Monitor colour settings

[CathJ]

I have two monitors at work, but the 2nd one isn't adjusted correctly. I opened a file with syntax highlighting, and the green/purple/blue text looks fine on the 1st monitor, but just looks black on the 2nd. If you look very closely, you can see that the text isn't quite the same shade as the actually black text, but you certainly can't see what colour it should be. (Generally, colours show up just fine in photos, or window borders, that kind of thing).

Changing the brightness and contrast didn't help at all; nor did the "auto set" function. I could play around with the RGB settings, but I'm afraid I'm going to make it even worse if I just change things randomly. Which setting could be causing this?

(The two monitors are the same model, but making the settings on the 2nd the same as on the first just makes the 2nd one look even more awful).

 

[Pada]

What brand & model monitors are they?

Did you connect both via DVI/HMDI, because it sounded to me like you're using VGA connectors which will look worse than via digital out (DVI/HDMI).

 

[RetroPedro]

It is very hard to do colour settngs manually, and impossible to get it 100% accurate. As your graphics card and monitors ages the colour will also change and will need to be calibrated. There are even differences between identical LCDs and graphics card combinations. The only way is to use a colour calibration tool such as Spyder3. This should be a good investment for your company, not only to calibrate your LCDs, but also keep the whole team in synch. Alternatively, you can rent one from http://www.lensrental.co.za for R100 a day.

 

[HavocXphere]

Check control panel & throw out all colour profiles.

 

[CathJ]

It is very hard to do colour settngs manually, and impossible to get it 100% accurate. As your graphics card and monitors ages the colour will also change and will need to be calibrated. There are even differences between identical LCDs and graphics card combinations. The only way is to use a colour calibration tool such as Spyder3. This should be a good investment for your company, not only to calibrate your LCDs, but also keep the whole team in synch. Alternatively, you can rent one from http://www.lensrental.co.za for R100 a day.

I don't need it 100% accurate, I just want colour text to not show up as black

But I think Pada is right, it's the VGA/DVI connectors that are the problem.

What brand & model monitors are they?

Did you connect both via DVI/HMDI, because it sounded to me like you're using VGA connectors which will look worse than via digital out (DVI/HDMI).

They're LG Flatron W1952TQ's.

But I think you're right - it looks like the two monitors are plugged in differently. One is using a VGA connector (to a VGA port), whereas the other is using a VGA-to-DVI adapter to a DVI port. I guess that's why there's a difference.

So assuming I can't do anything about that (which I can't, until we get our new machines), is there anything I can do to adjust the colours?

Edit: adjusting the gamma gave me my colours back. There's something that's still off - I need the gamma at around 24% for colours, but the rest of the screen looks better at around 10%. But I'm guessing that's the VGA issue, which I can't do much about now.