Contrast ratio of LCD monitors

I'm wondering about the contrast ratio spec of new LCD monitors. It varies
between 1,000 and 3,000 in many cases, but with the screens all lined up and
displaying images in the store I don't see much difference. Any opinions
about how much difference this makes in the real world, and how you can
actually assess the difference?

"Victek" wrote in message
...

I'm wondering about the contrast ratio spec of new LCD monitors. It
varies between 1,000 and 3,000 in many cases, but with the screens all
lined up and displaying images in the store I don't see much difference.
Any opinions about how much difference this makes in the real world, and
how you can actually assess the difference?


If you were looking at a low key images side by side you may notice a slight
difference between a monitor with a low contrast ratio and one with a high
one, but to be honest 1000:1 isn't low at all.

Victek added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....

I'm wondering about the contrast ratio spec of new LCD
monitors. It varies between 1,000 and 3,000 in many cases,
but with the screens all lined up and displaying images in the
store I don't see much difference. Any opinions about how
much difference this makes in the real world, and how you can
actually assess the difference?

I'd make one observation here having purchased a 26" Samsung back
in May. It seems that the popular trend in all LCD displays is to
vastly over-saturate and over-brighten the display. As best I've
been able to learn this is because the public thinks this makes
the image jump off the screen better giving the illusion of
greater dyamic range and greater sharpness. Well, maybe, but
probably not as comparing this monitor to my older Samsung 213T
shows the new one to be far, far from what the same image looks
like on the LCD on the back of my camera or even my view of the
world with my eyes. Thus, I've spend a lot of time tweaking the
brightness, contrast, RGB, and sharpness of my new monitor and
all the controls are not at the low end to get what I believe is
a realistic image display. Whether any of this has to do with the
3000:1 contrast ratio or 5000:1 of higher end displays I don't
know but I for one don't like the overly vivid look.

My suggestion would be to bring in a CD or a camera memory card
with representative images you think look "right" and try to get
the store to let you try them out on the short list of monitors
you're considering. Sometimes this isn't possible as most stores
simply hook up their monitors to a canned signal precisely to
give customers a side-by-side comparison. But, with a little
finessing and a lot of politeness I was able to get both Circuit
City and Best Buy to move the monitors I was considering to a PC
in the store which did allow me to display my images.

Another tip: be sure to buy only from a store that will give you
a 100% refund with no restocking fee. You see, the features and
controls may not suit you and/or you may be very dissatisfied
with the display or the sharpness or some other visual attribute
when viewing your common images under the lighting conditions
where you run your PC.

Good luck.

--
HP, aka Jerry

Don't be a fop or a blooter, make only pithy comments on Usenet

Jake added these comments in the current discussion du jour ...


I'm wondering about the contrast ratio spec of new LCD
monitors. It varies between 1,000 and 3,000 in many cases,
but with the screens all lined up and displaying images in
the store I don't see much difference. Any opinions about how
much difference this makes in the real world, and how you can
actually assess the difference?

If you were looking at a low key images side by side you may
notice a slight difference between a monitor with a low
contrast ratio and one with a high one, but to be honest
1000:1 isn't low at all.

Please see my reply to the OP first, but I would disagree that
1000:1 isn't pretty low. But, unless one is into technical lab
testing to glean some scientific comparisons, it is vitally
important to view real world images and not just the canned
displays in the stores. In my shopping this spring I found the
1000:1 displays were the lowest end monitors with the least sharp
display while the 5000:1 were barely better than the 3000:1 but
usually 2X-3X the price.

In the end, I think this is a highly subjective issue.

--
HP, aka Jerry

Don't be a fop or a blooter, make only pithy comments on Usenet

"HEMI-Powered" wrote in message
.. .

I'm wondering about the contrast ratio spec of new LCD
monitors. It varies between 1,000 and 3,000 in many cases,
but with the screens all lined up and displaying images in
the store I don't see much difference. Any opinions about how
much difference this makes in the real world, and how you can
actually assess the difference?


