Two u2711 Displays, color

S

Sephrioth

Weaksauce
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I have bought a new u2711 display as secondary monitor next to my old u2711. Unfortunately the new display has a radically different color tone. It is much "cooler" than the other display. I know that a small difference in color temperature between screens is to be expected, but this difference is very large. My original Dell u2711 has the default values of R:100 G:100 B:100 and has good natural gray values with these settings. The new display is very blue/cool, and absolutely horrible without drastic calibration: R:100 G:89 B:82. Is it normal that a screen has such a large color shift that it needs a correction of 20% in the blue channel? My old screen has natural colors by default (out of the box). New display on the left, old display on the right (the color shift is more extreme in reality).


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1. nice setup
2. Thats a big difference, but if everything else is okay I'd consider calibrating the displays and moving on.
 
Are you using native mode or one of the (supposedly) calibrated modes (sRGB/aRGB)?

If you aren't try putting both of them in a calibrated mode.

One of the big deals about these displays is the supposed factory calibrated modes, but if you just run it in Native there is no calibration.
 
Check whether all settings are identical, color format, gamma, mode selection, preset modes etc.
Ideally calibrate both to same profile.
 
The preset modes like sRGB are totally useless, they result in very washed out and faded looking colors. I know that sRGB should mimic a "normal" sRGB color space and reduce the wide gamut colors, but compared to my previous Dell 2407 which was sRGB by nature, the colors are far too grayish/dull to be of any use.

This however was not my original question. Is there anyone who has a Dell u2711, where they had to make a calibration change of 20% in the blue channel alone? My original Dell 2711 was near perfectly calibrated out of the box with all RGB settings on 100%. Even when I calibrate my screen at R:100 G:89 B:82 the colors are not perfect.
 
Sephrioth said:
Is it normal that a screen has such a large color shift that it needs a correction of 20% in the blue channel?
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Unless you got a defective display, such a discrepancy could be possible.
In order to get best possible results and matching of both you need a colorimeter and software to calibrate both to a profile. Some like icolor3 o EyeOne Pro have a utility that you load a profile and test accuracy. I think only higher end Necs and Eizo CGs with their software allow to match two displays in a visual and metric way, I bet some specialists could chime in this thread shedding their light.
 
I have had calibration devices in the past, Lacie etc, but they never worked that well. Especially with wide gamut displays. Since I have just bought this display I still have the option of returning it, or even a refund.

I have had lots of screens CRT monitors, Samsung 30T, Dell 2407 and many more monitors and TV displays. None of those was ever blue, and this screen is. I have never had to calibrate a screen to make it usable, only to slightly adjust the colors. I know it is hard to judge by the photo but the right screen has natural grays (they look too warm in the photo), and the left screen is much more blue.
 
Quato iColor3 does have a correction for wide gamut displays. Check out Prad's review on your monitor.
In general, seeing you work with Photoshop it is almost arbitrary to use a calibrator for proper color rendition..
 
The U2711 has a factory calibration report and the display should reflect the CCT graph supplied. The U2711 isn't cheap, and you should call Dell out on it.
 
Whoisthisreally said:
The U2711 has a factory calibration report and the display should reflect the CCT graph supplied. The U2711 isn't cheap, and you should call Dell out on it.
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Agreed.

Sephrioth said:
The preset modes like sRGB are totally useless, they result in very washed out and faded looking colors. I know that sRGB should mimic a "normal" sRGB color space and reduce the wide gamut colors, but compared to my previous Dell 2407 which was sRGB by nature, the colors are far too grayish/dull to be of any use.

This however was not my original question. Is there anyone who has a Dell u2711, where they had to make a calibration change of 20% in the blue channel alone? My original Dell 2711 was near perfectly calibrated out of the box with all RGB settings on 100%. Even when I calibrate my screen at R:100 G:89 B:82 the colors are not perfect.
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Really? I round the sRGB mode to have still too much saturation... Hmmm.

I haven't had to make this change. My white color temperature from the factory in both modes (aRGB and sRGB) is 5900 which is slightly too warm, not too cold.

I don't have two but the whites match up well enough with my other calibrated screens so I left it without calibration. Your screen looks defective, almost as if there was no calibration. Even in custom color mode you shouldn't have to do something that drastic.

Even with software calibration and profiling you are going to have problems matching those two displays with such a huge difference. The graphics card LUT changes will be too much and there will be banding and other issues on the left monitor, I suspect.

I'd send it back.
 
In both 2711 displays the sRGB setting and aRGB settings are very "gray/desaturated" even compared to native sRGB monitors like the Dell 2407. I also think the wide gamut u2711 is a little too saturated by default, but it is still much better than the sRGB modes of my screens which are plainly wrong/ugly on both displays.
 
Either your 2407 is an HC model, or it is likely a fair bit over-saturated and you have become used to that.

Or possibly you loaded profile for the native color of the U2711 monitor, in which case sRGB mode would indeed look like crap unless you switched off the profile.

You should have a factor calibration report like this for both:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/images/dell_u2711/factory_calibration_report.jpg


It doesn't make sense that sRGB mode on two monitors (likely from two different batches) would be so bad when these are supposed to be factory calibrated and you even get a calibration report. Reviews concur with what 10e said. sRGB if anything was a little over, but not terribly. I haven't seen a single review that said the sRGB mode was under-saturated.

It makes even less sense that they would have desaturated aRGB modes as this is a very wide gamut setting as well.

Something really doesn't make sense here.
 
