Is there much of a point to do art with an IPS panel?
polycounter lvl 9
I just recently got an IPS panel myself for a dual monitor setup. The other being a TN panel. I was developing some art on my new IPS panel for a friend and he wanted to see some screenshots. So obviously, he saw less vibrancy and more washed out textures because of the TN display.
Now think about this. You are developing a game, and a majority of your consumers are using a TN panel. So the washed out, dull textures are going to be right on their screen.
Is there really a point for an IPS panel then, if a majority of consumers don't know what these textures should really look like?
Now think about this. You are developing a game, and a majority of your consumers are using a TN panel. So the washed out, dull textures are going to be right on their screen.
Is there really a point for an IPS panel then, if a majority of consumers don't know what these textures should really look like?
Replies
Keep in mind that I am half asleep and have a habit of rambling on in this state.
You do bring up an interesting point. I was in a similar discussion with a friend of mine, we were also taking into account colour calibration and other variables, now bear in mind that we both love photography so the premise of my argument was reproduction of colours should be the same on digital and print medium, so it made sense.
However, if you are strictly talking digital medium, well then it becomes confusing. I might be wrong here but the average consumer doesn't know the difference unless and until they really care. Most of them pick up on terms that are popular. BTW I might be wrong here so feel free to correct me since it is my personal take on the matter. Another example would be the fact that most casual console gamers and consumers(I said MOST not all) know about 1080p as being the 'standard' HD resolution but don't know about higher resolutions like 1440p. The term 4K is being popularized by the media these days but just go ahead and ask some random person what 4K resolution actually is and some times the answer is, well 4000x4000.
My point being that unless and until something goes mainstream where a majority of the people can actually understand it and are enamoured enough to switch to it the whole question of 'what is the point' is rather moot. The real question is are you trying to find the point for them or for yourself.
If it was for them, then there's not much to it, most consumers do use non-IPS displays and well that's that to it. However if it is for yourself then there are a lot of points like, better and stable response times, better reproduction of colours and if I can remember better washout.
Also there the whole thing of, 'I'd rather be right and be acknowledged by few now, than be wrong and be made a spectacle of in the town square later on' or something like it(I can't come up with witty things when I am half asleep.)
Imagine what would happen if people in charge of professional movie color grading were thinking along these lines. Or if toy factories were being casual in their manufacturing controls just because toys don't need accurate measurements anyways. You get the idea
If anything, the end user likely using a display with poor color fidelity sounds like a great reason for us to be as knowledgeable and accurate as possible when it comes to handling color !
On top of that, textures for instance are not displayed "as is" in games - there is a lot of complex math involved in the shading pipeline, relying on input textures being authored consistently, like being in a specific value range for instance. If all artists in a pipeline have crappy (and therefore, different looking) displays, things become harder to author and control than they need to be ...
you need some kind of "base definition" for your stuff
the beauty of calibrated monitors is, if everyone in the industry is doing it, the results of all games will be consistend, so the end user has to figure out one setting he´s ok with, and will get similar serults throughout most of the games
This.
Ignore my rambling. I was half sleepy and delirious.
I wonder if we will see a transition where TN will be obsolete and everyone begins to use IPS panels or whatever better comes out next. I'm just a little worried since I'm new to using an IPS panel I'm hoping my freelance clients, or whatever person I'm working for doesn't get fed up because they are using a TN panel.
@pior
That does make sense especially when I think about the use of PBR! judging values by eye will be much easier with an IPS i imagine.
Color calibration settings are a huge, complex and annoying subject in itself. For starters I would simply recommend you to enable the Photoshop setting that warns you of color profile problems when opening a file.
Now of course for texture work this is irrelevant since you are working with "data" in that case, not "looks". But if you are sharing renders/screenshots with a friend or a client, you might want to at least make sure to convert your images to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 before saving to jpg. It seems to be a widely spread profile, correctly rendered easily. Also, some image hosting sites behave weirdly if no color profile is present in a file so you might want to be careful there too.
(I am not an expert on this, just going from my own experience and frustrations so if I am saying anything wrong someone correct me please
So working IPS isn't about what your viewers are seeing, because it doesn't matter if you're using IPS or TN - if you're not calibrating your screen, you will have color inaccuracy. Rather it's to make things easier while you're working on textures/anything with color, so that you're not affected by the color shifting that can occur due to viewing angle, which can introduce a level of error in the end result regardless. I need to invest in a good IPS panel at some point in the future because I'm tired of having to be aware of the view angle shifting in color as I work.
