Calibrating and profiling a 30″ Dell 3008WFP LCD
:: Sunday, August 3rd, 2008 @ 9:53:59 am
:: Tags: Computers, Photo
Has anyone out there successfully calibrated and profiled Dell’s 30″ 3008WFP LCD? I recently took delivery of one, and am having a hard time getting colors to look right in a way that makes me confident. I’m using a Monaco Optix XR Pro, which I also use to calibrate my older 30″ Dell 3007WFP LCD.
Because the 3007WFP doesn’t have custom RGB control, I profiled the display at a native color temperature @ 2.2 gamma and only calibrated it using brightness and contrast controls. The native color temperature is actually fairly warm and is pleasing to the eye. I’m not working in the optimal lighting environment; my space is full of 3100°K halogen lights, and all I have at the moment is a single 5500°K bias light to light up my desktop area. But I’ve never been surprised by printed or web colors produced while working on the profiled 3007WFP.
The 3008WFP has custom RGB control, so I thought I’d give D65 calibration a try. Adjusting custom RGB to R99, G95 B97 seemed to do the trick, and the Monaco hummed along, happily creating a D65 profile for me.
I first noticed something strange when Facebook’s gray background bars all turned pink.
The 3008WFP D65 profile by Monaco failed miserably. I set the monitor back to the “Desktop” preset, which is presumably a native color temperature, and re-calibrated and profiled using the “native” setting in the Monaco software. The colors look fine now, but are significantly cooler than are colors on the 3007WFP, which sits right next to it.
Dell 3007WFP on left, Dell 3008WFP on right
But which colors are accurate? I have no idea. At this point, I have faith in the color fidelity of either display. I have no idea what the 3008WFP is doing in the “Desktop” preset. I also tried setting both the monitor’s preset and Mac OS X color profile to AdobeRGB, but that had the effect of make things look a bit too saturated. Setting both to sRGB made for a very “natural” feel, but again, I am not sure if it’s accurate.
I should never I have sold my Sony Artisan.
UPDATE: I’ve broken in the Dell 3008WFP for about a year, and decided to give D65 calibration and profiling another shot. This time, it seemed to work fairly well, although matching the profile to a 3007FP still seems to be impossible. The 3007 calibrates much warmer than does the 3008, but at least there is minimal tint when looking at a grayscale gradient chart.
I hate to say this, but subjectively, I like the 3007WFP better than I do the 3008WFP. This is unfortunate because the 3008WFP cost a lot more to purchase and is supposed to be a lot wider in gamut.
UPDATE 2: My Dell 3008WFP has a distinctive green-to-magenta shift to it. The right side of the display is noticeably more magenta than is the left side. Grrrr.
Journal RSS 
Why did you buy a Dell ? Eizo or Quato …
http://www.quato.de/english/IP240LE.php
Color management: http://www.xritephoto.com/index.cfm?menuitemid=649
The new Dell is 30″, and claims to be able to show almost all of AdobeRGB 1998.
I share this Eizo monitor with friends …
http://www.eizo.com/press/rele.....01W_pr.pdf
I don’t like Dell anymore. The company.
I had a 3007, which I sold b/c lots of quirky quality problems (buzzing, random flickers, etc.). I don’t think I’m every going to buy a Dell monitor again, their quality just isn’t good (had a 2001FP also).
I’m looking at NEC 2490/2690, the new HP 2475w (24″ IPS screen), or the new Doublesight 26″ coming out in September.
He is asking how to calibrate the monitor not for advice on buying another.
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I also own the 3008WFP and I’m having a terrible time calibrating it. I’m a web designer and I’m running that monitor off my Mackbook Pro – which sits next to it. Using the Mackbook Pro as a comparison the 3008WFP color is much more saturated – especially when looking at reds & browns. Sometimes a color will look almost black on the dell and look much, much lighter on the mac. This is a huge problem for me because it makes picking colors extremely difficult.
I’m completely lost when it comes to calibrating the display. I use the display panel in OS X’s system preferences to calibrate and follow the instructions on screen. But this leaves me with the same result every time.
This screen was very expensive and buying another one is out of the question at this point. Is there some calibration hardware/software that is worth purchasing so this monitor becomes usable. I expect (for shelling out for a monitor like this) nothing less than accurate colors and a great image quality.
Basically if the colors matched my Macbook Pro’s display, I’d be thrilled.
Any other tips or resorces on monitor calibration you can point me to would be awesome as well.
Hey, Christian – it seems to me that you need to do some reading up on profiling and calibrating monitors using a dedicated profiling device (and software).