Twenty minutes gets you the picture you bought.

Every panel ships set up to look impressive beside other panels. None of them ship set up for your room.

The wedge, and both ends of it.

THE DETAIL

A step wedge is a row of patches from black to white, and it settles the two settings people always get wrong by eye. Turn brightness down until the darkest steps merge, then back up one — that is black crush. Turn contrast up until the lightest steps merge, then back down one — that is white clip. Everything between those looks after itself.

01BLACK CRUSHBrightness, until these separate
02WHITE CLIPContrast, until these separate
03THE MIDDLELooks after itself, if the ends do

What we are writing.

5 PIECES · IN THE WORKSHOP

Five pieces on getting a good picture out of a screen you already own, mostly for free.

How to calibrate a monitor without buying anything

A step wedge, twenty minutes, and the two settings that do the work.

★★☆ · 7 MIN

How to tell if HDR is helping or hurting

When it is genuinely better and when it just makes everything grey.

★★☆ · 6 MIN

How to match two monitors that do not match

Temperature, brightness and height, in that order.

★★☆ · 6 MIN

What a colorimeter actually buys you

Who needs one, who does not, and what it cannot fix.

★★☆ · 6 MIN

How to set up a second screen so it stops fighting

Scaling, refresh mismatches and the settings that cause stutter.

★★☆ · 5 MIN

A colour calibration puck hanging against a monitor face on its counterweighted cable.

Set the two ends. The middle takes care of itself.
SLOT 05 · MONITORS & DISPLAYS · THE TEST PATTERN

A desk at night: a monitor, a calibration puck in its case, and a printed grey step card.

FROM THE CURATOR

The second monitor problem

Everybody eventually adds a second screen and almost nobody matches it. One is warmer, one is brighter, one sits eleven millimetres lower, and for the next three years your eye does a small piece of work every time it crosses the gap. Twenty minutes with a step wedge and an arm that actually adjusts fixes it permanently, and it costs nothing.

BY POPPY — CLASS: CURATOR · THEPINKPIPER.GG

THE REST OF THIS STATION

Choosing a Monitor THE PANEL →TVs for Gaming ACROSS THE ROOM →

BACK TO MONITORS & DISPLAYS →

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SLOT 05 / 08 · MONITORS & DISPLAYS

Every station in this room has its own chapter. This one is 05. Back to the room to walk to another.