calibrating a Dell 2408WFP with the Spyder3 Pro

I've had the monitor for about 3 weeks and the Spyder for about 1. I spent several days trying different combinations of settings before getting a calibration that looked good to me. I thought I would share what I discovered for anyone else with this set of equipment.

First, you have to use the RGB sliders option. Without that I consistently got pinkish screen tones.

Second, setting the brightness and contrast gave me a more comfortable screen. I ended up using a contrast of 90 and a brightness of 5. Some may think that brightness sounds drastic but this monitor is very bright. At the factory setting of 50 the Spyder measures a luminence of 320 cd/m2. At 15 brightness I got 220 cd/m2 and at 5 I got 170 cd/m2. I've read that even that is considered too bright but setting it at zero gave dull colors to my eyes.

Third, even after setting the white balance to 6500k I was still getting pinkish tinged grays. These were especially noticeable in windows and Word menu boxes. After lots of experimenting I found that once you have set the RGB sliders to get 6500k you have to look at the Visual Guide box in the Spyder. It's a series of black to gray to white boxes. Even at 6500k you might see pinkish grays. Just select the Red slider and decrease it until the guide box grays look gray and not pink toned. You may think this will throw off the white balance but I found that the R slider is very insensitive. I was at a difference measurement of .02 and a white balance of 6520k but grays were pink. I changed the R slider from 100 to 88 and the difference only changed to .03 and white balance to 6525k.

I now have a good looking screen that doesn't sear my eyeballs with intensity and shows great colors, not too saturated, not too dull.

Kent, thanks for your post. I haven't used a Spyder, nor your monitor, but I'm always keen to learn more.

I believe you when you say that the factory settings is 320cd/m2 - most LCD monitors are like that, in fact the manufacturers boast about it! It might be good for gamers, but it's rubbish for imaging. Once your eyes adjust, you'll probably find that 170 is still too high!

The reason I'm bumping your post is that I'm keen to hear from other Dell monitor owners about this "pinkish" business - namely, have you done the right thing by dabbling with the red slider.

In my (not particularly vast) experience calibrating LCD monitors, the casty grays appear when you attempt to calibrate to a non-native white point. Leave the white at "Native", and the problem disappears.

But I've only observed this on fairly cheap LCD monitors - and I assume your monitor is a cut above those.

I know there's lots of Dell 2408 owners out there - can anybody satiate my curiosity?

I have the spyder 3 elite had a problem with a red cast when calibrating my apple cinema display. the ACD does not have RGB sliders. I contacted technical support and fixing the problem was as easy as unplugging all USB and FW peripherals before calibrating. I now have a beautiful looking display.

col4bin wrote in post #5370894
I contacted technical support and fixing the problem was as easy as unplugging all USB and FW peripherals before calibrating. I now have a beautiful looking display.

how bizarre is that? Did they explain why?

Damo, could you explain what you mean by native white point? I'm still new at this calibration thing but I don't see anything in the Dell menus or the Spyder software that talks about native white point.

The Dell has preset points: monitor, sRGB, custom RGB, Warm, Cool, Multimedia. Would the monitor preset be native? If so, I've tried calibrating with all of the presets. Here is the process with the spyder:

1. you adjust contrast so that a series of light gray boxes just shows a difference between the last two boxes, or you can skip this step. The software cautions that doing this may actually produce poorer results.

2. you adjust brightness so that a series of dark gray boxes just shows a difference between the last two boxes, or you can skip this step. The software gives you the same warning as in step 1.

3. the software asks you if you want to use the rgb sliders or not. It cautions you that using them may produce poorer results but everytime I uncheck this option I get very pinkish toned colors.

4. after choosing to use the sliders you put the spyder on the screen and it measures blue, green, red, white and black. It then displays 3 bars for red, blue and green and a target region shows as a rectangle across the three bars. It also displays luminence, color temperature, several other values and a difference value. The software instructs you to adjust red, blue and green until the difference value is less than .5.

5. to adjust the rgb you have to go into the Dell presets and select custom RGB, then adjust the sliders, remeasure, adjust, until you have a difference value of less than .5.

So whatever preset mode you started out with, in order to fine tune the color temperature you always end up in the custom rgb preset mode. If I'm misusing this in some way I'd appreciate the help.

And you're right, the 170 cd/m2 is too bright. Right now I'm experimenting with using the NVIDIA controls to reduce brightness instead of the monitor controls.

Col4bin, did you just unplug external USB and Firewire? The 2408 has built in USB and card reader ports, my HP printer/scanner/fax is USB and also has built in card reader, I also have firewire, USB and cardreader installed in the computer case and connected to internal ports on the motherboard. Would I have to disconnect all of those devices?

Kent Clark wrote in post #5373317
Damo, could you explain what you mean by native white point? The Dell has preset points: monitor, sRGB, custom RGB, Warm, Cool, Multimedia. Would the monitor preset be native?

That would be my guess, but I'm not familiar with Dells.

Kent Clark wrote in post #5373317
Here is the process with the spyder:

1. you adjust contrast so that a series of light gray boxes just shows a difference between the last two boxes, or you can skip this step. The software cautions that doing this may actually produce poorer results.

2. you adjust brightness so that a series of dark gray boxes just shows a difference between the last two boxes, or you can skip this step. The software gives you the same warning as in step 1.

3. the software asks you if you want to use the rgb sliders or not. It cautions you that using them may produce poorer results but everytime I uncheck this option I get very pinkish toned colors.