If you were looking at a low key images side by side you may
notice a slight difference between a monitor with a low
contrast ratio and one with a high one, but to be honest
1000:1 isn't low at all.


Please see my reply to the OP first, but I would disagree that
1000:1 isn't pretty low. But, unless one is into technical lab
testing to glean some scientific comparisons, it is vitally
important to view real world images and not just the canned
displays in the stores. In my shopping this spring I found the
1000:1 displays were the lowest end monitors with the least sharp
display while the 5000:1 were barely better than the 3000:1 but
usually 2X-3X the price.

In the end, I think this is a highly subjective issue.


I'm not talking about sharpness though, I'm talking about contrast
graduations.

Victek wrote:
I'm wondering about the contrast ratio spec of new LCD monitors. It
varies between 1,000 and 3,000 in many cases, but with the screens all
lined up and displaying images in the store I don't see much
difference. Any opinions about how much difference this makes in the
real world, and how you can actually assess the difference?

There are only a few LCD screen manufacturers in world capable of
producing a monitor with CMYK colour gamut. You can however use a cheap
monitor and provided you follow a few pointers, only ever miss out of
the last section of black on a contrast wedge.

Although these monitors all seem to come with a 15 pin VGA plug (or
adaptor) DVI (Digital Video Input) will absolutely improve the contrast
range you can see on screen.

If you use a RADEON video card, it comes natively with built in monitor
profiling adjustments. All you need to do is get the RGB examples right
and you have very good colour balance without profiling the screen.

You may need a cheap program called "power strip" to move the gamma to a
low contrast region suitable for photographs but once you have done
these things, a $200 LG monitor will start to look like a high end Ezio.

The contrast ratio described by LCD makers is all useless. I have a
2000:1 CR screen that looks no better and no worse than the $1900 Ezio I
bought for editing photos - most of the time.

I use the (wide screen) LG for movie editing but I'd happily use it for
photo editing if I didn't have the Ezio.

Samsung make a screen now they claim will match the CMYK of a web offset
press. Big deal. So will my tweaked LG and it cost less than half the
price of the Samsung.

The current issue of Maximum PC reviews this subject.
There are also some comments in an interview in the current issue of CPU
that give insight into why LCD television panels are not what they seem
compared to Plasma, DLP and particularly the late CRT, still the standard of
measure. This is particularly so with regard to what contrast ratio means:
if LCD panels cannot display absolute black then what does contrast ratio
really mean?
Most of us are using 6 bit low end panels, regardless of what they cost with
always on back lighting.
8 and 16 bit color depths, as well as black, viewed on these screens are
illusory, which may explain why all but a few LCD panels are worse than low
end CRTs for mainstream image processing.
Contrast ratios and other measures for these panels, while generally made up
by the manufacturer and not necessarily objective measures, have more to do
with watching video and playing games than static image processing.

Jake added these comments in the current discussion du jour ...

If you were looking at a low key images side by side you may
notice a slight difference between a monitor with a low
contrast ratio and one with a high one, but to be honest
1000:1 isn't low at all.

Please see my reply to the OP first, but I would disagree
that 1000:1 isn't pretty low. But, unless one is into
technical lab testing to glean some scientific comparisons,
it is vitally important to view real world images and not
just the canned displays in the stores. In my shopping this
spring I found the 1000:1 displays were the lowest end
monitors with the least sharp display while the 5000:1 were
barely better than the 3000:1 but usually 2X-3X the price.

In the end, I think this is a highly subjective issue.

I'm not talking about sharpness though, I'm talking about
contrast graduations.

In my view, one cannot separate any of the standard qualitative
or quantitative aspects of display quality as they are all
related. My point was and is two-fold: the 1000:1 monitors are
the low-end ones, at least from what I've seen and they all are
overly vivid, of which excessively high contrast is a part. In
order to reliably discern the difference amongst the various
monitors on display in a store, one must have images to display
that will show up the differences. Among those attributes would
certainly be images with fine detail and sharpness so that you
can see if they are preserved and images with a wide dynamic
range so that you can see if it is faithfully reproduced by the
monitor without reducing the contrast to the point where the
image looks muddy, especially in the shadows.