To elaborate on pior's comment on color calibration and profiles (which is something I'm still trying to wrap my head around myself), working with a properly calibrated monitor and your own custom color profile can be very important when working with anything color sensitive. sRGB is the generally accepted "RGB" color profile, but working in sRGB is technically working within a limited color palette so people usually recommended calibrating, working in your profile, then converting to sRGB for show on the web because it's sort of the "default" web RGB color space. To my knowledge, most modern browsers (Firefox, IE 9+, Chrome, Opera, Safari) all now officially support embedded color profiles - HOWEVER, how the implement color management is not consistent. Firefox (and looks like Chrome, now?) seem to be the best (I have not tried Safari), whereas Opera and IE9+ seem to simply assume you have an sRGB monitor profile and completely ignore your monitor profile if that's not the case, which makes it pretty lame color support. I'm sure various mobile devices either don't support embedded ICC profiles at all, or are assuming sRGB.
tl;dr, pretty sure working with a properly calibrated monitor (and your app of choice, say photoshop, set to use it as its working space) and then converting to sRGB prior to show on the web is still considered best practice. TN panels and IPS panels should both be able to show pretty damn accurate colors if they're properly calibrated, but IPS panels shouldn't suffer from color shifting as a result of viewing angle. Since IPS panels seem to be going down in price in recent years, might as well snag one if you can. Be aware that if you also use an IPS panel for gaming, 5ms seems to be as low as you'll find concerning response time (whereas you can find 2ms on TN panels), but really that's not a big deal and working environment, presumably, takes priority.
If you color correct for one shitty monitor, your work will look even worse on a shitty monitor that is on the opposite spectrum, than if you simply had a properly calibrated display.
Every time this subject comes up someone posts that circle graph showing a wide spectrum of monitor variance and it really brings the point home, but I couldn't find the image.
Two Listen: Its both really, viewing angles for consistent colors, and accurate color reproduction with a wide gamut display. A cheap TN panel with poor gamut will never display colors as accurately as a quality wide gamut display, even if professionally calibrated. Color depth is also important, TN displays (and some E-IPS) are generally 6bit, while good IPS panels (and MVA/PVA) are 8 bit or 10 bit.
Thank you for that insight, EarthQuake. Do you happen to know anything about potential issues with over saturation with web images when using a wide gamut display? I remember reading about this somewhere, but felt like I had to use one to get a good grasp of what they were referring to.
I agree with what everyone is saying. If you have a monitor that does not show accurate colors then you will never know the color of what you are creating.
Also having an IPS monitor helps if you ever want to print something out. Your have a better guide to print the proper colors.
Two: I've read similar things but don't own a 10bit panel myself (just a couple 8bits, one IPS Apple 23 Cinema and one PVA Dell 2409wfp), so I'm not really an expert there.
jddg5wa: In both cases you want to use some sort of hardware calibration if color accuracy is important, eg, spyder color calibrators or similar. You use the hardware to test the color accuracy, and then software to make corrections, so TN monitors can be color corrected, however due to inferior panels they will never be as accurate as a better quality monitor.
These days good quality e-IPS panels are only slightly more expensive than TN panels, so there is really zero reason to opt for TN for anything remotely color sensitive.
It's great that IPS panels are more affordable now. They used to cost twice as much for me a few years back.
I use an x-rite i1 Display Pro and the process takes about 10 minutes to complete. I do it once every 3-6 months depending on how lazy I'm feeling.
Should I have my color profile on sRGB by default and output my textures with this profile? Or is this a screenshots only thing?
It's definitely an investment. I was extremely hesitant for a long time, and wound up getting mine with a $50 rebate or something I think. But damn, once I got it...I was astounded at the values - especially darker values I'd been totally losing before. I'd done my best to set up things by myself with all the various online "calibrate your screen" images, but it just doesn't compare. You may look into renting a colorimeter, or buying a cheaper one. Renting or borrowing from a friend may be an option, I know some people only calibrate once a year. I would consider texture work to be color-sensitive.
Setting your monitor to sRGB might not be doing much to help you on its own. I guess it's better than nothing at the moment, but the point of monitor calibration using a colorimeter is that it's an actual piece of hardware - an "eye" that looks at your screen, measures color displayed, and sets your monitor settings appropriately (usually automatically adjusting brightness/contrast/RGB values/etc where applicable) to match the values its looking for. Then it establishes a video LUT (look-up table) associated with your new monitor profile, which loads with Windows. It's both the monitor settings and the profile created with those settings that provides accurate color/values.
