Some examples that show why a wide gamut monitor matters:

[bronxbombers4]

And this is exactly what this post was meant to counter, the nonsense about how extended gamuts are useless nonsense thought up by marketers to sucker people or something.

I enjoyed your post, don't get me wrong!

At this time I am primarily bothered by the lack of resolution for photos on websites and videos on YouTube. My cameras take at least 8 Mp photos, but I can never post them that way.

Secondarily I am bothered by highlight clipping especially in videos.

Extended gamut is way down the list.

Actually I've just been noticing that the way Flickr works now, if you set Firefox the right way, and the photographer has original res unlocked, you can actually scroll through the galleries in full 8MP glory on screen! Man it's awesome. Many have it locked down, but man once you start digging you find some pretty good shooters who have 4k+ images unlocked for viewing. Good stuff!

Honestly looking at 1920x1080 now or little postage stamp images 2x scaled up on web now looks so blurry and bleary it's like I keep rubbing my eyes. Between books, magazines, retina iPad and my UHD monitor all giving that crisp look I think I've become used to everything looking realistically crisp again and the old res stuff is just all bleary to me and very computery looking now again.

It is true that UHD makes just about anything look way better while wide gamut makes only a few things look way better.

 

[BG454]

just trying to counter all off the posts that try to toss off wide gamut as a bunch of marketing hogwash meant to sucker people into getting something useless that doesn't matter at all

and all the talk about how there is no reason to bother to try to move things more towards a wide gamut/color-managed standard

(I mean I've even seen posts where people try actively scare people away from wide gamut monitors, even really, really great displays, which makes no sense at all today considering that any even remotely decent wide gamut monitor these days has a pretty solid, at worst sRGB emulation mode for use with non-color managed software, and most actually can be set to simulate sRGB better than 95% of sRGB onitors since most sRGB monitors actually don't quite match sRGB and can't be made to exactly match sRGB).

We will eventually have wide gamut monitors readily available and then they will be the only available but we need to go through the tiny incremental changes to allow the suppliers and manufacturers to reap the greatest profits.

I assume these are to match all the affordable wide gamut printers which will be flooding the market soon?

What is the point in a wide gamut display when your final output is limited to sRGB?

1. Who says the final output always has to be print. It's kind of a fact that these days 99% images taken never get printed.

In that case I'm one of the 1%, and what do you mean by a "kind of a fact"?
It's either a fact (citation required) or it isn't.

2. Who says that if you print you are limited to sRGB? Lots of printers can print all sorts of colors that sRGB can't handle, some even have a few shades that even wide gamut monitors can't show.

That's the reason I added "Affordable" to my previous post.

 

[BG454]

One reason why popularity of wg monitors is very very low is because 99% of image usage, as in printing photos for home us, photo enlargements, professional offset printing, or tv... none of them can show wide gamut.. so your image ends up looking not like you see it on your personal wg monitor

The gamut has getting bigger as time goes by... Today the dye-sublimation, photographic inkjets do have a gamut bigger than sRGB in some parts...

I hope you left out the word AND between dye-sub and inkjets, otherwise you have just revealed a serious gap in your knowledge...
You implication is also, by saying THE dye-sublimation, is that all dye-sub printers can print wide gamut. Mine (as far as I'm aware) cannot.

Your sentence should read "Today some dye-sublimation and (some) photographic inkjets do have a gamut bigger than sRGB in some parts..." - but only in some parts...

 

[bronxbombers4]

just trying to counter all off the posts that try to toss off wide gamut as a bunch of marketing hogwash meant to sucker people into getting something useless that doesn't matter at all

and all the talk about how there is no reason to bother to try to move things more towards a wide gamut/color-managed standard

(I mean I've even seen posts where people try actively scare people away from wide gamut monitors, even really, really great displays, which makes no sense at all today considering that any even remotely decent wide gamut monitor these days has a pretty solid, at worst sRGB emulation mode for use with non-color managed software, and most actually can be set to simulate sRGB better than 95% of sRGB onitors since most sRGB monitors actually don't quite match sRGB and can't be made to exactly match sRGB).

