Free programs to optimize Monitors

Professor Snugglesworth

I finally received my Hanns-G '19 LCD monitor from newegg today. It looks nice enough at 1440x900, but I was wondering if there were any free software programs that will optimize the colors, text font etc to make the monitor look its prettiest.

Barrakketh

Professor Snugglesworth wrote: »

I finally received my Hanns-G '19 LCD monitor from newegg today. It looks nice enough at 1440x900, but I was wondering if there were any free software programs that will optimize the colors, text font etc to make the monitor look its prettiest.

You may find some programs that can help optimize the colors, but the right tool for the job is a colorimiter and the accompanying software. Those are decidedly not free, but maybe you could borrow one from someone. The monitor may also have a color profile on the CD it came with or on Hanns-G's site.

You're using the DVI connector, right? Because people who use VGA cables with their LCDs make me cry at night.

Pheezer

hah. My TV forces me to use VGA if I want it to recognize my PC as a PC and allow me to use PIP and PC mode goodies.

On the plus side, it was faster to calibrate and looks better over VGA anyhow.

Professor Snugglesworth

Could I get a couple links or names to those colorimiters?

Also, there is a DVI port that came with a DVI cable, but I haven't tried it yet. Right now it's hooked up via VGA. The reason is because I normally have the DVI port free to hook up my PC to my '40 LCD TV.

If it makes that big a difference I'll hook up the '19 monitor via DVI.

Also, is there a way to have jpeg pictures from websites open up around the center of the screen, instead of the top left?

Barrakketh

Professor Snugglesworth wrote: »

Could I get a couple links or names to those colorimiters?

You can shop around to see if there are any deals, but here is one from the manufacturer..

Also, there is a DVI port that came with a DVI cable, but I haven't tried it yet. Right now it's hooked up via VGA. The reason is because I normally have the DVI port free to hook up my PC to my '40 LCD TV.

I don't know which monitor you have, but my Hanns-G I recently bought has a button that will calibrate the input and screen size/position (like how you would have to center and adjust the picture on a CRT) automatically. The instructions will probably tell you how to do this manually if your monitor lacks that feature.

If it makes that big a difference I'll hook up the '19 monitor via DVI.

After doing the above and seeing how things look, you could hook it up via DVI and see if the picture improvement warrants using DVI over VGA.

Also, is there a way to have jpeg pictures from websites open up around the center of the screen, instead of the top left?

I don't think Firefox has an option for that.

Pheezer

I don't know of any browser that allows that as an option, but you could implement it using CSS, and you can use that to force Firefox to do it. I think all of the current versions of the major browsers allow user style sheets, actually.

taliosfalcon

just throwing this out there but a colorimeter doesn't necessarily make a monitor look its best, just its most accurate for graphic design. With monitors, LCDs especially accurate does not always equal looking its best.