Best Picture Quality Setting for HP 1720n Computer

[serenitie]

I just bought a HP Pavilion a1720n with a HP 19b Monitor. It came
installed with Vista Home Premium.

I am an amatuer photographer and I have found that ever since I bought
this computer that my photo's on the computer look very grainy. After
playing around with the settings on the monitor and the computer I
have set the monitor setting to default and the graphics software to
default as nothing looked good.

Does anybody out there have any suggestions for me. The monitor I use
to have (Viewsonic VG700 at 1280x1024) had an incredible picture, now
this 19" widescreen at 1440x900 looks not nearly as good.

I even went out and upgraded my video card to a better card. I've now
got installed at NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB Graphics Card. It still
hasn't helped the picture quality.

I'm desperate, I'm not sure if its my computer, my monitor or Vista.
Any help would greatly be appreciated.

 

[Noozer]

Does anybody out there have any suggestions for me. The monitor I use

to have (Viewsonic VG700 at 1280x1024) had an incredible picture, now
this 19" widescreen at 1440x900 looks not nearly as good.

What is the native resolution for your monitor. THAT is the resolution that
you should use.

Once you've done that, calibrate your monitor.

http://www.photofriday.com/calibrate.php
http://www.displaycalibration.com/brightness_contrast.html

 

[kony]

I just bought a HP Pavilion a1720n with a HP 19b Monitor. It came
installed with Vista Home Premium.

I am an amatuer photographer and I have found that ever since I bought
this computer that my photo's on the computer look very grainy. After
playing around with the settings on the monitor and the computer I
have set the monitor setting to default and the graphics software to
default as nothing looked good.

First remember that due to the per-pixel precision possible
with an LCD display, if it is perfectly outputting an
accurate image it will look grainier than a typical CRT
monitor. However your prior VG700 seems to have been LCD
too. There is another factor in that if it can't display
all colors, if it's a 6 bit panel, it will be doing
dithering to make up for that, and so you would tend to see
grain even in subtle transistions of color or brightness.
How familiar are you with your camera? Is it possible the
grain was in the pictures all along but there was no
per-pixel method of magnification possible previously to
discern the noise? I suppose this last thought is least
likely since even on a CRT if only you zoom enough you would
see the noise.

Does anybody out there have any suggestions for me. The monitor I use
to have (Viewsonic VG700 at 1280x1024) had an incredible picture, now
this 19" widescreen at 1440x900 looks not nearly as good.

The VG700 seems to only have analog input, are you still
using analog? The move to DVI alone will retain more visual
detail of any noise (already present) in the image. The
VG700, being only 17", also has a smaller dot pitch and that
alone will slightly mask any of the potential causes of
grain. Is VG700 a 6 or 8 bit panel? That too could make
the difference if comparing quite critically (we can't see
how bad the grain is nor know how particular you are about
it being present to any extent at all).

I even went out and upgraded my video card to a better card. I've now
got installed at NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB Graphics Card. It still
hasn't helped the picture quality.

Use DVI connection to the monitor and any current generation
video card should have the same output. As Noozer mentioned
you might try calibrating the monitor, but frankly for
photography I would calibrate it to the output device
(printer, etc) instead of towards ideal accuracy unless
these pictures will be predominately viewed online instead
of in print.

You might also check your monitors on screen settings for a
Clock and/or Focus settings, though these might not actually
solve the problem, just changing it some.

I'm desperate, I'm not sure if its my computer, my monitor or Vista.
Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Many of the factors I'd mentioned could cause it, or could
cumulatively contribute to it (if the noise wasn't present
in the picture itself) but at this point I wonder why you
didn't just hook up the other monitor to see if it still
looked grainy. You might also contact HP and see if they
can give you some kind of credit towards a different monitor
if that one turns out to be unsuitable, which seems most
likely.

 

[Noozer]

Thanks for the response to my problem. To fill in the gaps on some of
your questions.

I am running in on native resolution 1440x900 with a DVI cable.

I would swap monitors to try the old one with the new computer &
operating system but I had sold it all to a friend.

The camera I'm using is a $800 camera with 6MP capability. I've never
seen any grain on the photos I take. I take all my photos using the
highest resolution and when printed up on my Printer look fabulous, its
just the monitor that isn't making them look good. I've also put my SD
Card into my 43" HDTV and the same pictures look good on it. It seems
to be the computer.

Could be that the monitor is too good, and showing artifacting from the
reduction in resolution to fit on the screen.

What if you open a picture that you know is good, then set it to "100%"...
Most of it will be off the screen, but it won't have any compression done to
it.

 

[ProfGene]

I just bought a HP Pavilion a1720n with a HP 19b Monitor. It came
installed with Vista Home Premium.

I am an amatuer photographer and I have found that ever since I bought
this computer that my photo's on the computer look very grainy. After
playing around with the settings on the monitor and the computer I
have set the monitor setting to default and the graphics software to
default as nothing looked good.

Does anybody out there have any suggestions for me. The monitor I use
to have (Viewsonic VG700 at 1280x1024) had an incredible picture, now
this 19" widescreen at 1440x900 looks not nearly as good.

I even went out and upgraded my video card to a better card. I've now
got installed at NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB Graphics Card. It still
hasn't helped the picture quality.

I'm desperate, I'm not sure if its my computer, my monitor or Vista.
Any help would greatly be appreciated.

The factors that control the video quality are the video card adn the
one you have should produce topnotch images, and the other factor is the
monitor. If the monitor is failing in any way it could ruin the picture
quality no matter how good the video card is but it would usually blur
or the colors would be off, not graininess. The thing that causes that
is most often the wrong settings in the control panel under display. You
didn't mention what your settings were but they should be 32 bit highest.