We will eventually have wide gamut monitors readily available and then they will be the only available but we need to go through the tiny incremental changes to allow the suppliers and manufacturers to reap the greatest profits.

I assume these are to match all the affordable wide gamut printers which will be flooding the market soon?

What is the point in a wide gamut display when your final output is limited to sRGB?

1. Who says the final output always has to be print. It's kind of a fact that these days 99% images taken never get printed.

In that case I'm one of the 1%, and what do you mean by a "kind of a fact"?
It's either a fact (citation required) or it isn't.

I don't have verification (I vaguely seem to recall there actually had been some study though and this was even a couple years ago when printing was a bit more common than today even and it was some rather very low %), but I mean look at how many pictures people take, talk of 200-2000 shots at a sporting event, 800-4000 on a vacation or all the non-stop selfies that people are taking non-stop and so on and so forth. Maybe it's not quite as low as 1% but I bet not too much more than 1% of snaps taken ever get printed.

Note I wasn't saying that only 1% of people ever print, just that a very low percentage of all the digital snaps that get taken ever get printed. I bet a lot less than 1% of all the instagram party pics and selfies and so on ever get printed and they make up an awful lot of the snaps that get taken.

2. Who says that if you print you are limited to sRGB? Lots of printers can print all sorts of colors that sRGB can't handle, some even have a few shades that even wide gamut monitors can't show.

That's the reason I added "Affordable" to my previous post.

What is an affordable printer? Epson R800 can print colors that are not in sRGB. So can R3000 and tons more from Epson. I'd be their cheapest ones can too. Same with Canon printers.

 

[Kaj E]

And, what printer/paper can print all those colors?

--
Kind regards
Kaj
http://www.pbase.com/kaj_e
WSSA member #13
It's about time we started to take photography seriously and treat it as a hobby.- Elliott Erwitt

 

[bronxbombers4]

And, what printer/paper can print all those colors?

--
Kind regards
Kaj
http://www.pbase.com/kaj_e
WSSA member #13
It's about time we started to take photography seriously and treat it as a hobby.- Elliott Erwitt

1. see a couple posts above for some examples

2. even if a printer can't handle a color, so what, you can at least see the color on screen

 

[Kaj E]

And, what printer/paper can print all those colors?

 

[naththo]

I just saw announcement of Samsung came out with 27" size, 1ms gtg, 4K super resolution, unfortunately is a downside is a TN instead, 1B colours at a ridiculously low price of $750.

Has anyone seen that in store with switch on what is it like when you look left to right, top to bottom is it bothering you much at all from that TN?

Nathan.

 

[Joe Mayer]

I just saw announcement of Samsung came out with 27" size, 1ms gtg, 4K super resolution, unfortunately is a downside is a TN instead, 1B colours at a ridiculously low price of $750.

Has anyone seen that in store with switch on what is it like when you look left to right, top to bottom is it bothering you much at all from that TN?

Nathan.

Well, I suppose a TN is a TN no matter the resolution, right? I don't know as I haven't personally seen any 4K monitors but at 27", a TN would look pretty horrid even from face on. Besides, I can understand the wide gamut advantage but the way I've always looked at it is, what is the point of me seeing something amazing when I can't share it? Yes, I love to do stuff just for myself but I do need to throw pics on websites and the rest of the internet as well as print. All those wonderful colours get tossed in the bin and that's not even bringing up the fact that everyone looking at my stuff is doing so with uncalibrated too-blue overly bright monitors. Makes me cringe but nothing I can do about it.

 

[DanGros]

Funny, it's 2016 and I'm still having to read this thread. I have an older Dell 2410u and am trying to figure out if I should buy a calibrator or a new monitor!?

