Calibration unit, but they are very expensive for something I will only use very rarely. I was wondering if it was at all possible if someone had one I can borrow for a few days. Obviously I would pay postage fully both ways. If this is not at all possible its no problem. Never hurts to ask though eh. Thanks as always guys. Sam
I have an Xrite i1 Display 2 which you can borrow, however I think calibrating your monitor with a puck is a bit extreme if you're not going to be doing colour critical work on it (which I do, every day, in Photoshop). When you say you can't get the colour "correct", what do you mean?
Hi LennyRhys, Thank you for your very generous offer. I'm not 100% sure the best way to explain what I mean by colours not being "correct" but I guess the best word's to describe it would be dull and saturated. I previously had a LG 34UM95 which looked great out the box, but had to be sent back 3 times due to back light bleed which LG never managed to fix, but that's another story for some other day. I understand the LG monitor had an IPS panel so naturally colours would look allot more vivid and viewing angles would be better, an benefit of IPS from my understanding. But I decided to purchase the Samsung due to better customer support (I hope ) and it uses a VA panel which has allot less chance of BLB which so far seems to be true. I knew when purchasing it colours would not be as vivid and bright due to being a VA panel, but colours seem really saturated in comparison. I read a few reviews of the Samsung monitor, and a few of them mentioned the calibration out the box was not great and required to be tweaked. I have tried to mess with contrast setting ETC but can't quite seem to get it right. So my next best train of thought was to use a calibrator. But I may be completely wrong... it has been know If you know of anything else I can tweak that would be fantastic. Any advice would be great, and once again many thanks for the offer.
OK so there's confusion here off the bat Dull and saturated are at opposite ends of the spectrum - a dull image is desaturated, whereas a bright or vibrant image may be described as saturated. If your picture looks desaturated, the backlight level may be too low or a preset mode may be killing the colour. Have you looked at the preset modes in your monitor's OSD? Calibration definitely won't give your screen more vivid colour, if that's what you're wondering! You can also adjust your monitor's colour output from Windows desktop by changing colour settings in Nvidia's Control Panel. As a general rule of thumb, your colours will pop more if your screen is brighter, but you don't want it set too bright for prolonged use. I suppose the best thing you can do is to play with the sliders and find a setting that works best. Let us know how you get on.
Windows has a "Calibrate Display Colour" wizard that helps get things pretty close with Gamma, brightness and contrast.
Hi Guys, Thank you very much for the advice, very much appreciated. I ran through the Windows calibration tool and tweaked with my monitor settings and it did a world of good. Looks like I was me just being a numpty. I now have it looking pretty much perfect for how I like to view content. One wired thing I did notice that seemed to change as I altered contrast was splodges around colours, it's really difficult to describe but I have attached an few images to hopefully show you what I mean. A friend of mine say's it happens when low resolution content is trying to display on a high resolution display and compensates by merging colours together. (I don't have a clue ;p) Really hoping it's not a monitor fault as I think I might cry. Feedback would be greatly appreciated. Many Thanks
It's hard to say as it looks like the camera is affecting the quality of the picture with the banding. Can you check to see if it is definitely running in 32bit colour whilst the game is loaded? (Alt tab and check in the Nv control Panel) What resolution are you running the game at? Is it just the title screen that is affected?
i have the same monitor and the default settings are pretty poor, i set mine to Brightness = 20 Contrast = 85 Gamma = Mode 3 Color Tone = Custom Red = 46 Green = 35 Blue = 45 i also found this for a quick calibration http://www.hex2bit.com/products/product_mcw.asp
something else i just thought of was i noticed you have the nvidia 970, check in the nvida control panel and make sure the rgb mode is set to full and not limited, you can also tick colour vibrence but i didnt bother as it made the colours a bit too bright. i also found changing the texture qaulity from high to very high in the drop down box improved the look of games
Hi Dedders, The games I'm playing are running at full native resolution at 3440x1440. As soon as I get home I will check and see if it's running at 32bit colour with the game running. Thank you very much for the advice, I will let you know how I get on.
