POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.binaries.images : Why you may want gamma-correction : Re: Why is gamma-correction applied in povray, anyway? Server Time
31 Jul 2024 16:24:48 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Why is gamma-correction applied in povray, anyway?  
From: gonzo
Date: 5 Nov 2009 19:45:00
Message: <web.4af36cbf6aedb0e8cbc3e8670@news.povray.org>
> I am having lots of problems with gamma correction on my system. At least
> there are a lot of iffy things.
>
> Contrary to what has been posted here, my video card's driver seems to do
> some gamma correction (Nvidea). At least I can do a some gamma correcting in
> the setup. However, it is a lot of voodoo: I don't know for sure what is
> corrected and when. I really don't see any difference.

The settings in your card driver are there to correct differences between
monitors, but unfortunately, they have no way to tell what your monitor is
actually doing, so the settings are only as good as your ability to tell if your
monitor is properly balanced.  This in turn is influenced by a lot of things,
including the lighting where your monitor is.  But if you send an image to your
printer and the colors are completely different than onscreen, then its a good
bet your colors aren't balanced.

Check out http://www.normankoren.com/

He has some stuff on how monitors produce color and how your settings actually
work, along with some tools to help you calibrate them correctly.  In a
nutshell, he says your brightness sets the white level, contrast sets the black
level and then you use the gamma setting of your card to adjust the colors in
between.

Can't say anything about the science behind it, but I can say that after
following his advice my prints not only look more like onscreen, but I no longer
see the extreme differences in colors I used to see when viewing pictures on
different monitors. (A big issue in POV when creating textures... if you've ever
rendered a scene on another box only to find that your 'perfect' texture on box
A looks absolutely horrible on box B...)


Post a reply to this message

Copyright 2003-2023 Persistence of Vision Raytracer Pty. Ltd.