Helped Needed: Adjusting Brightness with a 23 inch Apple Cinema Display....

[Arthur Morris]

I have an 23 inch Apple Cinema Display on my office computer. I do 97% of my image work on my laptop. When I noticed that I could not differentiate the two dark boxes in a calibration strip I recalibrated the monitor. No help. There are no brightness controls on the monitor. I did an online search to no avail.

Strangely enough the Fn keys on the keyboard on that machine are unlabeled. Forgot to mention--the monitor which is designed for Apple is hooked up to a Windows 7 PC....

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks muchly.

[Don Lacy]

Hi Artie, On a Mac Key board running OS X The f1 key lowers brightness and the f2 raises it not sure if it is the same on a Windows machine.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks Don. No go on the Windows set up. I did have a bit of luck by adjusting the gamma only in the Windows color calibration....

[Chad Caswell]

Hey Artie, most of the time these are controlled by the video card control panel, it depends on what video card you have as to where these settings are located, I use ATI and they are located here, I'm running a 24" Dell.
Chad

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks! Looks promising. Any clue as to how I get "there."

I am a CD = computer dummy...

[Chad Caswell]

Thanks! Looks promising. Any clue as to how I get "there."

I am a CD = computer dummy...

Ok, this all depends on your video card, but here is how I navigate to mine with the ATI card,

Control Panels ~ Appearance and Personalization ~ Display ~ Screen Resolution, they you click the advanced Settings text in the bottom right , once the next window opens shown below on the left of image, you click the catalyst control center, Enter the ATII Catalyst Control Center app go to Desktop Properties under the menu.

Whewwww :bg3:

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks a stack. I will try it :). If not, it is likely that my daughter Jennifer or Robert O'Toole can find it.

[Robert O'Toole]

Thanks a stack. I will try it :). If not, it is likely that my daughter Jennifer or Robert O'Toole can find it.

Win 7 has a calibration feature built in, its not a replacement for real calibration but it should help you set the blacks at least:

To start Display Color Calibration
1. Open Display Color Calibration by clicking the Start button Picture of the Start button, and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type calibrate display, and then click Calibrate display color.*

2. In Display Color Calibration, click Next to continue.

3. Then it takes you into gamma set up etc.

This should help.

Robert

[Robert O'Toole]

Thanks a stack. I will try it :). If not, it is likely that my daughter Jennifer or Robert O'Toole can find it.

Here is the screen that can help you set gamma.

[Arthur Morris]

Robert, Thanks. I got there on my own this morning :). If I adjust the gamma so that the circle in the center is gone the monitor is still too dark.... I can't differentiate the two dark boxes on the left. I will see if I can follow Chad's directions above.

[Tom Graham]

FWIW, I can not differentiate the two darkest (left) boxes UNLESS my room is almost dark. Not totally but way too dark to read in. I'm not sure how much the screen design, glossy or matte, and thus screen glare/flare plays in this.
Tom
ps - my monitor is a NEC2070nx, IPS type.
ps 2 - I wonder how good a test such a small gray/black strip is on a white background? Will not the large white background make our eyes adjust to it at the expensive of the near blacks? There are other near black tests the use the entire screen and in finer increments. One I like is by Nokia, you can get it here, The Nokia Monitor Test - http://tinyurl.com/3tbvz7r (http://tinyurl.com/3tbvz7r)
When I try it I can differentiate between 2% and 3% black in my usually lit, not totally dark, room.

[William Malacarne]

Maybe I am missing a lot here but can I ask why it is that nobody is suggesting to do a proper calibration on the monitor with the real tools made for doing the job. I am not real experienced but I have always been told to do a good job you need the proper tools.

Bill

[Chris Ober]

Maybe I am missing a lot here but can I ask why it is that nobody is suggesting to do a proper calibration on the monitor with the real tools made for doing the job. I am not real experienced but I have always been told to do a good job you need the proper tools.

Bill

He did recalibrate. Calibration pucks and profiling software don't adjust the contrast or brightness on a display and is normally done through the buttons and built-in functions on the monitor itself. The cinema display doesn't have that and is designed to be controlled via software on OSX through USB.

[Arthur Morris]

William, Chris is correct. I calibrated with the GregTag McBeth thingie....

[William Malacarne]

Thanks Chris and Artie

If I calibrate my monitor(I use ColorMunki), then after this is completed I change the monitor brightness, wont that remove the calibration of my monitor?

Bill

[Arthur Morris]

No, not at all. On my laptop I calibrate it and then "adjust" the brightness by changing the angle of the screen.

[Tom Graham]

"No, not at all. On my laptop I calibrate it and then "adjust" the brightness by changing the angle of the screen."

Most laptops (but maybe not Apple) use TN type monitors meant to be viewed straight on. Well, actually, TN types are best not viewed at all, period :S3: . I don't know what to say about changing the screen angle to "adjust" brightness. Except that I'd never ever accept such - unless all I used it for was email. But hey, if it works for you .......

