NTSC: Never The Same Color.

Tyrone70

I have 2 monitors, but for some reason, they never match up color wise. The monitor on my laptop is better than the one on my desktop in terms of color and resolution, but it get's kind of frustrating working on something and fine tuning the color balance then going to a different monitor, whether it be at home or school, then seeing all those changes basically washed out. Is there a way to kind of normalize the colors from monitor to monitor?

DEElekgolo

Flat screen monitors appear to change in color drastically if you are looking at them from different angles. Try and keep yourself in perpendicular view of the screens. After that you can fine-tune as many settings of the screens to be similar and continue to make it as close as possible to each other through nit-picking a few settings. Keep in mind that laptop screens are made to be energy efficient so expect differences in color.

haikai

I'm not sure what NTSC has to do with it, but it sounds like you need to calibrate your monitors. An example of this is the Spyder hardware, but there are several different kinds, and they'll all do a better job than what you can probably do on your own. This should get your monitors pretty close to each other. You can't control how everyone else's monitor looks, but making things consistent on your end is a good idea.

I should say that it won't magically improve your monitor if it's too old or is simply not as good as your other screen. It's just going to measure the light in your room and adjust the monitors to display colors appropriately.

I did have problems trying to calibrate a wide gamut monitor to SRGB standards, but that's a separate issue.

Tyrone70

Thanks. The NTSC thing was just a joke that one of my teachers told me. I thought it was funny. As far as viewing angle, my laptop screen is the hardest to align right, but once it's in the right spot, it's pretty good.
My desktop monitor isn't old. I've had it for about 2 years now. Is that old by monitor standards?

sprunghunt

A cheap way to calibrate a monitor is to make an image like this:


And display it on the monitor you want to calibrate then adjust the settings until it matches what you want. This is basically what an automated calibration machine does anyway.

haikai

Tyrone70 wrote: »

My desktop monitor isn't old. I've had it for about 2 years now. Is that old by monitor standards?

Well, I guess it depends on how many hours you've used it. One of my monitors is over 5 years old and has been used heavily so it's not nearly as bright as it used to be. Calibration can only do so much to help it. :poly136: