Originally posted by: mg2plus
Hi all!
Perhaps you would be interested in an article that I wrote about adjusting contrast and brightness. I think it is a must-read, whether you are expert or novice.
In my opinion, 95% of people have brightness and contrast controls set to wrong values that result in bad picture and soar eyes.
Guide: adjusting brightness and contrast
Any comments are welcome.
Sorry it took me awhile to get around to it.
I do have some suggestions.
If you were unable to set brightness and contrast in such a way that all edges and squares are clearly distinguishable, than you have a really bad monitor.
I don't feel this is true. Make sure the user knows that he may never be able to get the 252,253,254,255 shades to show up differently. This is very hard to do, even on pro panels after hardware calibration. (Although when you look at an angle it might become more distinguished due to gamma shift, but that's not the goal here.) On my LCD2690 I can only see two shades in the left picture. It has been hardware calibrated. (Not sure if PVA panels would have more luck here.)
I think adjusting the LCD depends more on the use than being able to see all the dark or all the light colors. My dark grayscale and light grayscale tests aren't really a good influence. I think education is always good but I try not to classify TN panels as "bad", as actually they are quite nice for a lot of things if you get the right ones. I have to say, the only TNs I think are worth it are 22" widescreens, though.
246,249,252,255 is more than reasonable. That's probably about as far as you want to go with basic adjustments, otherwise it is too hard to tell. I know it should be obvious to people that not all monitors can do this, but unfortunately they might be sitting there for 30 mins all for naught trying to get 253,254 to show up differently.
It's good that you have an enhanced image though. That makes it so they know what to expect.
Maybe you want to cover something about gamma adjustment. That can fix problems on a lot of LCDs. I recommend adjustment of either the three channels at once or all the channels at once, because generating a 256*256 table of gamma by adjusting Bezier curves is very difficult to do properly (the NVIDIA control panel or RivaTuner lets you do this) and often results in worse color. Simple programs are ones like QuickGamma, or most video control panels let you adjust gamma as well.
Some monitors have an option for gamma. Many Samsungs and LGs have three levels of adjustment, and maybe some Dells as well. Don't worry about the pro monitors that have more fine gamma adjustment in the advanced menu, people should be using calibration if they want the pro models right. I understand you're trying to keep the guide simple.
Many wide gamut monitors have complicated the fact of calibration since their sRGB modes often yield dull pictures. You may want to mention that for these monitors, the standard mode is more preferable along with using a color profile for the browser. That might be getting a little complicated though.
The movies and laptop use I agree with. For text use, contrast is good because you want your eyes to be able to distinguish as much as possible between black and white. Usually, setting contrast higher than 50 clips the grayscale and is bad. I would leave it at 50% and reduce brightness as much as possible. Reducing brightness is directly reducing the backlight most of the time. It will save power and yield a better picture (low brightness at high contrast). It honestly depends on the monitor. Some may look terrible with low brightness and high contrast set, it just depends. In my experience that's the most logical and sensible way to do it for text.
LCDs are not always easy to adjust and I think you put together a good guide. I will add it to the OP Calibration links and accredit it to you.