Monitors for better or worse

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In an effort to find a monitor capable of displaying the 255 levels of gray, I checked the monitors listed in the very well composed manual and did not smile much when I saw the price tag. Being the inquisitive person that I am, I looked for the controls on my Zalman monitor that just might be similar to the expensive ones. I found individual RGB color levels AND brightness plus contrast controls. I kept the picture on the screen that shows the first 60 or so levels of gray and started working the controls to get the best overall response, especially those with the lower numbers. I ended up turning the brightness near max then something magical happened when I started working the contrast level. When I approached the near 62% area, the numbers started becoming very pronounced and clear all the way down to #1. I was amazed and mystified. Yes, there seemed to be a little caveat to this, I had to view it a little off axis, maybe 15 degrees or so, but the numbers were there.
The B&W photos seemed to jump to life. Maybe not as well as the $2k monitors, but it was certainly a lot better than before the magic set in.
I am not proclaiming that all cost effective monitors can be turned to PRO monitors, not by any means, however, if you have some adjustments on your monitor and none in your checking account, why not give it a try.

Kudos to Jon, Inkjet Mall and those made all this possible.

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How are you calibrating your printer?

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I meant to say how are you calibrating your monitor?

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Actually, at the time I wrote about my Zalman monitor, I had not been to any of the any of the workshops so I did not know what a “good” monitor really was. However, I retested the monitor when I got back from the workshop, I used the 256 level file and it looked pretty good both on the monitor and printer. Not to scientific but when you can see the numbers beginning with 1 in the black box it is pretty good reason to be optimistic. But I do have my eye on one of the new DELL monitors that is good for 1 billion colors, which is just about what you need to get the 16 bit levels of grey. I am not a pro, obviously, but I like to test the limits of the equipment that I have on hand.