20" Cinema Display Brightness Defaults

Thank you Joe
I have the same question and keep hoping someone will respond to yours. Guess tomorrow I'll call Color Vision. I tried choosing the Cinema Display profile thinking that would be the default settings but after doing that then running the Spyder calibration my monitor is quite drab looking.

I'll keep following this discussion thread.

G5 2.3 2.5RAM/PowerBkG41.67 1.5RAM Mac OS X (10.4.4) Aperture1.01

Hi Joe
Have you had any luck? I waited quite a while for tech support at Color Vision and their response was...."you'll have to call Apple, it's their monitor." I'm afraid I've had similar experiences to yours with Apple tech support not being very useful, and at times contradicting each other. Re the 2.2 gamma, that is what Scott Kelby recommends in his book along with the 6500k and he uses all Mac hardware (including Cinema display). He also uses Spyder Pro 2 for calibration. Perhaps he's the one we need to call!

When I first got my display, the first thing I did was go to the Monitor panel in system preferences and I noticed that the
brightness was turned up to to max. I turned it down because the the display was very bright. Don't think there is a factory default, unless its on the specifications page. A look at that page shows a brightness value of "250 cd/m2", whatever that means...

thanks Joe. I think. That was clear as mud. The main thing I got out of it was we should've bought 23" displays. Were you as confused as I? It seems they tested it at 5000K, Gamma 2.2. At the end it stated the default setting of 6500K with Gamma 1.8, but at various places in the review it said 6500K and Gamma 2.2. Nowhere did I see any suggestion of how to attain the default display settings, did you?

Arrgggghhhh. Thanks for any insights you might have. Guess I'm just a bit dense on color management.
PJ

G5 2.3 2.5RAM/PowerBkG41.67 1.5RAM Mac OS X (10.4.4) Aperture1.01

Any answers yet?

I was told by Colorvision that there was a software preference (.plist?) that you could delete that would reset the monitor brightness to its factory defaults. I think it may have changed in Tiger. I want to know myself for 10.4 and 10.3 but can't remember/find it.

For what it's worth: I got these 3 replies with respect to monitor brightness and calibrating using either the GretagMacBeth Eye-One Display 2 or the Spyder Pro 2 from the ColorSync Users List. Those "Pros" respond within hours.

1. Re GretagMacBeth Eye-One Display 2: I may be misunderstanding your question, but why do you want to reset the ACD's brightness values? If you are using EyeOne Match with your EyeOne Display 2, all you need to do in order to calibrate your monitor is to adjust the brightness via the "Displays" panel in System Preferences until you reach your desired luminance.

I don't see a compelling reason to go back to "factory defaults", since (a) I doubt that there are any meaningful ones, or that they would do you any good even if there were, and (b) your calibration/profiling software already takes care of removing any vcgt curves from your video card before starting the caibration/profiling process. That is the only "default" that matters: to start with a display whose video card signal is not at all altered by custom curves, so that the new curves created by your profiling software will have a chance to be properly created and applied, without interferences.

As for the luminance values, I believe that, based on my experience, 120 to 140 cd/m2 are good figures for LCD displays in environments lit by lighting of average intensity. In brighter environments you can go as high as 160 cd/m2, whereas in dim ones it will do to set the display anywhere between 90 and 110 cd/m2 or so, the lower values being for dimmer enviroments. So, it all depends: no one value is good in all cases. It's probably not good to go too low with LCDs, though, and even 90 cd/m2 may be too low already.

2. With respect to monitor target brightness in cd (candelas): 140 to 160 usually is fine.

3. From Colorvision, maker of Spyder 2: The Cinemas have only one setting (backlight) and thats controlled from the monitors control panel, not hardware settings. So set that where ever you prefer in advance of calibration, or define a target white luminance, and set it to that in the calibration process (Spyder2PRO only)... or use Spyder2PRO v2.2's new ambient light adjustment functions, and set the monitor brightness correctly for your working environment.

G5 Quad Mac OS X (10.4.5) Cinema Display 23", Quark 6, CS2 Premium

G5 Quad Mac OS X (10.4.5) Cinema Display 23", Quark 6, CS2 Premium

G5 Quad Mac OS X (10.4.5) Cinema Display 23", Quark 6, CS2 Premium

From the ColorSync Users List:

To return display to factory setting (I do this, for whatever it's
worth, as a starting point for recalibrating the display.) Open the
ColorSync Utility, Click the Devices Icon, Open the arrow for
Displays and Click on your Display Name. It will show your current
profile. Click on the adjacent arrow and then click the button for
'Set to Factory'

In Tiger (and Panther) Go to >Utilies>ColorSync>ColorSync Utility

G5 Quad Mac OS X (10.4.5) Cinema Display 23", Quark 6, CS2 Premium