Wide Gamut Woes :( Please Help!

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kvcrawford

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I am so sad... I bought the Planar PX2611W monitor, which is great, except for the wide gamut thing.

I'm a web designer, and have been using a Macbook Pro, and a Dell 2007FP with IPS panel. The dell looked great, and the MBP is okay but at least the colors are fine.

Colors on the Planar look horrid! The oranges on one of my websites ( http://tapestryhomes.org/ ) look god awful. And the teal in my logo at my portfolio redesign ( http://kevinvancrawford.com/v5/ ) is terrible as well. I've tried turning on color management in Firefox 3, but to no avail.

The color in my logo looks fine when viewed in photoshop, but when I "save for web" it looks over-saturated. And I'm making sure that the "profile is embedded" and that it is "converted to sRGB." Even worse, when I view my redesign in Safari, the BG of the logo image no longer matches the rest of the background!

The worst part is that I bought it from Newegg, so I don't think I can return it, even for store credit.

Is there anything I can do? I feel like crying :(
 
I set my color profile in firefox to my calibrated one created with OS X color management.

Colors are now a tad bit desaturated...though it's much better than over-saturated. Still, they don't look as good as they do on the Dell 2007FP.

It's not so much of a deal breaker now, but I'm still really bummed out. I think the extra $250ish + small amount of input lag for the NEC 2490 would have been a much better way to go than this wide gamut bullshit.

Would forking out the money for color calibration hardware and software improve things at all?
 
I believe an actual color profile created specific to your panel should yield better results in color managed applications, but I agree if you want to be free of grief a Nec 2490 makes a easier monitor to live with, which is why I bought one after my wide gamut experience and try to warn people to think twice about wide gamut.
 
I'm on an HP lp2475W which is wide-gamut and the oranges on that tapestry homes page look fine from here - not over-saturated at all. What calibrator do you use?
 
Well first they looked terrible when I turned on color management in FF3 and didn't specify a color profile, I just let it use the default sRGB.

Now that I have I set the path to my calibrated monitor profile (using OS X's calibrator in expert mode) it looks a lot better. I'm actually starting to think I'm happy now.

Would buying a hardware calibrator make things look even better? Or is OS X's calibration tool decent enough?
 
Buying a hardware calibrator would be of benefit, yes, especially as accurate colours sound important to you - I assumed you would already have one.

With a properly calibrated profile loaded in FF3 and Photoshop colours should look as intended.
 
Could you recommend a model? About how much should it cost?

And will a wide gamut monitor be a good thing if/when I start doing print design rather than just web?

Thanks!
 
kvcrawford said:
Could you recommend a model? About how much should it cost?

And will a wide gamut monitor be a good thing if/when I start doing print design rather than just web?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

The Eye One Display 2 is meant to be good, and will set you back around $250. Yes, wide-gamut will be of benefit when you come to do print design.
 
kvcrawford said:
I am so sad... I bought the Planar PX2611W monitor, which is great, except for the wide gamut thing.

I'm a web designer, and have been using a Macbook Pro, and a Dell 2007FP with IPS panel. The dell looked great, and the MBP is okay but at least the colors are fine.

Colors on the Planar look horrid! The oranges on one of my websites ( http://tapestryhomes.org/ ) look god awful. And the teal in my logo at my portfolio redesign ( http://kevinvancrawford.com/v5/ ) is terrible as well. I've tried turning on color management in Firefox 3, but to no avail.

The color in my logo looks fine when viewed in photoshop, but when I "save for web" it looks over-saturated. And I'm making sure that the "profile is embedded" and that it is "converted to sRGB." Even worse, when I view my redesign in Safari, the BG of the logo image no longer matches the rest of the background!

The worst part is that I bought it from Newegg, so I don't think I can return it, even for store credit.

Is there anything I can do? I feel like crying :(
Click to expand...

I understand your frustration my friend, but first the planar is a great monitor, you seriously should stick with it, their warranty is probably more important to you as a web designer in a long run than choosing some other consumer monitor w/90 day to 1yr warranty. Wide gamut is a great thing if you know how to take good control and use of it, or it'll be useless or even harmful for what you intended to do.

Second, all the problem you've mentioned can be easily solved.

I design my own web and I shot photos, http://www.liography.com, I'd like to help you to point out a few things.

"Save For Web" will wipe out any color profile you have embeded in your jpg unless you choose "ICC Profile" in the converting dialog

GIF files will retain their original profile when Save For Web is used, so make sure you are editing in sRGB mode.

