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Anonymous

Question

Using Wide Gamut (Dell u2711) With Lightroom

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
October 24, 2011
4 replies
33439 views

I have just completed an upgrade of my computer system to include 2 Dell U2711 27" monitors. I am using LR 3.5. My system is running with Windows 7 64 bit and a ATI Firepro graphics card running the displays.

Before purchasing these, and listening to the chatter on various forums I was led to belive that I was going to get garish coloration on all applications except Adobe LR and CS5. This does not seem to be the case. LR and CS5 are fine and the other applications IE and Windows Office seem to be OK as well.

These displays are calibrated at the factory.

Does anyone have any experience with these and can share any "gotchas" with me.

Henry

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TheDigitalDog

Inspiring

grandpahenry wrote:
Does anyone have any experience with these and can share any "gotchas" with me.

The flash galleries are not color managed so when you move from say Develop to Web, load a Flash web gallery, the previews will be slightly different (as well the resulting flash web gallery you view).

In terms of LUTs, great when used within the panel itself as a tiny number of displays support (Eizo, NEC SpectraView), not useful when used on the graphic system. Ideally the graphic card LUT is totally linear, the LUT in the panel handles everything.

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

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Anonymous

I have spoken to 2nd level support both at ATI and Dell and have learned the following:

1. The ATI Firepro V5800 does not modify color for data passing through the graphics card. All color adjustment is through the profiles used with the display.

2. With the Dell U2711 any calibration done on the monitor "must" be done using the "custom" preset. When that is done the resulting profile will only apply to the "custom" preset leaving the other factory supplied presets in tact and will be one I use during photo processing and perhaps all applications depending on how the non-photo applications appear on the display.

Just as an aside, I have tested using the factory presets sRGB and Adobe RGB (wide gamut) and find that the resulting display and prints a nearly a match even though I am using a generic PNP driver and no profile at all. . I am using an Epson 3880, Epson Ink, Epson paper, and Epson ICC profiles. There is a bit of variance in flesh tones that I have not figured out. One thing that I have noticed that the dark print problem that used to plauge me when using my previous Viewsonic monitors. I used to have to boost the brightness setting in LR otherwise the prints would be way to dark. I have not experienced the "garish" results with IE8 and Office 2010 as had been reported in the ether. As I test I installed Firefox 7.1 and did not see a lot of difference in appearance,

My camera is a Canon 5D Mark II shooting in RAW mode. I am using the Prophoto as my work space in LR 3.5 and CS5

I am

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CSS_Simon

Participating Frequently

Interesting information, thanks for sharing.

One experiment you might like to try: measure the factory Adobe RGB and sRGB modes with your Spyder. I don't know if the supplied software alows you do this (I don't think so), but the "Colorimetre HCFR" software (download link half way down this page: http://www.homecinema-fr.com/colorimetre/index_en.php) works with most colorimeters, and allows you to measure colour space, gamma and so on.

Sample display below, and you can also show colour temp, gamma etc:

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Panagon-1

Participant

Henry, for educational purpose you may want to read the discussion below:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/3283197#3283197

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CSS_Simon

Participating Frequently

Which colour preset mode are you using? If you are using sRGB then you have effectively set your wide-gamut monitor into a standard-gamut mode.

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Anonymous

Thank you for your reply. My Dell monitors arrived with a color calibration factory report apparently tied to the individual monitor serial number. I purchased 2 and the test reports list different serial numbers. Dell used a Minolta Color Analyzer CA210. I have a Datacolor DC S3SSR100 Spyder 3 Studio SR which I plan to use as soon as I fully understand my use of these new monitors. These monitors have a number of presets that include sRGB and Adobe RGB. I currently have both monitors set to the Adobe RGB preset. In fact one of the reasons for choosing the U2711 was the choices of presets. My original plan was to use the Adobe RGB preset only when doing photo editing and use sRGB when using IE 8 and other non-color aware applications. But I don't seem to need to switch back and forth.

When I was doing the research I was advised that although LR 3 and CS5 were color aware and using ProPhoto as their working space I would be disapointed in the way colors would be displayed for applications such as IE 8 and MS Office. My Epson 3880 printer is capable of displaying wide gamut. The colors displayed seem a little different but not "garish" as I was led to believe. Also my display screen background picture, a 100% quality JPG photo taken with my Canon 5D II does seem OK to me. I am pleased with the way my photos display in LR and CS5.

The one thing that I have noticed is that there seems to be no observable, at least to me, of the material displayed when I switch between the sRGB and Adobe RGB presets. I am using Windows 7 64 Bit.

