monitor has green tinge problem, cannot fix it

[Matthew Doucette]

I have dual NEC MultiSync FP1350X 22" monitors. They work beautifully except one has a green tinge problem. I cannot notice the problem with a colorful background, but I can notice it when on dim gray-scale websites or backgrounds. If I create a background that goes from pure white to pure black, I can notice it then, too.

My problem with it is that I am a graphics programmer, and when low shades of gray look like low shades of green, I have problems.

I have tried my best to adjust the brightness/contrast/RGB settings, but I cannot remove the low-level green tinge without introducing high-level reds and blues. (I need a more advanced adjustment tool to adjust just sections of the green brightness, not all of it at once. Do you understand what I mean?)

Any insight or help on this problem will be greatly appreciated.

 

[GavinO]

I would start narrowing down the issue by swapping the video inputs to the monitors. If the problem follows the monitor rather than the port on the graphics card, then we know that the issue is in the monitor. I'd say you're fairly lucky that the monitor has any color controls; I've never seen anything other than simple red/blue level adjustments. Some video drivers (I see it in my ATI Hydravision drivers, and remember it being in a set of nVidia Detonator drivers) have more accurate color controls. I note particularly the nVidia one, which allowed a custom color curve for each color channel. I'm not sure, however, if these settings can be customized per-display (it would make sense for them to be, but I don't have a multi-display system to test it on).

 

[Matthew Doucette]

Good idea. I think I deduced that it was the monitor way back when, but I will do as you said to make sure.

Good idea about the modifications in the graphics drivers, too. That's exactly the type of modifications I was wishing my monitor had (the type I tried to describe in my first post.)

I'll be back with the results...

 

[Matthew Doucette]

Good idea. I think I deduced that it was the monitor way back when, but I will do as you said to make sure.

It is the monitor, not the input. I just swapped monitors and the same monitor still has the same green tinge to it.

Next step, modify the color curves in the controls of the graphics driver...

 

[Matthew Doucette]

Next step, modify the color curves in the controls of the graphics driver...

It worked. It took a lot of tweaking as the RGB controls of the monitor itself can be adjusted, too. It was hard to say whether I should have set the monitor settings back to default settings and then try to play with the graphics drivers settings, or play with the monitor controls to set the picture as close to perfect as possible first. FYI, I set the monitor controls back to their defaults, and I only had to adjust the gamma correction in my graphics drivers.

Also, to help with the adjustments, I set my background to be a gradient from full gray to black. Then from full red to black. I repeated for blue and green, too. This way, you can "attack" each color's full range and set it perfectly.

Now, that I am done, when I look at my various gradient backgrounds, I can tell that the visuals are not linear (even though the colors are.) If I play with the color controls more, I can make those gradient backgrounds appear linear. Should I do this? I've been involved with computer graphics for a long time, and I have never seen a gradient (linear) shade actually appear linear on the screen. But, when you think about it, it seems like that would be proper. What do you think?

[UPDATE:]

I started over and did it again. Maybe I can better explain the proper steps of setting your monitor right when you have a red, green, or blue color tinge. (I am assuming there are others out there with this same problem!)

Set your monitor to its defaults, set a background that shows you the full gray scale (as the gray scale contains all three primary colors, red, green, and blue) and then adjust the graphics card gamma settigs of the color in question (the color of the tinge you have.) Adjust the gamma to remove the tinge, and do not worry about the overall color not looking properly. (White looked yellowish on mine, but removing the green dominance is all that mattered at this point.) Just remove the dominance of the color that is creating the tinge.

Once that is done, use your monitor's settings to adjust the colors to proper colors. It worked almost perfectly for me.

 

[GavinO]

You should consider both the appearance of gradients and the appearance of actual graphics (try a mix of CG stuff and photo stuff, but make sure the photos are color corrected already). Whatever looks 'right' is probably good. If you have a box of Pantone or sRGB color cards, you may want to try matching a few of those colors (There are some color balancing websites out there that will give you Pantone colored blocks on-screen). For the ultimate in color-correctness, there are devices on the market that suction-cup to the screen and interface with a special application that matches your monitor to a standard color space specification (though its a bit expensive ...)