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MacBook Pro / Monitor Issues

Shaun.P

Shaun.P

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 14, 2003
1,601
24
Omicron Persei 8
Hey all,

I've got a slight problem with my Dell 2209WA monitor. When using my computer, especially Firefox, I notice that the text sometimes looks a bit purple or pink around the edges.

When I take a desktop picture of the affected area the image capture seems to still show the same weird colouring.

I don't know if this is a problem with the monitor, or Mac OS X.

I have attached a picture in the hopes someone knows what I am talking about and will be able to help me!
On the first line of my attachment the word "Pimobendan" appears to have the colouring issue around the letters "Pim" and "an", also the blue link "heart failure" has the colouring around the "ur", the word "mitral" has the problem with the "al", and so on.

Thank you for any help in advance!
 
OS X is set to use subpixel font smoothing. If you zoom in on that image many times, you will see that there are blue and brown lines around the text. Here's more info on how it works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType

If you are seeing the colored edges, the text must not be lining up with the pixels like the OS expects it to. The could be due to setting the wrong resolution (and the display or the OS scaling it), or an improper connection like VGA that may not be properly synced.

I have a 2209WA and I have no problem with the font smoothing when connected by DVI at native resolution.
 
Mine only has the option of 60Hz or 75Hz, which is grayed out. I don't think refresh rate would have any effect as long as it is a digital connection.

I tried setting the resolution down to 800x600 on my monitor, and there was some slight blue/orange coloring around text, but not really that bad. The monitor stretched the picture to fill the display (I think there's an option that can be set in the menu), and it looks like it did some smoothing on the pixels.

The coloring will only appear on your monitor unless you take a picture with a camera.

Try looking at the grayscale-smoothing version of the image in the wikipedia article I linked to.
It's the one without the orange dot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cleartype-vs-Standard-Antialiasing.gif

You can also take a look at this
http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/all_noprofile.php#subpixel
and see of one of the other subpixel layout smoothing schemes looks better. I'm fairly sure the 2209WA is RGB, though (as are most monitors).
 
Okay I have a couple of photographs attached that sort of show the problem. Turning the sharpness all the way up to 100 exaggerates the problem, and turning it down to 0 makes it pretty much go away, however the text appears blurry.

The first picture is on 50 sharpness, and the second picture is on full (100) sharpness.
 
Here's the photo after some enhancement to exaggerate the colors and make it easier to see. Do you see the large blotchy colored patches (pink on the left, blue in the middle, and yellow on the right) on your end on the monitor itself (not while looking at this picture), or is that just the camera? (it's possible that the LCD's pixels are creating an interference pattern with the camera's sensor that could cause that effect.) If you are seeing that, there might be a problem with the monitor itself.
 

Attachments

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m85476585 said:
Here's the photo after some enhancement to exaggerate the colors and make it easier to see. Do you see the large blotchy colored patches (pink on the left, blue in the middle, and yellow on the right) on your end on the monitor itself (not while looking at this picture), or is that just the camera? (it's possible that the LCD's pixels are creating an interference pattern with the camera's sensor that could cause that effect.) If you are seeing that, there might be a problem with the monitor itself.
Click to expand...

The iPhone camera is making it worse. The individual colours are not so noticable it looks more like a pink outline against certain letters.

In the sentence "Just in case you were making a funny":

The "J" and "t" in "Just", the "i" in "in", the "u" in "you", the "g" in "making" the "f" in funny" and also the first "n" in funny, but not so much the second one all have a pinkish haze around them.

I sit about 1.25 feet away from my monitor, and in the first picture I posted, that is what the problem generally looks like, but from the distance I am sitting it appears more subtle.
 
Here's what mine looks like. The colored edges are noticeable in the picture but not when I'm using the monitor.
 

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m85476585 said:
Here's what mine looks like. The colored edges are noticeable in the picture but not when I'm using the monitor.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much an enlarged version of exactly what I'm seeing with my eyes.

I tried to take pictures with my Nikon D40, but kept getting a rainbow over the screen? (I only have the 18-55mm lens)
 
1.25 feet might be too close. I sit about 2 feet back if I'm working, and 3 feet if I'm in a more relaxed position (watching a movie for example). I think the rule of thumb is that you should sit just far enough back that you can't see the pixels. At 1.25 feet I can see a strange flickering effect that might be pixel inversion that my eyes are picking up on, and I can see some colored outlines due to font smoothing. At 2 feet I don't see any flickering or font smoothing problems.

The reason this is a problem on the 2209WA and not your MBP's LCD could be the pixel resolution. The 2209WA is a much bigger monitor than the 15" MBP, for example, with not that many more pixels. That means the pixels are larger, so you have to sit farther back to not see them. A rough calculation shows that the 2209WA is about 90ppi, while the 13" and 15" are a bit over 100 (106-110), and the 17" high res is close to 130ppi.

You could change the font smoothing setting and see if that helps
http://www.macworld.com/article/145157/2009/12/smoothsnow.html
 
ShaunPriest said:
That's pretty much an enlarged version of exactly what I'm seeing with my eyes.

I tried to take pictures with my Nikon D40, but kept getting a rainbow over the screen? (I only have the 18-55mm lens)
Click to expand...

I was able to get a rainbow-free picture by holding my camera closer than it could focus (about 6 inches). I don't know if just setting the lens slightly out of focus would fix it.

To make things worse, when the image is scaled and displayed on an LCD, more rainbows can appear.
 
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