over sharpened images on LCD - is it a common issue ?

goodCat

Weaksauce
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I recently moved from an old 21" crt to a 24" lcd screen (S-PVA panel). I really like it, except for the fact that images look over sharpen and pixelated, especially the one that are scaled down, like avatars. They look like a jpg image saved with very low quality settings or a gif with not enough colors. I don't know if this is the most adequate comparison, but I hope you understand what I mean.

I have an image sharpening option in the osd, but it's greyed out, I think it is for vga only. Is this a common issue with LCD's or do I need do adjust some settings?

thanks!
 
Sounds like it is just showing you what is there and the downsizing algorithm is a poor one and didn't do re-sampling.

After I moved to LCD I noticed over-sharpening in many of my own images, that I sharpened to look good on my CRT which is softer. Once I moved to LCD I stopped sharpening so much.

IMO LCD just shows you what is there, warts and all. CRT was hiding the warts.
 
Sounds like it is just showing you what is there and the downsizing algorithm is a poor one and didn't do re-sampling.

After I moved to LCD I noticed over-sharpening in many of my own images, that I sharpened to look good on my CRT which is softer. Once I moved to LCD I stopped sharpening so much.

IMO LCD just shows you what is there, warts and all. CRT was hiding the warts.

So this is one of the things that inherently exists in all LCD screens and I can't do anything about it, right? I even notice it on low quality vids. But if it shows even on the NEC 2490 which is pretty much the best lcd around...
 
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Not sure I really understand...

Are you trying to expand images and videos so that they take up more of the screen?

If so, then yes, it is an inherent flaw with LCD monitors because there is a fixed number of pixels on the screen. When trying to view something that is above or below the original resolution, then you will need to deal with interpolation.
 
Not sure I really understand...

Are you trying to expand images and videos so that they take up more of the screen?

If so, then yes, it is an inherent flaw with LCD monitors because there is a fixed number of pixels on the screen. When trying to view something that is above or below the original resolution, then you will need to deal with interpolation.

Nope, I was referring to images like the thumbnails from youtube videos, for example. Or the avatars from a forum etc.
 
Some panels seem to do image post processing no matter what, even if you use DVI. My 2253LW seems to fit this and so do many other Samsung panels I've used. The sharpness setting is a crapshoot trying to get a genuine "no added processing" signal displayed. 0% sharpness is artificially blurred, 90-100% is wacked out, and even 50% doesn't make sense. 60 is closest, but even then I see light artifacts in static images. Since you can't adjust this with your panel, you might be out of luck.

I'm not sure why you're noticing it only on certain objects or areas of contrast though. Also it's possible the images you're viewing do look like shit anyway and you're just noticing it now. Another thing to look for is any video card based processing like NVidia's digital vibrance or equivalent BS.

FWIW, I'm using a calibrated 2007FP right now with perfect sharpness, so post a link to your avatar or whatever let's see how bad it really looks.
 
So this is one of the things that inherently exists in all LCD screens and I can't do anything about it, right? I even notice it on low quality vids. But if it shows even on the NEC 2490 which is pretty much the best lcd around...

Yes, they are all have inherently proper sharpness. :D I have owned a couple of LCDs that don't let you adjust sharpness on DVI and that was because they were perfectly neutral in DVI, neither blurring nor sharpening the image.

You do notice that you are only complaining about low quality vids and things like avatars.

Even low res TV show videos look fine full screen on my LCD if the encode quality is good. But Garbage in, garbage out, I have seen higher res encodes that were full of crap (macroblocking and other artifacts).

Nothing wrong with your display, you just have some ugly sources that you never noticed before.
 
So this is one of the things that inherently exists in all LCD screens and I can't do anything about it, right? I even notice it on low quality vids. But if it shows even on the NEC 2490 which is pretty much the best lcd around...

Well yes the LCD is showing what is there. IF the vid is low quality, you're going to notice the jaggies and such. I think one other possible issue might be that your monitor doesn't support 'deinterlacing' of tv type signals. Some monitors have this feature and some don't. When are you encountering this issue the most?
 
Well this is an article on deinterlacing. But I think it mostly applies to video.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinterlacing

As for as images go that look too sharp or jagged, maybe you actually need to activate antialiasing or reduce your sharpness setting. It's hard to tell. Try googling your monitor's model and see if other people have the same problem as you. Do the jaggies also extend to your fonts or its just your icons and such? Does increasing the size of your desktop icons help or make the issue even more exaggerated?
 
I hooked up a 17" crt in parallel and if look closely I can see the artifacts on that also, although greatly reduced; so I guess that the lcd really shows what it's there. My big problem is now banding, I can clearly see it especially in tones of grey (like you see on the header of this website: http://www.caphyon.com/). Is there anything I can do to reduce it (like adjusting gamma/contrast etc) ?

btw, my monitor is HP LP2465, manufactured in april 2008, so it is a fairly new revision. Wasn't banding an issue only with TN panels that used dithering?
 
I hooked up a 17" crt in parallel and if look closely I can see the artifacts on that also, although greatly reduced; so I guess that the lcd really shows what it's there. My big problem is now banding, I can clearly see it especially in tones of grey (like you see on the header of this website: http://www.caphyon.com/). Is there anything I can do to reduce it (like adjusting gamma/contrast etc) ?

btw, my monitor is HP LP2465, manufactured in april 2008, so it is a fairly new revision. Wasn't banding an issue only with TN panels that used dithering?

