[ceenda]

I've recently discovered that my "Radiation Master 2000" is totally screwed up compared to the monitors at work and... well... everywhere else. Hence, alot of work now looks dark/drab where it shouldn't have (hehe, nice excuse ceenda).

Is there any way I can do an online monitor test or something where I can calibrate my monitor to be relatively correct with regards to brightness and contrast?

For those of you thinking "Doh! Why doesn't he just play with the brightness/contrast???".

Well, what am I comparing against... (?)

[balistic]

You should be able to make out all the numbers.

*image courtesy www.3drender.com

[Lunatique]

Here you go.
http://www.garageglamour.com/tips/calibrate.shtml

[c]

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/monitor_profiling.htm

you might want to check that out.

[Sven2]

Well, I can't see the number in the darkest shade. But still I feel the monitor is bright enough, and I hate looking at a screen with full contrast and brightness. It hurts my eyes, I feel uncomfortable. Sure that's the way it's meant to be?

[Nathan Marciniak]

Discomfort can be caused by too low of a refresh rate. 60Hz for example can be very nasty on the eyes. If your electron guns aren't aligned and there's flare around things, or the image looks generally blurry that will hurt your eyes too. I find that cheaper monitors are just hard to look at for long periods of time regardless of brightness and contrast.

(There aren't any numbers in the top white nor the bottom black.)

The lower your ambient light is, the better the screen looks. Just shine a light on your screen sometime - it completely washes out the blacks. A hood is a good compromise to use in brighter rooms.

[ December 04, 2001: Message edited by: Nathan Marciniak ]

[Norling]

There's a difference between gamma and brightness. Gamma is the brightness of the half-dark tone of the screen. A gamma-calibration tool looks like a small checker-pattern, with black and white pixels, surrounded with a 50% gray area. The point is that you should adjust the gamma so that the gray area and the checker area appears to have the same darkness. Stand back from your monitor or defocus with your eyes to measure more easily.

You should measure the color temperature of your screen to...Most graphics cards and some monitors have tools for adjusting both gamma and temperature. There is a small program that comes with photoshop too..." adobe gamma"

[Norling]

http://www.jasc.com/monitor1.asp

[Muzman]

Loki had a really good method for this too (and it was in the FAQ, when we had one)

[Derek]

Here's a great site, probably mnore than a lot of you would want to dig through, but it's really comprehensive...
http://www.aim-dtp.net/

[Sukhoi]

Also, Ceenda, if you have a cheaper Sony trinitron monitor a couple of years in age (multiscan200ES for instance) you won't get a really good representation of the darker colours.
I've seen thia a lot with the cheaper trinitron tubes.
I know, I've got one .

Sukhoi