Firefox 3's color management works magnificently, all you need to do is enable it, and DOUBLE CHECK if color management is ENABLED:
"gfx.color_management.enabled" should say "User Set Bootlean TRUE" in firefox 3's About:Config

I did a quick check on your TAPESTRY.org background image, it is indeed UNTAGGED, meaning you forgot to check "ICC Profile" during "Save For Web" step, thus whatever profile u had for it is lost during convert.

Do it and you'll be pleased, 99.9% of time it's human error than machine's fault :)

Let me know if it worked.
 
Ditto on the Eye One Display 2 but you should be able to pick it up for an even 199 before shipping.

As for how much of a difference, it depends on how off your specific monitor is. For mine the difference with slight, primarily being the gamma. The degree that your monitor is off will vary from unit to unit.

Yes, picking the specific profile your monitor or calibrated profile makes a huge difference on FF3 using the color calibration plugin.

Another tip if you have a Nvidia video card is you can get your video playback looking close to sRGB by enabling Nvidia to handle color for video (Nvidia Control Panel > Video & Television > Adjust video color settings) just select Nvidia for handling color adjustments. Just doing that alone helps but no you can adjust the saturation on video.
 
You can just get a eye one display 2 colorimeter for cheap and download eye one match program for free on x-rite web to calibrate your monitor...
 
lifanus said:
I understand your frustration my friend, but first the planar is a great monitor, you seriously should stick with it, their warranty is probably more important to you as a web designer in a long run than choosing some other consumer monitor w/90 day to 1yr warranty. Wide gamut is a great thing if you know how to take good control and use of it, or it'll be useless or even harmful for what you intended to do.

Second, all the problem you've mentioned can be easily solved.

I design my own web and I shot photos, http://www.liography.com, I'd like to help you to point out a few things.

"Save For Web" will wipe out any color profile you have embeded in your jpg unless you choose "ICC Profile" in the converting dialog

GIF files will retain their original profile when Save For Web is used, so make sure you are editing in sRGB mode.

Firefox 3's color management works magnificently, all you need to do is enable it, and DOUBLE CHECK if color management is ENABLED:
"gfx.color_management.enabled" should say "User Set Bootlean TRUE" in firefox 3's About:Config

I did a quick check on your TAPESTRY.org background image, it is indeed UNTAGGED, meaning you forgot to check "ICC Profile" during "Save For Web" step, thus whatever profile u had for it is lost during convert.

Do it and you'll be pleased, 99.9% of time it's human error than machine's fault :)

Let me know if it worked.
Click to expand...

Hey Lifanus,
Yes--I made sure that "ICC Profile" was checked (for my logo, not for tapestry). Regardless, FF3 with color management on should default to the sRGB color space for images without profiles embedded.

I had to set the path to my calibrated monitor profile using the color management plugin. Before, I was just using FF3's default. It made a world of a difference. Tapestry looks fine now.

Still, this wide gamut thing sucks. I guess I can make do, because the only applications where color really matters to me is in Photoshop and Firefox. But it sucks that small things, like desktop icons, have terrible colors. Oh well.

Thanks!
 
I just don't even get this (and I'm partly a little irrational right now, but I'm trying). I'm pretty put off that I have a $900 monitor with bad color when I probably could have had a decent $400 Samsung which is for some reason lesser quality, which is something I don't get.

Wide Gamut. Was that a mistake? Is wide gamut an accident, because what's the point of it? Did they try hard to make a good monitor and accidentally make one with wide gamut? If so, why is this monitor so praised?

I can't stand looking at these colors being so off. I really want my desktop to look beautiful, I can't figure out how to get an ICC profile for firefox, and I don't know if my new Radeon 4870 has a color calibrating program because I can't seem to find one.

I am an artist that does graphics, some print, and gaming. So, that's where I'm coming from.
 
Yoma44,
If you can, return the monitor and buy a NEC 2490 (bad for gaming though) or an Apple Cinema Display 23".

Wide gamut means that the monitor can display a greater range of color. But, most everything (websites, OS, most applications) are all in the standard gamut. The monitor is capable of displaying the same colors of the standard gamut, but the color tables don't match up. I don't quite know all the specifics.

Open up some of your work in Photoshop. It should look fine. This is because Photoshop is color-aware.