I'm one one of the idiots who purchased a nice SLR but is only now digging into what the differences b/w wide and sRGB are. To some extent, illustrating the point as to the amount of overhead necessary to do things well.

I came here because unnoticed the varaiations in my images going between print to irfanview to ps.

Love to resurrect this thread and get your updated opinions!!

 

[IanYorke]

Funny, it's 2016 and I'm still having to read this thread. I have an older Dell 2410u and am trying to figure out if I should buy a calibrator or a new monitor!?

I'm one one of the idiots who purchased a nice SLR but is only now digging into what the differences b/w wide and sRGB are. To some extent, illustrating the point as to the amount of overhead necessary to do things well.

I came here because unnoticed the varaiations in my images going between print to irfanview to ps.

Love to resurrect this thread and get your updated opinions!!

If you're monitor is not calibrated you can't really be sure you are seeing the correct colour. As long as you stay in your own bubble there is no problem but as soon as you want to go out of your private bubble calibration matters. This includes printing.

Buy or borrow a calibrator would be my advice. A calibrator will last for many years and you don't have the "upgrade" issue.

Ian

 

[fishy wishy]

Hmm. For many, a hardware calibrator is more something with an inflated price that they would prefer to rent from time to time rather than buy- in line with the cost cutting of a $200-300 monitor which is what a Dell 2410 is now. Hardware calibrators could tell you that your monitor cannot be calibrated perfectly across all intensities due to non-linear response, if you don't have very sophisticated controls as you won't have on $250 monitors. I had several (cheap) monitors where the red popped too much at 100% so you'd be wrong for photos to base the monitor RGB WB on pure white because usually on flesh midtones you'd get too much green.

Not much point getting a $250 monitor and $250 calibrator only to find your monitor is basically incapable is there? How about a more expensive monitor with a better reputation and more controls and see if it can look true with standard calibration images first- because non-linear response is visible without hardware calibrators, especially if you have another reasonably good monitor as a reference.

 

[IanYorke]

Hmm. For many, a hardware calibrator is more something with an inflated price that they would prefer to rent from time to time rather than buy- in line with the cost cutting of a $200-300 monitor which is what a Dell 2410 is now. Hardware calibrators could tell you that your monitor cannot be calibrated perfectly across all intensities due to non-linear response, if you don't have very sophisticated controls as you won't have on $250 monitors. I had several (cheap) monitors where the red popped too much at 100% so you'd be wrong for photos to base the monitor RGB WB on pure white because usually on flesh midtones you'd get too much green.

Not much point getting a $250 monitor and $250 calibrator only to find your monitor is basically incapable is there? How about a more expensive monitor with a better reputation and more controls and see if it can look true with standard calibration images first- because non-linear response is visible without hardware calibrators, especially if you have another reasonably good monitor as a reference.

Obviously a better monitor will be better but in my opinion a calibrated monitor is better than an uncalibrated one. I regard a calibrator a long term investment which can be used on all monitors going forward. The lower cost monitors benefit most because they are usually way off. A "by eye" calibration is pointless I feel, either calibrate or not bother but YMMV, it is a free world - at the moment

Ian

 

[Pictus]

Funny, it's 2016 and I'm still having to read this thread. I have an older Dell 2410u and am trying to figure out if I should buy a calibrator or a new monitor!?

I'm one one of the idiots who purchased a nice SLR but is only now digging into what the differences b/w wide and sRGB are. To some extent, illustrating the point as to the amount of overhead necessary to do things well.

I came here because unnoticed the varaiations in my images going between print to irfanview to ps.

Love to resurrect this thread and get your updated opinions!!

The Dell U2410 without a calibration device is useless...
It is also a very trick monitor to calibrate.
Anyway you can try my latest profile for the U2410.