4. after choosing to use the sliders you put the spyder on the screen and it measures blue, green, red, white and black. It then displays 3 bars for red, blue and green and a target region shows as a rectangle across the three bars. It also displays luminence, color temperature, several other values and a difference value. The software instructs you to adjust red, blue and green until the difference value is less than .5.

5. to adjust the rgb you have to go into the Dell presets and select custom RGB, then adjust the sliders, remeasure, adjust, until you have a difference value of less than .5.

Thanks for the explanation. If nothing else, it makes me glad I've got a GretagMacbeth. I don't have any wisdom for you, I'm afraid.

C'mon everyone, let's pitch in and help Kent here. I'm sure somebody must have some advice!

Kent Clark wrote in post #5373317
And you're right, the 170 cd/m2 is too bright. Right now I'm experimenting with using the NVIDIA controls to reduce brightness instead of the monitor controls.

Hmmm ... there may be a problem here. I've read that it's a good idea to disable the graphics card controls before calibrating with a device. I might be mistaken, though.

I read a pretty intense review of the 2408 where the author said if he dropped the monitor brightness too low he got banding but if he put the monitor at 100 and then adjusted with the video card he got no banding and good results.

Like I said in the first post, if I drop brightness to zero the colors look very muted and the Spyder still measures the luminence as about 150 cd/m2. So as far as I can see there is not really another option to lower the brightness.

Thanks for the help.

If any Dell/Spyder users are looking at this thread, I found the native setpoint that Damo talked about.

In the Spyder software you can choose various gamma and color temp values. For gamma 2.2 you can choose 6500k, 5500k, etc and you can choose NATIVE. I haven't played around with it enough yet to know if that solves the pink problem.

I didn't see the native setting before because the Spyder software assumes some choices when you recalibrate so it doesn't show you every choice everytime. You get to a screen that says something like "accept these values" or "edit these values", the values being gamma, color temp among others. If you choose edit you can get a drop down box that shows the various gamma and color temp values.

I saw that box the first time I set up my monitor calibration but I was too new to even notice the native option. Since then the software always assumed a 6500k temp since that is what I chose the first time.

I reduced my RGB settings to about 60 for each, which allows me to keep brightness around 70 on my Dell 2407FPW. This got me my desired brightness (anywhere from 100 to 140cd/m^2) and an extremely linear calibration result. Didn't notice any banding either.

I also bought the 2408 but only had the older Spyder2 unit to calibrate it with - absoutely no joy at all. Someone mentioned this was due to it being a Wide Gamut monitor and on the the Syder3 would work. Not sure if this was true but it never managed to get Vista looking decent yet alone Photoshop.

So .. stumped up for the Color Munki instead - and now have a perfect screen, no tints. A side benefit is a printer profile that beats anything I have managed to produce before for my i9950 with Kyson inks.

Rob, thanks for that tip. I'll give it a go tonight. My wife thinks I'm slightly crazy hanging this thingy on our monitor night after night but if nothing else I've come to understand monitor calibration a lot better.

Michael, I've read the same thing, that the Spyder2 does not work well with the 2408. After several weeks of playing around I'm coming to the conclusion that the Spyder3 does work, but it's not the best calibration solution for this monitor.

And I've not had a very good customer service experience with DataColor, the Spyder manufacturer. I emailed them specifically about the luminance situation. I got back a very short email that in one sentence said, disable everything and recalibrate.

I did that, thinking that this would address the too bright luminance situation I had inquired about. It gave the exact results I had experienced before, results that I had specifically explained in my original email were way too bright. I replied , explaining the situation. I got back another 1 sentence email, so terse it seemed like the author was using her Blackberry during rush hour commute. It said, "we find best results are obtained with all settings off."

By now I was really puzzled and a little irritated. Puzzled because the Spyder software spends 3-4 screens having the user check off the features in their monitor and explaining how to optimize those settings yet DataColor tells me to ignore their own software. Irritated because neither email directly addressed my original inquiry, which was, "how can I best set luminance targets with the Spyder3 Pro?"

I calmly and respectfully, I think, replied that I was a little puzzled and frustrated, outlining what I said above. I also said that after spending $160 on one of their products I turned to them to help me understand how to better use their product but had received little new information, only simplistic instructions that didn't really address the original question.

I haven't heard anything from them since.

Interesting about the Native setting. With that enabled, the Color Munki s/w will not register a perfect contract and brightness setting no matter how I tweak the 2408. Set to 6500k, I can get both "perfect" according to the s/w.

One interesting side effect of the new profile is that, while both Vista and Photoshop are great - the in-built Vista image viewer is just dreadful - looks like gamma used is completely wrong. It is most odd.

Can recommend this Munki hardware - very good indeed. S/w has a few bugs under Vista but nothing that stops good profiling.

I must admit that Datacolor comes with virtually no instructions in the package other than: Open box. Install CD. Calibrate monitor. I have done well with my Spyder2Pro and now the Spyder3, but I am still going to send them a message regarding the need for more specific instructions and better technical support. Maybe if enough people point it out thay will respond better.

LuckyRobJ wrote in post #5392384
I reduced my RGB settings to about 60 for each, which allows me to keep brightness around 70 on my Dell 2407FPW. This got me my desired brightness (anywhere from 100 to 140cd/m^2) and an extremely linear calibration result. Didn't notice any banding either.

How are you guys changing RGB settings on your Dell? I have a 3007wfp-hc and can't find the adjustments anywhere. I heard they're only available if you're running a dell pc as well. True?

RGB settings are via the on-screen display that's built into the monitor--doesn't matter what computer you're using.

I'm assuming your 3007's menu is the same as mine... in the color settings menu, set the Color Adjustment to 'PC Custom Color'. This will show the RGB bars that you can adjust.