New PC - Visual setting tech help?

Mimi · Feb 9, 2007

While I LOVE getting a new pc (I can barely keep up with the new 3.4 processor...wow this thing is fast!), I HATE that initial adjustment period where you're trying to get everything set up just the way you like it...the way you had it on your old computer.

My problem is with my screen appearance. This is especially annoying for me since I design so many graphics and I REALLY need to have my color dead on. With my old system, with my big old clunky 17 inch TV style monitor, the background on the posts here at the forum was a very pale blue. I had the exact color set just right in my graphics program for seamlessly matching new sig images I made for folks here, and it was grand. Now I have a 19 inch LCD monitor, and the post background color is white (though the color on the top half of the monitor is slightly darker than on the bottom half...that has to do with the lighting in here and the fact it's an LCD, I'm sure). I keep trying to adjust my color manually, but it just sort of takes away the sharpness and vibrancy of the colors and dulls everything down. And no matter what adjustments I make, I can not get that pale blue background back and I'm afraid it's really gonna mess me up when creating new sigs here.

Anything I can do? Or am I SOL until I sit here and play for hours on end to get it just right? Or will it never be 'just like my old monitor' again because of the new LCD monitor? Geez, this is annoying...lol

Many thanks. 😀

His Divine Shadow · Feb 9, 2007

Depends. Do you want to adjust color via the monitor itself or your graphics card/integrated solution? If you want to adjust on the monitor, the best thing is to play with settings (Setting color temperature to 5400K or 6500K, for instance, or manually adjusting the brightness/contrast settings while viewing a TMF page until you see the color you want). The graphics card option may be more complicated, depending on your configuration.

You could try using this page and its two gradients, greyscale and color (Scroll down), to set the screen to something more applicable. Basically the best thing to do is use the monitor itself's controls and fiddle until you get what you want. There are more precise ways to do it (Ways I am barely familiar with that involve gamma correction and/or color profiles), but the monitor way is easiest. But, as you said fiddling seems not to work, the graphics processor route may be best.

EDIT: As I am about to take to bed, here is a quick guide to how you can access your graphics controls if you choose to:
-Right-click anywhere on your desktop (Somewhere where nothing is). Choose "Properties"
-In the Properties window, select the tab labeled "Settings"
-On the Settings tab, look for a button labeled "Advanced" Also look to make sure "Color Quality" is at "32 bit" (It should be already). Click the "Advanced" button.
-This should take you to your graphics control panel. Depending on what sort of card/solution you have, it may have many controls. It may also have very few. Look especially for a link that looks like it takes you to another set of properties for your specific card. For instance, my integrated Intel graphics has its own little tab on the "Advanced" window labeled with its name. Going there reveals a link to more properties. In there, I have a simple but effective color adjustment and gamma-correction page. Something like that on yours may well fix the problem.

If you aren't sure, take a screen capture, post it and I can try to guide you on the morrow to where you need to be looking.

Mimi · Feb 9, 2007

Wooo Hooo! Thank you, doll! I had a tab that was labeled by my graphics card name (GeForce6200), and in it there was a Display Optimization button that took me step by step through adjusting my brightness, contract, R/G/B, temperature, and all until it was set right, and now the light blue post background is back....it's not all straight white and bleached out. The warm colors are slightly warmer than I would like them to be, but I'll definitely take that over the total whiteness.

Thanks for your help! :cuddle: