new (cheap) monitor : rant

[tlitody]

My 19inch crt monitor finanlly gave up the ghost and I purchased a cheap lcd replacement.
Now I have long found this site to be very very dark. It's not any more! It's the opposite and I'm still working on getting the damn monitor set reasonably.

But why oh why do monitor manufacturers make them so bloody bright with such high contrast? A print is only upto 7 or 8 stops of range and often a lot less so why do we need monitors which have 1000:1 or more contrast ratio when 256:1 would be plenty?
How are you supposed to match screen to print when contrast and brightness are way off from what the print will be.

p.s. and yes I know I should buy a better quality monitor and a calibration device. But I never needed one when using a crt monitor.

 

[biomed]

I had the same problem until I bought a colorimeter (iOne Display 2 from X-Rite). No longer an issue now. I did notice with my monitor, a 24 inch Samsung, that the color/contrast is dependent on the angle from which I view the screen. I try to do any image color adjustment while viewing the monitor from straight on as much as possible. I do recall a thread discussing different types of flat panel displays and viewing angle relating to image editing.

 

[tlitody]

I've sorted it. Used the photoshop calibration panel to build a new profile (by eye) which is good enough for me and use that profile for everything on my pc.
The secret for me was to set the gamma at 3.0. Much higher than 2.2 normally assigned to a PC profile but it works a treat. I guess these modern monitors require it. Still not quite perfect but another iteration or two and it'll be exactly where I want it.