Is my monitor really this off?

<p>Hello all,<br>

I recently upgraded my computer and now have this fancy schmancy 22 flat panel HP HDMI so on and so forth. <br>

I am semi displeased with the capabilities of the dark tones this new monitor produces. In images that were once noiseless or very little noticeable noise in my old monitor on the new one is really bad.<br>

Take for example...this image taken some time ago, but on the old monitor was an ok image with ranging black values and now it is all one color and there is noise everywhere. Really bad noise too not just pixel peeper noise. :)<br>

Any thoughts? What is confusing me most is that on video online or other shots it varies on bad to ok IQ <br>

<br>

Dallas<br>

 

 

</p>

<p>1. no picture attached<br>

2. did you calibrate the monitor?<br>

3. I looked but I couldn't find model # 'fancy schmancy' on HP's website; which model did you get?</p>

<p>I also see a fair amount of noise in that image. What are the odds that you had your LAST display set to such a high contrast that your darker areas were rendering as black, when they really weren't?<br /><br />Regardless: what are you using for display calibration hardware? That's the real issue.</p>

The image looks OK on my calibrated monitor, a little bit darker and lot of chroma noise (but is not the monitor fault). I'm sure your monitor will be Ok after calibration . Any monitor need that.

<p>On old tubes details are getting less and less when they are getting older, maybe that was the reason you didn't saw noise in the past.</p>

<p>I have a 24-inch HP HDMI LCD screen (Huey calibrated) and your picture looks very noisy. Uncalibrated the HP screens tend to have overly bright colors and high contrast.<br>

On the old CRT monitors I could do a decent job of calibrating by eyeball. That simply is not possible on an LCD screen because moving your angle of view even a few inches during calibration changes the brightness. Elecrtonic calibration is essential.</p>

<p>Looks noisey here on a calibrated monitor.</p>

<p>I upgraded from an old tube 19" CRT to a new 24" LCD monitor (both hardware calibrated) last year and was amazed at how noisey some of my high ISO shots suddenly looked. I also found out that the cause of the noise in many cases was not the camera, but added by the raw program I use so I was easily able to make the shots look much better.</p>

<p>Glen, what raw program was adding the noise? Would like to know so I can avoid or work around.</p>

<p>As for the original question, I agree the new monitor is simply showing what was already there but not visible before. The difference between my old half-dead CRT and new 24" LED LCD is astonishing.</p>

 

<p>Dallas, on my monitor (nothing special 2006 Dell Flat Screen) I can clearly see the noise you are talking about. But, I would expect noise, using ISO 1600 on your D40. I suspect that your new monitor is representing the image with greater detail and clearity than your old monitor did.<br>

Fred</p>

<p>Dallas, I think that you are just seeing what is really there. You would expect this much noise in an image at iso 1600. Even with my D300 and a good monitor with RAW conversion, the noise is obvious at iso 1600. It is most noticeable in the more under exposed portions of the image which you would expect.</p>

<p>Thank you all. I understand that at that high ISO I would expect to see the noise. My question was why not before and now I can. But it seems that maybe my old tube was dying which is fesible it was old but not more than 6 years, and that I may need to recalibrate.<br>

HP has it listed as Fancy Shmancy - HSTND-2271-B :)<br>

Thanks again everyone.</p>

 

<p>Glenn C,<br>

I have found that using the Perfectly Clear option in Bibblepro in certain situations can add noise. You have to understand that Perfectly Clear is the option where you let the program decide how to tweak the RAW, and 99% of the time, it does a great job (better than me), but sometimes, for high ISO shots that are underexposed, it can add noise.</p>

<p>Dallas, that's really not bad at all things considered. A D40 at ISO 1600 is far less noisy than my D2H at 1600. I see mostly luminance noise in your photo, not really too much chroma noise. It could easily be fixed in Noiseware, Noise Ninja or other NR software.</p>

<p>If you weren't seeing it before it's a calibration issue, as others have said. I'm also seeing blocky JPEG compression artifacts and sharpening halos at 200% or more magnification, but that's to be expected.</p>

<p>Personally, I'd be more concerned about the chromatic aberration around the light, but even that can easily be fixed in editing.</p>

<p>BTW, you should treat yourself to a better editing program than Picture Project. I tried it a couple of times but it was slow, buggy and limited in working with NEFs.</p>

<p>I'm attaching a hi-rez edited version with noise reduction, JPEG artifact and sharpening halo reduction. I also retouched the CA around the light. It's not perfect but not bad for 5 minutes work. Those clouds would make a nifty backdrop for a composite image, if you don't object to that sort of thing.</p><div></div>

<p>Lex,<br>

Thanks for the insight. I have grown so much since that photo was taken. I no longer shoot JPG only, I now use capture NX 2. I was going back through some of my photos and that one looked terrible on my screen. Just a tech question really about why such a difference from monitor to monitor.<br>

Thanks everyone.</p>

<p>Go to this one and check out the Gradient (banding) image on your monitor.<br>

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/<br>

Unfortunately most monitors suck unless they are expensive pro grade monitors, like Eizo Coloredge series or similar. Your image is a perfect example where posterization and color band artifacts are easily introduced by the monitor when the image itself don't always have any. Calibration can't fix these problem AFAIK and that's why pro monitors demands big bucks.</p>

 

<p>Pete,<br>

thanks that helped a lot. Allowing a monitor to self adjust is a terrible idea. After going thorugh that website and adjusting the settings it is a lot better.</p>

<p>D.</p>