The problem is that wide gamut monitors are ahead of their time...most software isn't wide-gamut ready. Fortunately, Photoshop and Firefox 3 are, which are the most important applications for my work (I'm a web designer).

If you calibrate your monitor with a colorimeter, and turn on color management in Firefox, then your colors should look fine in FF3 & Photoshop. I can't confirm this, though, as I haven't purchased a colorimeter (~$200) yet.

The good news is that, for print work, and if you use a colorimeter, you will actually get more accurate colors for print.

I'll try to upload my ICC profile for you to download, but every monitor is different, so it won't be perfect. Also, use the monitor settings (press the menu button, use the joystick on the right to navigate). Go to the color palette, then user, click the joystick, and you can edit the RGB levels.
 
Does it matter that Firefox 3 is color aware though? Most websites are created using the sRGB color space. What could FF3 do about that?
 
kvcrawford said:
Yoma44,
If you can, return the monitor and buy a NEC 2490 (bad for gaming though) or an Apple Cinema Display 23".

Wide gamut means that the monitor can display a greater range of color. But, most everything (websites, OS, most applications) are all in the standard gamut. The monitor is capable of displaying the same colors of the standard gamut, but the color tables don't match up. I don't quite know all the specifics.

Open up some of your work in Photoshop. It should look fine. This is because Photoshop is color-aware.

The problem is that wide gamut monitors are ahead of their time...most software isn't wide-gamut ready. Fortunately, Photoshop and Firefox 3 are, which are the most important applications for my work (I'm a web designer).

If you calibrate your monitor with a colorimeter, and turn on color management in Firefox, then your colors should look fine in FF3 & Photoshop. I can't confirm this, though, as I haven't purchased a colorimeter (~$200) yet.

The good news is that, for print work, and if you use a colorimeter, you will actually get more accurate colors for print.

I'll try to upload my ICC profile for you to download, but every monitor is different, so it won't be perfect. Also, use the monitor settings (press the menu button, use the joystick on the right to navigate). Go to the color palette, then user, click the joystick, and you can edit the RGB levels.
Click to expand...
Hi and thank you for helping me with that answer. I'd love to see another profile too, so if I can get it from you, that would be a good starting point I think.Worth a shot at least.

I have played with the joystick settings, but as I'm not quite sure what's going on and what range of color needs changing, I'm still stumped.

It seems that, couldn't this be adjusted through software then? Isn't there something you can run globally to manage your color?
 
Skunt said:
Does it matter that Firefox 3 is color aware though? Most websites are created using the sRGB color space. What could FF3 do about that?
Click to expand...
Easy, it displays them in the correct sRGB. All color managed browsers work the same way. Everything is displayed as sRGB unless it has an embedded profile in which case the profile is respected.

Now if Apple and MS would do that for their OSes, the debate would be over.:D
 
Luthorcrow said:
Now if Apple and MS would do that for their OSes, the debate would be over.:D
Click to expand...
Umm. no, it wouldn't. Not until we use 10-12bits per channel in our display chain. Higher gamut with the same bit depth is a technological step backwards. However, the wider gamut is a great marketing breakthrough.

It's still a hardware thing, that software alone can't fix, but only dither.
 
Hello, I know how I can enable color management in FF3 but can someone advise how do I specify the path to the profile I want it to use?
 
Could someone post their profiles?

Would it be better to use a profile that has been calibrated with hardware rather than nothing at all or does it really need to be calibrated with the specific profiles?
 
lifanus said:
You can just get a eye one display 2 colorimeter for cheap and download eye one match program for free on x-rite web to calibrate your monitor...
Click to expand...

Where can the colorimeter be had for cheap? Around the web and ebay I see it for 200+...or is this what is considered to be "cheap"?
 
clockdogg said:
Umm. no, it wouldn't. Not until we use 10-12bits per channel in our display chain. Higher gamut with the same bit depth is a technological step backwards. However, the wider gamut is a great marketing breakthrough.

It's still a hardware thing, that software alone can't fix, but only dither.
Click to expand...

Now you are just being picky.:p

I do agree that 10bit-16bit is a better way to display wider gamuts. But, you are wrong on the point of the solution. This is strictly a software issue and the solution I am suggesting which is the same one FF3 and Safari (Apple Only) use.

Whether wider gamuts (particularly as they rise) may dither without an increase in the bit rate of the video path, it could but that is an additonal hardware issue that is seperate from whether a given image is being displayed in the correct color space. Matching content to the correct color space is a software issue.
 
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