One thing that has me puzzled is that when I display the Windows settings using the "Screen Resolution" the monitor is set to "True Color". I have seen that setting before on my previous system, XP Pro, and am wondering if I have missed something in my setup process. When I received the monitors I was told that they are "plug and play" and did not require any special drivers. I just hooked them up using Display Port cables and they cam right up at the maximum resolution of 2560 x 1440.

My questions are:

1. Why am I not seeing the disapointing performace that folks warned me about if I used wide gamut displays?

2. Have I missed something in my setup?

3. I am assuming that when I calibrate I will have to calibrate the Adobe RGB preset and each other preset if I choose to use any others.

A

Anonymous

"1. Why am I not seeing the disapointing performace that folks warned me about if I used wide gamut displays?"

Are you using any non-color managed applications?

"3. I am assuming that when I calibrate I will have to calibrate the Adobe RGB preset and each other preset if I choose to use any others."

This was discussed at length on another LR forum post. The operating system has no way knowing which mode you are selecting with your display's internal controls, so it can switch your Spyder HW calibrated monitor profiles from the Adobe RGB mode profile to the sRGB profile. You would need to be able to create separate profiles and then switch them using your OS's color management profiling tools. Dell provides factory calibration of the displays Adobe RGB and sRGB modes using an internal LUT, which is not accessible by your Spyder HW calibrator. To use these factory calibrated modes you must install and assign the single monitor profile provided on the installation CD from Dell. Doing so will make it very difficult to calibrate and use both of your monitor's "built-in" Adobe RGB and sRGB modes. You would need to 1) switch the display's mode control and then 2) go into the OS's color management and reassign the correct profile.

Best suggestion is to give up the factory calibrated display presets 'Adobe RGB and sRGB, use the 'User' custom mode only, and then calibrate the monitor with your Spyder HW calibration device. Your monitor will then only work as a "wide gamut" display, but a better functioning monitor for use with "color managed" applications.

"One thing that has me puzzled is that when I display the Windows settings using the "Screen Resolution" the monitor is set to "True Color". I have seen that setting before on my previous system, XP Pro, and am wondering if I have missed something in my setup process."

Display settings should to native resolution (2560 x 1440?), 32 bit "True Color" mode, and 60 Hz refresh......and I didn't even mention 10 bit color!

Thank you for your reply,

I mostly use LR 3.5 and CS5. I recently upgraded from IE8 to IE9 because I am told that it is color aware. Beside that I use a lot of small utilities where color does not not matter. I am only interested in color management as it applies to having my workflow from camera, to LR or CS5, and then to my Epson 3880.

When pulling up the settings for the monitors under "Screen Resolution" in Windows 7 64 bit I see that there is no profile associated with the monitors, I have 2, and the driver is a PNP driver supplied by MS. I am using the Adobe RGB preset on the monitors. The only thing I changed so far is to reduce the brightness and contrast from 50/50 to 40/40 as the screen is just to bright at 50/50. The display settings are as you mentioned, 2560x1440, true color, and 60 Hz refresh.

I just took a series of photos (RAW) and processed them in LR making corrections to white balance and a couple of other things and sent them to the printer using the Epson supplied ICC profile for the paper I am using. This is the first time I could send a photo and have the reliative brightness match on the display and print. I have always had to over brighten the photos in LR to avoid getting a print that was too dark. The colors were not a perfect match between display and print but the best I have ever been able to achieve.

This is the first time I have ever installed a new device on a system that has not required a device driver for that device. The setup instructions do not even mention the disk that came with the device. My initial contact with Dell did not seem to know anything about the disk. I have opened up the disk and see that there is a file called monitor.exe but no instructions on procedure. I am reluctant to run this program without some explanation of its function.

It has always been my intention to calibrate the monitors and have the Datacolor Spyder 3 Studio SR, which Datacolor support tells me is their best product. I have also read some reviews that rate the product very well. I have not been able to get a straight answer on whether I can calibrate these 2 monitors individually and have each monitor have its own generated profile. I am thinking that it may become important later on as these monitors may age a bit differently over time.

I am going to reach out to Dell again, as well as do some further research and attempt to understand the function of monitor.exe on the disk.

Has anyone installed U2711 monitors and used a driver disk?

ambienttroutmask

Participating Frequently

Factory calibration means that a standard profile will have been supplied with your machine for use by the OS for installation from a disk or just that the monitor has been checked to see that it actually can display a wider gamut than sRGB, it does not mean that the individual monitor has a individual profile created for use by your OS in your viewing conditions (as this would be impossible). The problems with standard calibrations are many

Each monitor varies.
Viewing conditions also vary.
Often these profiles are corrupt.

It is always best to calibrate your monitor using the appropriate calibration device and to preform the calibration on a regular basis a profile is essential for colour managed applications to work well. For colour managed applications such as LR this is very important and even more so on wide gamut monitors if your output images are to achieve any sort of consistency when viewed on other monitors.

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