*Access the monitor hidden factory menu and change the 6500K RGB to:
Before change anything in the Factory Menu take a photo and/or
write the default values.
R=204
G=209
B=215

Leave the factory menu and set:
Brightness = 35
Contrast = 69
Preset Mode = Standard
Input Color Format = RGB
Gamma = PC
Mode Selection = Graphics

*If it is connected through DisplayPort you have to unplug
the DisplayPort and the USB cable or the Factory Menu
may not appear, after all the LEDs are lit can plug the
DisplayPort/USB back.

Irfanview is not perfect color managed like Photoshop is and the prints needs proper illumination with the right temperature/intensity/spectral response...

To help with color management lots of great stuff at http://www.digitaldog.net/
Do not miss the videos:
#1- http://digitaldog.net/files/ColorGamut.mov
#2- http://digitaldog.net/files/WideGamutPrintVideo.mov
#3- http://digitaldog.net/files/Why_are_my_prints_too_dark.mp4
The complete thing http://www.trainsimple.com/CourseDetailUser.aspx?id=119

 

[Damon Lynch]

Not much point getting a $250 monitor and $250 calibrator

Cost conscious buyers who can afford to wait should buy the calibrator when it's on sale, which seems to happen at least twice a year in the U.S. at least. Savings of at least $50 are typical, and more if you're fortunate. There are cheaper models too, which also go on sale.

 

[Dpiximaj]

""The Dell U2410 without a calibration device is useless...
It is also a very trick monitor to calibrate.
Anyway you can try my latest profile for the U2410.

*Access the monitor hidden factory menu and change the 6500K RGB to:
Before change anything in the Factory Menu take a photo and/or
write the default values.
R=204
G=209
B=215 "

So it's 2017 & I'm trying to calibrate my u2410 for print. I come from the video world & all I used to care about was Rec709 or srgb & graphics adobeRGB.

Now I find it difficult to get 6500k white point on this monitor before calibrating on spyder5pro. Your post seem informative & specific. The Dropbox link is down for the profile. Also the rgb values are changed/adjusted in factory mode, keep original copy for going back right?

How did you come up with your numbers for 6500k?

Want to reliably print to service bureaus & my own Epson. I get too bright & color casts...

thx

 

[Pictus]

So it's 2017 & I'm trying to calibrate my u2410 for print. I come from the video world & all I used to care about was Rec709 or srgb & graphics adobeRGB.

Now I find it difficult to get 6500k white point on this monitor before calibrating on spyder5pro. Your post seem informative & specific. The Dropbox link is down for the profile. Also the rgb values are changed/adjusted in factory mode, keep original copy for going back right?

Right,here my profile.

How did you come up with your numbers for 6500k?

Got this RGB values by Argyll+DispCAL, it is the best calibration
software you can use with your monitor, in DispCAL do not forget
to set the MODE to Wide Gamut CCFL.

Want to reliably print to service bureaus & my own Epson. I get too bright & color casts...

IF your Spyder is not off-track Argyll+DispCAL will get things right.

 

[Dpiximaj]

Thank you!

 

[Pictus]

Thank you!

Glad to help, I am not sure(no Spyder here), but seems like Spyders does not like the
"Black Level drift compensation" to be enabled(DispCAL).
Maybe the "White level drift compensation" can be enabled for benefit, not sure either.

 

[Chris Noble]

You can see things as they were instead of going crazy for years wondering why no matter how you tried to light or expose flowers they never looked like in real life.

I'm sorry you're going crazy.

Anyone can move sliders around in PP to push accurately-displayed colors outside the sRGB gamut. Garish saturation, HDR.... It proves strictly nothing.

Look at how much you miss when you use sRGB and clip away TONS and TONS of information that your camera captured.

Nonsense. There are almost no naturally-occurring colors outside the sRGB gamut. A sliver of neon-glowing greens, that occur on the leaves of plants growing under the deep-shade canopies in jungles. Nothing in flowers, sunsets, skintones and the like. Wide gamut is strictly for graphic artists who like to play with "unnatural" colors.