Most monitors can be set to use an sRGB profile, but that's not stopping your monitor settings from being out of whack. Even monitors from the same company, or exact same model and using the same settings can display different results - hence the need for outside measurement. Things like monitor brightness change over time with use, so even after you calibrate - you'll want to do it at least once a year to account for possible changes.
I don't know the answers to your texture output questions. Ideally you'd have a calibrated monitor and an RGB profile set as your working space for the creation of things, so far as output...probably depends? I don't know much of the technical side of textures, but even outside of that I can say not all file types support embedded color profiles (gifs for example, do not).
That is to say, working with them first in the most accurate way as possible (using the best profile that works well with your specific monitor), and then when it comes to sharing them for review, converting these colors to the very common sRGB profile.
(note that converting an image to a profile and merely applying a profile to an image are two very different things.)
Now when it comes to color-calibrating your monitor : the best way is of course hardware calibration, but as you say it is expensive. For now you should be able to simply use the profile provided by your manufacturer, likely present on the CD that came with the screen. It won't be exactly tailored to your specific unit and working conditions but it will be close.
Here is a great page to understand these issues :
http://www.gballard.net/psd/cmstheory.html
Also : if your monitor is a pro, wide gamut IPS, calibration is super important. Let's use full red as an example. 255 000 000. On a regular, non wide gamut monitor, this color will just look like ... regular red (for lack of a better word !) with or without calibration. On a non calibrated wide gamut monitor, this exact same pixel colored 255 000 000 will look ... redder than red, so to speak. Almost glowing like a light.
Which means that this monitor really needs to be used with a proper color profile, because if not, you will always end up badly judging the intensity of these reds (painting them lower than they should be, because your eyes will tell you that 255 000 000 red just looks ... too red)
Now of course such a monitor, once calibrated, will be great at viewing extremely high quality photo work produced with such crazy high ranges in mind, as well as other work produced by artists with a good grasp on color calibration
(I especially like the part about the "whacky profile" created on purpose)
http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/embeddedJPEGprofiles.html#
http://www.eizo.com/global/solutions/graphics/index.html
they are bloody nice, really good veiwing angle and colours, and once you set them up can self calibrate (which is awesome)
also comes with anti glare hoods so you can pretend your "on set"
the con is they are slightly alot expensive... i would probably rather spend my money on a cintique if i was getting them for home
Reminds a bit of the loudness war in music.
I tend to have my monitor as dark as possible to avoid tiring my eyes (and because I'm used to it from crt days - better the customer sees a pictures that's too bright than too dark) and since I do quite colorful stuff sometimes, I'm sometimes tempted to dial to 11, too, in order to avoid unpleasant surprises.
I'm a little confused with that. If sRGB shows more accurate colors isn't that what I should be the format I should be working in photoshop for my textures? Also cheers for the links, going to need a coffee and read through all of it!
- First there is the profile associated to your specific monitor (ideally generated by a hardware calibration tool) that Windows and/or the calibration software coming with the probe load up in order to balance the output of your panel, so that you can see nicely balanced colors ... at least when using imagery programs and browsers which support CC properly.
- Then there is the working space of Photoshop itself, which, if I am not mistaken, should be set to the specific monitor profile that I just mentioned. (I might be wrong on the terminology here, since the Photoshop options for CC are pretty complicated. Make sure to check specialized websites for that.)
- And then of course there are color profiles embedded inside image files (by that I mean, photographs and renders. "Data" textures are a different case ...) which, when such files are open, provide the required information for a properly color-calibrated environment to work with them and eventually display them or print them out.
- Meaning that, at your end of the pipe, when saving a photo file there is also your *own* choice of using a certain profile in order to provide this important information, for the sake of the proper visual rendering in other user's environments. As far as I understand it, this is where converting to sRGB is common practice, as many environments (including the environments where no care at all has been given to color calibration and where, at worst, color profiles might be ignored altogether) will be doing at least a decent job at rendering the image. In an ideal world, one could convert to any arbitrary profile when saving a file, including one where colors are completely inverted ; but in reality, since properly CCed environments are not commonplace, you want to fall back to something safe.
I hope I am not spreading any misinformation ... again if I am mistaken, someone please correct me
Yep. Once you have a custom monitor profile set up - it should automatically get added to Photoshop's RGB color space selections.
You'll also want to make sure you adjust your settings so far as how to handle profile mismatches. Many times things like scanners will embed their own color profiles into scanned images, for example, and you may want to have that changed to your working space prior to diving into things. Images found online can also have their own embedded profiles on occasion. I have mine set to notify me whenever there's a mismatch because I've found it interesting to see what sorts of files, from where, have profiles and which do not. Then if I'm going to work with the image, I convert to my working space default and have at it.