Banding has existed on all types of screens/panels regardless of bit level. Dell 2407WFP before revision A04 had banding, and it used the same panel as your LP2465 in every revision > Samsung LTM240M2. So if the panel never changed, it must have been the electronics that were altered to remove the banding in revision A04.

I'm pretty sure this was an 8 bit panel, so it's not isolated to 6-bit.

Your images may also have banding. I can see banding on that caphyon.com web site, but not on the lagom.nl test image right now.

Take a look here and see if the grey scale shows banding. If it does not, your monitor likely is not banding. If it is, then you can try playing with settings to see if it can be removed:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/gradient.php

That web site might have banding in the header regardless of what monitor you view it on, it just might be worse on a 6-bit TN.
 
Check that your color profile is installed correctly and display whitepoint is calibrated properly. Whenever your gamut is artificially shorted or too much contrast you can get banding in midtones. With an S-IPS 2007FP, that site shows up pretty much perfectly -- only the smallest amount of dithering in their gradients from Photoshop work.
 
thanks for the help, guys.

@10e: I can see banding on the images from lagom site also, especially in the form of vertical lines, more or less equally distanced with the distance decreasing towards the darker end of the images. I took a few pics of the screen with my crappy camera:

http://i28.tinypic.com/2e2o85k.jpg
http://i26.tinypic.com/r8yueb.jpg
http://i30.tinypic.com/25j9wyh.jpg


ps: can you see banding in the logo from this site? to me it appears like concentrical circles. once again thank you for all your help, I really apreciate it.
 
The lagom gradient test is flawed because it's tagged as sRGB. If you're using a color profile and a color-managed browser, you will see banding unless your monitor happens to be perfectly calibrated to the sRGB gamma curve.

I use my own image:
gradient.png


If that gradient is smooth, then your monitor doesn't have banding.
 
Ok, when i took the shots that I posted above I had been messing around with gamma, some settings from the video card, Hp display assistent and I actually made it worse. :D
I ran system restore and now I see quite an improvement, on the lagom gradient test I can barely observe some banding.

@ToastyX: I can see just a bit near the dark zone; I also checked it on a crt and it looks just a bit better than on my lcd, so I am pretty satisfied now. Apparently this HP is ok with out of the box settings.

I now have two other noobish questions:

1. Is there an ideal color temperature or I should stick to the one that I'm most comfortable with? At 9300k is too blue, 6500 looks greenish and sRGB looks almost the same as 6500k. Right now I have it on custom (95,97,100) for RGB values. Does this affect color accuracy?

2. The display (actual screen) gets pretty hot after a day of use. Is that normal?

Thanks a lot, I really apreciate it!
 
Well, I think some displayes got "sharper" pixels, I find my H-IPS 2690 to be softer on my eyes than some 24" S-PVAs. But definitely LCD screens have sharper picture than CRTs - that is supposedly one of their benefits. Don't worry, you will get used to it :)
 
thank you, maybe it's related to the weird sub-pixel structure of VA screens...or because 24" displays have smaller dot pitch. Dunno. Any thoughts about these two issues:

goodCat said:
1. Is there an ideal color temperature or I should stick to the one that I'm most comfortable with? At 9300k is too blue, 6500 looks greenish and sRGB looks almost the same as 6500k. Right now I have it on custom (95,97,100) for RGB values. Does this affect color accuracy?

2. The display (actual screen) gets pretty hot after a day of use. Is that normal?
 
I hooked up a 17" crt in parallel and if look closely I can see the artifacts on that also, although greatly reduced; so I guess that the lcd really shows what it's there. My big problem is now banding, I can clearly see it especially in tones of grey (like you see on the header of this website: http://www.caphyon.com/). Is there anything I can do to reduce it (like adjusting gamma/contrast etc) ?

btw, my monitor is HP LP2465, manufactured in april 2008, so it is a fairly new revision. Wasn't banding an issue only with TN panels that used dithering?

As for banding that is a monitor design defect not an inherent defect of LCDs. On my Samsung, I don't get banding issues. The only problem with it is the input lag.

The lagom gradient test is flawed because it's tagged as sRGB. If you're using a color profile and a color-managed browser, you will see banding unless your monitor happens to be perfectly calibrated to the sRGB gamma curve.

I use my own image:
gradient.png


If that gradient is smooth, then your monitor doesn't have banding.

Yup. It's super smooth on my samsung. Not as smooth looking on my viewsonic. It's definitely a monitor/model specific issue.
 
So this is one of the things that inherently exists in all LCD screens and I can't do anything about it, right? I even notice it on low quality vids. But if it shows even on the NEC 2490 which is pretty much the best lcd around...

CRTs are typically providing a little blur and free anti-aliasing, which is helpful to hide garbage.

If you've got a 2490 and it's set up properly, you're seeing exactly what's there, and you've been able to observe that it looks like crap.

It's the same thing if you spend $10k on a two-channel audiophile system. Almost everything sounds like crap because it's revealing shortcomings in the masters and CD encoding, the producer's skill, whatever and you've had a taste for how good music can sound. You'll quickly weed out the good recordings from the bad, and the bad will sound so bad.

There is a sharpening control on the 2490 which does use a sharpening algorithm. You should make sure that this hasn't been tampered with, or consider resetting back to factory defaults. My sharpness on my 2490 is at "26.2%" out of the box IIRC.
 
Ok, I got it. :)
Can you please tell me something regarding the two questions I posted above?
thanks!
 
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