Pictures look distorted

[elaine marie]

I just bought a new dell with a 19" monitor. I am puzzled by the fact that

everything looks distorted on it. Like the pictures look stretched.I pulled up

pictures side by side with my 15" old monitor and the 19 makes them look all

distorted. Can anyone help me with this. I am ready to send it back and get

another 15". Thank you,

 

Elaine

[william-porter]

Every monitor has an optimal resolution. In most (but I think not all) cases, that resolution is the highest res the display is capable of. Open the Display control panel, click on Settings tab, and set the screen resolution to the highest option available.

 

If that doesn't do the trick, check out the user's guide for the display to see if you can figure out what's the optimal resolution.

 

Oh, the monitor itself might have a hardware button that you can use to change the aspect ratio. Usually on the front of the monitor.

[elaine marie]

Thank you William for your response. I did what you said and it adjusted to the highest resolition but mu pictures still appear sqwished. Not sure what else to do. Does any ne else have this problem with the bigger widescreen monitors? THank you

 

Elaine

[bobatkins]

Adjust the height and width until things look normal. I assume the monitor has height and width controls?

 

Failing that try Dell tech support (good luck with that one...)

[elaine marie]

Bob,

 

Thanks I did actually get through to support in quick time.Arnold ( from India of course) was very nice and helpful. We did some adjusting which helped but I guess I am just used to my 15" which is just nice and compact resolution. The pics still look a little squatty to me. I bought it just to do all my editing on now I don't know. THanks

 

Elaine

[mendel_leisk]

On my Windows system, when I right-click the desktop and choose properties, and then settings, I see can change my display resolution from the current 1280x1024 to 1280x960. Could it be something like that?

[rffffffff]

Elaine,

 

I read your two posts and two things come to mind: First, if it is a widescreen monitor, you probably need to update your video card drivers to the newest versions so they support the proper resolution.

 

For an LCD panel, there is only one right resolution and you need to know what it is. If that setting doesnt come up in the display properties, update the driver for the video card and reboot, then try again.

 

If that fails, you might need a newer video card. Coming from a 15" display, your computer might be old enough to make that the case, but I am speculating.

 

To check whether or not your monitor is screwed up, go into photoshop, get the shape tool set to rectangle, hold shift, and drag a rectangle on the screen. If you hold shift, it should be square. then measure with a tape measure right on the screen. If its not square, you have a problem!

 

If some of that or all of that makes no sense, post the model number of the monitor, the model of your vidoe card or computer itself and we'll try to proceed from there.

[elaine marie]

Robert, <P>

It is a new computer also so I don't think the video card is the problem. I was able to change it to the 1280x1024 but it still doesn't look right to me. Thank you all for your time.<P>

Thank you,<P>

 

Elaine

[elaine marie]

So after going back to the dell website I realize that I bought a WIDE screen 19" monitor instead of the reg. 19" I will be returning it. THank you,

 

Elaine

[rffffffff]

Elaine, the wide screen monitors aren't bad, but its likely that the resolution you are looking for is 1680x1050. If you set it at 1280x1024 it will likely distort.

[ronald_moravec1]

Wide is great as you can park the palleta and tool bars away from the image area

[frank_skomial]

You did not provide information that Robert Gulotta asked for, so any advice will be just guessing and may not be applicable?

 

If your monitor is an LCD type monitor, it has a fixed and determined number of little Liquid Crystal Diodes (LCD). When one pixel of a video output is assigned to one little LCD on the screen, this screen resolution is called "native", and you have no geometrical distortion, or at least distortion is minimized.

 

Any other setting will map or interpolate generated pixels, into available screen LCD pixels, and could cause distorted and inferior picture quality.

 

Make sure that your computer video mode matches exactly your LCD screen native resolution. You need to know your LCD monitor "native" resolution, or exactly how many LCD pixels are there, (rows x columns).

 

If you return the 19" LCD monitor and get another LCD monitor, either 15" or anything else LCD, you continue need to know what is the monitor native resolution. If you do not know that, I have no solution for you, but just try what you like.

 

If purchasing an LCD monitor, always know your computer video adapter all possible video modes, and make sure one of them matches the native resolution of the LCD screen that you intend to purchase.

 

If you have a CRT tube based monitor, there is no native resolution, but there are few optimal resolutions and associated scan frequencies.

[elaine marie]

Yes the 1440x900 is it!<P>

 

Looks perfect and everything fits on the screen nicely,no scrolling. That was the only setting that I had not tried on my own and the Dell tech never suggested it and said it needed to be on the 1280x1024.Thank you to all!<P>

 

Elaine

[exertusfides]

I just purchased a 22" Samsung 226BW widescreen and am having the exact same issue. I cannot see any SIMPLE way to adjust the proportions. The distortion is unacceptable for photo editing. Surely there is a higher resolution available than the one that Elaine just posted works for her.. "Yes the 1440x900 is it!" That resolution sounds like it will be quite large (IF I can even achieve that resolution on my monitor (still trying)). Any help will be appreciated.

[andy_heffernan1]

Any LCD monitor has a native resolution, and you must feed that resolution to the monitor or else pictures will distort (unless the monitor has a 1:1 mode where it will add black bars to either the top and bottom, or left and right sides).

 

Exertus,

 

Looking at Samsung's website, I can see that the 226BW monitor has a maximum resolution of 1680x1050.

 

In Windows, right click on the Desktop and choose Properties from the menu. Click the Settings tab, and set the Screen resolution slider to 1680x1050. If that resolution doesn't appear, either your video card doesn't support it or its driver is out of date. Update the driver, and if that doesn't work, upgrade the card.

 

Elaine, you have to find the maximum resolution of your monitor and follow the same procedure.

[exertusfides]

Thank you very much for your investigations and reply. I had already tried updating the driver but it would seem that my video card can't support the resolution. I was hoping to get the monitor to work with my 'old' laptop, which I won't be updating the video card on. There is a desktop 'option' which I'm looking into. As long as the monitor will be able to give me 'true' image proportions I will be content. From what you have said (and also what I have read elsewhere), it seems as though this is mostly related to the video card driving it and not the monitor itself.