--
HP, aka Jerry

Don't be a fop or a blooter, make only pithy comments on Usenet

I'm wondering about the contrast ratio spec of new LCD monitors. It
varies between 1,000 and 3,000 in many cases, but with the screens all
lined up and displaying images in the store I don't see much difference.
Any opinions about how much difference this makes in the real world, and
how you can actually assess the difference?

There are only a few LCD screen manufacturers in world capable of
producing a monitor with CMYK colour gamut. You can however use a cheap
monitor and provided you follow a few pointers, only ever miss out of the
last section of black on a contrast wedge.

Although these monitors all seem to come with a 15 pin VGA plug (or
adaptor) DVI (Digital Video Input) will absolutely improve the contrast
range you can see on screen.

If you use a RADEON video card, it comes natively with built in monitor
profiling adjustments. All you need to do is get the RGB examples right
and you have very good colour balance without profiling the screen.

You may need a cheap program called "power strip" to move the gamma to a
low contrast region suitable for photographs but once you have done these
things, a $200 LG monitor will start to look like a high end Ezio.
snip...

You anticipated and answered my next question about DVI. My video card
(Nvidia 6600GT) has both VGA and DVI connectors. I'm currently using the
VGA connector, but the new screen I picked up has both so I will invest in a
DVI cable. I don't know if the Nvidia card has the built-in monitor
profiling you mentioned (?) I've read that using DVI eliminates screen
centering issues - is that true? I haven't even unboxed it yet so I can't
comment on image quality, but I did buy it from a store that I can return it
to within 30 days with no restocking fee - I have time to figure things out.

Shon Kei Picture company added these comments in the current
discussion du jour ...

Victek wrote:
I'm wondering about the contrast ratio spec of new LCD
monitors. It varies between 1,000 and 3,000 in many cases,
but with the screens all lined up and displaying images in
the store I don't see much difference. Any opinions about
how much difference this makes in the real world, and how you
can actually assess the difference?

There are only a few LCD screen manufacturers in world capable
of producing a monitor with CMYK colour gamut. You can however
use a cheap monitor and provided you follow a few pointers,
only ever miss out of the last section of black on a contrast
wedge.

Although these monitors all seem to come with a 15 pin VGA
plug (or adaptor) DVI (Digital Video Input) will absolutely
improve the contrast range you can see on screen.

I've got a 21" and a 26" Samsung monitor and also an ATI Radeon
video card. I don't at all like the digital interface even if it
is marginally sharper because it doesn't allow the various
controls on the monitor to alter the image. Yes, this can be done
with the video card but then one is altering the actual video
signal at the source rather than how the monitor processes and
displays it. I much prefer to run on the analog side.

If you use a RADEON video card, it comes natively with built
in monitor profiling adjustments. All you need to do is get
the RGB examples right and you have very good colour balance
without profiling the screen.

This is definitely not true in my experience. I've set up both my
Samsungs, one on analog and one on digital, and ran through the
calibration stuff that comes with the Radeon card and with the
color calibration tool Samsung provides. It is not at all a
trivial task to get these things to display what I know is the
correct brightness/contrast and color balance. Worse, similar
settings display entirely differently on each monitor making it
even more problematical to decide what "right" is.

You may need a cheap program called "power strip" to move the
gamma to a low contrast region suitable for photographs but
once you have done these things, a $200 LG monitor will start
to look like a high end Ezio.

The contrast ratio described by LCD makers is all useless. I
have a 2000:1 CR screen that looks no better and no worse than
the $1900 Ezio I bought for editing photos - most of the time.

I use the (wide screen) LG for movie editing but I'd happily
use it for photo editing if I didn't have the Ezio.

Samsung make a screen now they claim will match the CMYK of a
web offset press. Big deal. So will my tweaked LG and it cost
less than half the price of the Samsung.

--
HP, aka Jerry

Don't be a fop or a blooter, make only pithy comments on Usenet