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by Andy Trowbridge on Wed Apr 15, 2020 10:08 pm
Andy Trowbridge
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Location: New Zealand
I'm having a nightmare trying to get a decent calibration on my BenQ SW320 monitor with the BenQ Palette Master Element software. I had a custom PC built back in August 2019 and purchased the monitor at the same time. I calibrated the monitor then and validated the calibration through the same software and all look good, not as good as some results obtained in some reviews but delta E's all less than 2. However overtime I noticed that my blacks seemed very blocked up and recently I decided to investigate this issue. Basically I couldn't distinguish between black levels from 0,0,0 - 25,25,25. So there was obviously a problem. I first thought it could be the Blackpoint option in the software that I picked, there are two options, Absolute Zero or Relative. I had originally chosen Absolute Zero. So I recalibrated using Relative. To start with I just couldn't get a calibration without a strong purple/magenta hue to it. So I uninstalled the software and then reinstalled it and was then able to get a calibration without an obvious hue to it, however contrast seemed extremely low. 

I had noticed in one review that the reviewer had used DisplayCal software to verify his calibration results from the BenQ software, so I decided to do that. 

The calibration with Blackpoint set to Absolute Zero could not be verified because the black levels were clipped. 

The calibration with Blackpoint set to Relative could be verified but had delta E valves above 3, mainly in the blacks and the contrast was only 275:1 Also the Gamut coverage was only 96% sRGB and 92% AdobeRGB.

By this stage I was pulling out my hair and decided to get rid of the BenQ software and calibrations and reset the monitor and just try calibrating it with the DisplayCal Software. Well I got much better results, delta E values all less than 2 (most well under 1, just the dark tones being higher) using the Large Verification Test-chart, contrast was 820:1, Gamut coverage 99% sRGB and 95.9% AdobeRGB which I thought were still a bit low, considering that the monitor is meant to cover 99% of the AdobeRGB colour space and was one of the reason I brought it.

I also noticed that while images looked great in colour managed Apps (CaptureOne, Photoshop) however they looked horrible in Win10 File Browser, way oversaturated. Is this normal? I was a iMac user before this computer and never had this issue before with the Mac.. 

So I'm starting to think I have a bad copy of this monitor. 

So some questions

Would you be happy with these results?
Have I done something to the OS or monitor to prevent the BenQ software working properly?
What are the disadvantages of using DisplayCal over the BenQ software for calibration?
I can't seem to update the monitor driver from version 1.0.0, could this be the issue? If so how can I update this, I've download the latest  driver but Windows keeps telling me that the most up to date version is installed.

Any thoughts/help regarding this would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Andy
All comments & suggestions welcomed and appreciated.
_______________________________________

Andy Trowbridge http://www.andytrowbridge.com 
Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/AndyTrowbridgePhotography
 

by E.J. Peiker on Sat Apr 18, 2020 7:38 am
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I don't have that monitor so I'll leave it to others to answer but yes, Windows File Browser will display image WAY oversaturated in non-color managed applications.

Another comment, DeltaE of 2 or even 1 is very poor for a quality Adobe RGB color managed monitor. I get around 0.2 even on my 7 year old NEC Ultrasync
 

by Andy Trowbridge on Sun Apr 19, 2020 2:21 am
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Posts: 991
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Location: New Zealand
E.J. Peiker wrote:I don't have that monitor so I'll leave it to others to answer but yes, Windows File Browser will display image WAY oversaturated in non-color managed applications.

Another comment, DeltaE of 2 or even 1 is very poor for a quality Adobe RGB color managed monitor.  I get around 0.2 even on my 7 year old NEC Ultrasync
Well I'm guessing your monitor was 2-3 times the price of the BenQ, so really in a different league. 

On the Factory Calibration Report that came with the monitor it showed the monitor having an avg. deltaE of 0.41 and Max deltaE of 1.99. On my most recent calibration with the DisplayCal software I got an avg. deltaE of 0.21 and Max deltaE of 1.1. I`m guessing that this is probably about the best I can hope for and is a lot better than the calibration I obtained with the BenQ software.  The only thing I`m noticing now is that on occasion I`m seeing some banding or posterization with images with a lot of adjustment layers, once I flatten the image this goes away. Is this caused by the fact that I`m using a software calibration over a hardware calibration? Or is there something else going on here?
Graphics card possibly?
All comments & suggestions welcomed and appreciated.
_______________________________________

Andy Trowbridge http://www.andytrowbridge.com 
Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/AndyTrowbridgePhotography
 

by E.J. Peiker on Mon Apr 20, 2020 6:49 am
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Andy Trowbridge wrote:
E.J. Peiker wrote:I don't have that monitor so I'll leave it to others to answer but yes, Windows File Browser will display image WAY oversaturated in non-color managed applications.

Another comment, DeltaE of 2 or even 1 is very poor for a quality Adobe RGB color managed monitor.  I get around 0.2 even on my 7 year old NEC Ultrasync
Well I'm guessing your monitor was 2-3 times the price of the BenQ, so really in a different league. 

On the Factory Calibration Report that came with the monitor it showed the monitor having an avg. deltaE of 0.41 and Max deltaE of 1.99. On my most recent calibration with the DisplayCal software I got an avg. deltaE of 0.21 and Max deltaE of 1.1. I`m guessing that this is probably about the best I can hope for and is a lot better than the calibration I obtained with the BenQ software.  The only thing I`m noticing now is that on occasion I`m seeing some banding or posterization with images with a lot of adjustment layers, once I flatten the image this goes away. Is this caused by the fact that I`m using a software calibration over a hardware calibration? Or is there something else going on here?
Graphics card possibly?
0.21 is very good.  

It sounds more like a graphics card issue or more likely an available memory issue.  The monitor has no idea how many layers you have, it is just displaying a pixel by pixel image of what the graphics card is sending it.  Your calibration software also is completely unaware of the number of layers you have.  Photoshop is terrible at memory leaks and not freeing up all of the memory from previous photos you processed.  In general I recommend people close and reopen Photoshop every once in a while to free up this lost memory.  the other thing I would look at is the number of history states you are making Photoshop remember.  you may want to reduce those a bit if you have set it to a really high number.
 

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