Hi Heir Flick, Thank you very much for this info, very useful. I will have a play with the settings when I get home tonight and let you know how I got on. Many Thanks.
Hi Guys, Thank you very much to everyone for the advice on this issue so far, really helpful. I have provided you all with some +Rep
oh and one more thing did you install the drivers off the disc as this also puts a icc profile in windows colour managment
I downloaded and installed the driver from the Samsung Website. The driver installation asked me to select my Display output type which was DP. And then that was pretty much it, so I would presume it has installed the ICC profile, but I can't say for sure. Once again I will look when I get back home. Thanks for the advice!
@User-sam - I can see this banding/artifacts on Steam menus too - it's seriously nothing to worry about. The Steam menus are just poorly designed that way for some reason and it'll be rare indeed to see it on other websites and in games (I've had this monitor for two weeks now). VA and TN don't blend some low resolution bitmaps that well it would seem compared to IPS. BTW - every time you fiddle with the colours, do a Clear-type tune each time as it helps the text more than on normal monitors I've noticed (the pixels are elongated - saw this from a post on another forum). I'm liking this thing a lot now, but getting the colours right was a pain.
Hi Deders, Looks like games are definitely running at 32bit colour and at full native resolution. I have only noticed the artifacts once while actually running a game. It seems to occur mostly on the title screen of games.
Hi Guys, So just to let you know I have tried a variety of things to try and fix the "artifacts" I'm getting on my monitor. I have ran through the windows monitor calibration tool several times and hopefully got all the settings pretty much perfect. Gone through the NVIDA control panel and made sure it's set on full range of colours opposed to limited, I have also made sure games are running at full native resolution at 32bit colour. I have checked the correct ICC profile is installed under windows colour management, and have also set all my monitor settings as Heir Flick suggested. Unfortunately even with all this I'm still getting the artifact issue, I have also tried my NUC over HDMI a different display port cable on my main PC and the issue still persists. I'm really worried it's actually an issue with the monitor? Feedback would be greatly appreciated as always. Thanks.
Hi Sal, Thanks allot for this, I think I'm just being a little over worried to be honest as my old LG 34Inch monitor I had to send back multiple times due to Back Light Bleed which never got fixed, and I really didn't want to go through the same ordeal again. But if it's something that naturally happens it's a little peace of mind. I don't suppose you could let me know what settings you are using on the monitor? I have tweaked with Windows Monitor Calibration, NVidia Controls and the monitor settings them self but can't quite seem to get the mix right to reduce colour banding. Thanks Sam
Hi Sam....yes I had to send back two LG's as well so I know the feeling. As far as banding - as I said in my post, it's the poor bitmaps that are at fault plus this being an 8-bit VA as opposed to a 10-bit IPS (like the LG). Basically you can't fix it, but TBH I only notice this on the Steam interface. I'd forget it and move on really. EDIT: Read this an you will see this is a drawback of this monitor. In terms of settings etc - It would appear they vary a fair bit by how owners have set their RGB, brightness etc, so there's no point in posting mine. I got a Spyder4 Express (the cheapest one) and it's set the gamma too high for me. Will fiddle around, but yeah getting this thing right is a pain. There's a big discussion here - best place to ask questions.
Hi Sal, Thank you very much for the info. I spent a good couple of hours scrawling through the madness that is the OC post. The end result is I managed to download 3 different ICM profiles and tweak with my monitor settings until I got a pretty decent looking monitor configuration which I'm happy with. My Only complaint is I'm still getting colour banding in a fair amount of stuff. Steam, Battle.net launcher,various websites,some photos, & finally in game title screens and sometimes the sky in games like BF3 and WOW. From my understanding this happens more often with 8-bit panels and even more with VA panels. But I'm still getting far to much for my liking. Maybe it's just something I'm going to have to live with, or is it a genuine fault? Many Thanks Sam