Believe me I know what I am talking about. I used to have ICC profiles and color management generated with calibration devices, those are all switched off. I would never use sRGB mode together with an ICC profile for wide gamut . Even if I was using ICC profiles, they are only active in programs that support color management (Windows 7). Also calibration via NVIDIA driver is turned off. However unlikely you may think this is, I have had lots of monitors over the years, all native sRGB, and they were all more saturated than the sRGB modes of the u2711.
 
If what some of you are saying is true, than I should get almost similar results when I turn both screens to sRGB or aRGB modes. But unfortunately this is not so at all.
Actually I am surprised that I seem to be the only one for who the sRGB modes do not work correctly. When I got my first u2711 I turned sRGB mode on almost directly, but it was pale/desaturated next to my U2711 native sRGB (not HC wide gamut model).
 
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Sephrioth said:
If what some of you are saying is true, than I should get almost similar results when I turn both screens to sRGB or aRGB modes. But unfortunately this is not so at all.
Actually I am surprised that I seem to be the only one for who the sRGB modes do not work correctly. When I got my first u2711 I turned sRGB mode on almost directly, but it was pale/desaturated next to my U2711 native sRGB (not HC wide gamut model).
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Yes they should be quite close if in the same calibrated mode on each panel. How do your calibration reports compare?

I could see one monitor with faulty sRGB calibration, but two from different batches, purchased with time between them, both landing with the same person, with the same desaturation defect that no one else seems to have. That defies statistical probability. Given this, I have to believe the most logical thing first, that there is something wonky in your setup.

Even stranger is that you claim the aRGB mode is also undersaturated. But that is a VERY wide gamut mode and should appear quite oversaturated.

Can you hook one of these up to another system, maybe even a friends and get his opinion??
 
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I have 2 different systems hooked up on the displays, and switch between them constantly. I put it wrong, when I said that both sRGB and adobe RGB modes are desaturated. sRGB is too desaturated, while the adobe RGB may not be desaturated it is just as useless, because the colors are also incorrectly calibrated. I do graphic work, so I scrutinize over color settings.

I don't know how many people use the sRGB mode, I think most owners probably won't touch the OCD at all except for brightness settings. We should have a poll on the subject :). Do you own a u2711, have you read all the u2711 topics, reviews etc, or are you just guessing?

Your eyes do get used to a wide gamut display though, which sucks because every sRGB display looks desaturated to me now. Somehow the slight increase in saturation doesn't bother me as much as it did before I owned a wide gamut display. In fact a lot of graphics look better to me on a wide gamut display, but that may be subjective. This is unfortunate and somewhat problematic for my graphic design.
 
I have read pretty much every U2711 review and read what people I trust like 10e had to say about theirs and I read most post in the big U2711 thread that I have been subscribed to from the beginning.

So another point. How is aRGB mode any less calibrated than the native mode?? aRGB mode is again, actually factory calibrated. Native mode is not. They are both very wide gamut.

It sounds like you have just become used to an uncalibrated wide gamut display, now you have second uncalibrated wide gamut display and they don't match (no big surprise). This is an extremely wide gamut display if you are using it in native mode and gotten used to it, no surprise that you find sRGB undersaturated.

All of this sounds like an argument for relying on something more than just your eyes, and what you get used to, for calibration.

I have no easy suggestions.

First obvious move is exchange that panel. The native mode difference are likely batch differences, which if you exchange you are most likely going to get another one from the newer bath that will be different from your old one. But it is worth a shot.

You could spend money on really good calibration gear with a spectrophotometer that will not have issues with different types of back-lighting so you can calibrate to some known standard.

Ditch both and buy a pair together, which would increase your chances that two from the same batch would behave closer together.
 
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This is going offtopic, but again I have compared the old u2711 monitor in sRGB mode to a lot of native sRGB. And the calibration of the sRGB mode is incorrect, it's not my perception. Either that or all my other native sRGB monitors are also oversaturated. Worse still is that you can't change any color settings when you use the so called pre-calibrated aRGB or sRGB mode, otherwise I could have tweaked the settings.I will probably try a calibration tool again though.

I started this post about the large shift in the blue channel not about the sRGB mode. I have never encountered a monitor that was this blue/cold by default. The sRGB mode does nothing to eliminate the blue color shift, while it should compensate for it if the displays were pre-calibrated correctly. All grays are plainly tinted blue, even in the sRGB mode.
 
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Well good luck. Why don't you try an exchange, maybe you do have a defective panel with too much blue?
 
Is it possible the sRGB mode seems so undersaturated to you due to the excessive and rather sloppy anti-glare? Many complain that it causes colors to seem "hazy" and lack contrast regardless of what a calibrator/colorimeter says. I know the 2407WFP has a Samsung S-PVA panel with very light Anti-glare coating, so that might account for that difference. I had a Dell 2709W and the light anti-glare coating made whites look as good as my LCD2690WUXi, which I think has very nice whites. It also seemed to have nicer whites than other IPS panels that seemingly had heavy AG. These other IPS screens had somewhat grayish whites compared to the 2709W at the same brightness level.

Anyway,

Try hooking up the screens to the same system and if the problem persists, return the new one. If you are using an AMD/ATI card make sure any EDID color temperature checkboxes in CCC are not on, and if nVidia, any digital vibrance is set to default for both.

From my point of view, my U2711's calibrated sRGB mode is a bit more saturated in reds (especially) compared to my NEC LCD2490WUXi2 which has been internally calibrated using my GammaComp (i1D2) sensor and SpectraView II, but less so than my 2690WUXI-BK which is wide gamut, though not as wide as the U2711 in aRGB or custom color mode.

It sounds like you had some bad luck there, so make sure Dell addresses it if you are not happy, because at the end of the day that's what it's all about.
 
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