Tom

[Arthur Morris]

Tom, With every laptop I have ever owned when I change the angle of the screen the appearance of the calibration strip changes. When I can differentiate the dark and light boxes on each end I am confident that I am adjusting my middle tones correctly. It may very well be that I have not technically changed the brightness of the screen but I have been using this technique for about a decade. In that time my images have been published all over the world and have been honored in a variety of prestigious contests.

[Arthur Morris]

Ok, this all depends on your video card, but here is how I navigate to mine with the ATI card,

Control Panels ~ Appearance and Personalization ~ Display ~ Screen Resolution, they you click the advanced Settings text in the bottom right , once the next window opens shown below on the left of image, you click the catalyst control center, Enter the ATII Catalyst Control Center app go to Desktop Properties under the menu.

Whewwww :bg3:

Thanks again Chad, I went to Display/Screen Resolution but when I click Advanced, I do not see what you see, I see what you are seeing here. Any clues?

[Andre van As]

I have an 23 inch Apple Cinema Display on my office computer. I do 97% of my image work on my laptop. When I noticed that I could not differentiate the two dark boxes in a calibration strip I recalibrated the monitor. No help. There are no brightness controls on the monitor. I did an online search to no avail.

Strangely enough the Fn keys on the keyboard on that machine are unlabeled. Forgot to mention--the monitor which is designed for Apple is hooked up to a Windows 7 PC....

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks muchly.
Hi Art - This may not help your situation as you are driving the display with a PC, but MAC has quite a nice calibration program in System Preferences/Displays where you can adjust the brightness and contrast, determine the luminance response curve, choose a response curve gamma and choose a white point. Having done this I can distinguish both blacks and both whites at the ends of the Monitor Calibration Strip. But you have to have a MAC to drive the monitor. I have also been told by Apple that the video/color graphics card and the monitors are factory balanced so that color rendition is not adulterated. I work on a Macbook Pro but have a HP 22W monitor which has been calibrated using the program mentioned above. I believe that what I see in real life is what I get on the display and the same result is reflected on my Epson 3880 printer. From the rest of the comments responding to you seems that I should try a calibration program as well but things are working so well for me that I am afraid to tinker. In the past 2 years I have become a MAC convert after being a PC/Windows slave for the past 20 years. What a release!

Regards

Andre

[Tom Graham]

I apologize Art, I was not questioning your photographic nor artistic abilities.
Just your unique approach for monitor viewing, I doubt if anyone else here uses such a method. Anyone?? But hey, maybe we should try it!! It may be that last bit of technique I really need! :w3
Tom

[Arthur Morris]

No sweat Tom. I forget who taught it to me but I have been teaching at least thousands of others here and in my books and seminars to do the same. So far no complaints. I think that you did get me to realize something important: it may very well be that I have not technically changed the brightness of the screen but rather are simply changing the appearance of the middle tones. The problem with my Apple display is that I cannot differentiate the two dark boxes on the left so I actually do need to increase the brightness.

[Tom Graham]

Won't help much with your specific situation, but our own Roger Clark has an excellent article on monitor types, viewing angle contrast, brightness and color shifts.
http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/choosing_an_LCD_monitor/index.html

Tom

[Chad Caswell]

Thanks again Chad, I went to Display/Screen Resolution but when I click Advanced, I do not see what you see, I see what you are seeing here. Any clues?

Hey Artie,

Looks like you have an Nvidia video card..
Lets start by clicking the tab circled below, what do you see under this tab, sorry I have no way of telling without this card installed.

Chad

[Arthur Morris]

I think that I went there w/o success. When I get back into the office, I will post a screen cap :).

Thanks.

[Arthur Morris]

Hey Artie, Looks like you have an Nvidia video card..
Lets start by clicking the tab circled below, what do you see under this tab, sorry I have no way of telling without this card installed.Chad

Thanks a huge tall stack. Jim and I went there are were successful as below.

[Arthur Morris]

ps: We can now differentiate the two dark boxes on the left (even though you cannot see them in the JPEG above). We did make small adjustments to the brightness, contrast, and gamma.

[Chad Caswell]

Thanks a huge tall stack. Jim and I went there are were successful as below.

No Problem Artie... Glad I could help!

Chad

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks again! Me too.

[Ken Kovak]

With respect to adjusting the position of the monitor what I suspect that Artie is doing is finding the "optimum" viewing angle for that laptop monitor. Since he is now viewing it at its optimum position no surprise that he gets good results.

However, if something has happened to that monitor, or to an internal setting, so that it is now inherently too dark, the monitor tilting routine will not fix the issue.

Just some thoughts. Unfortunately I cannot offer much help with laptop monitors as the only one I have is a work supplied POS about 4 years out of date.:2

Ken