cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

How to calibrate the PG279Q and make it look great done easy.

Emig5m
Level 8
Got this monitor and struggled to make it look as good as my two 4k TVs (albeit one is a $3000 Full Array Local Dimming HDR display). Had someone tell me to do this and didn't think it would work but now my monitor looks like looking through a windows into reality. Pictures and home video I've taken myself look exactly like being there.

Step one, make sure you're viewing this image unscaled (zooming in a browser or Windows 10 desktop and app scaling). I just used my photo editing software to where I have it configured to ignore Windows 10 scaling (or I guess you could just have scaling off)

70721

Using the GameVisual Racing Mode turn your brightness and contrast to 100%. Don't get nervous, just do it.

Now go to Color Temp > User Mode and start adjusting each color down until each block blends into the one next to it so that it's as close to being the same shade, brightness, etc. making as close to as possible one solid block out of the two separate ones side-by-side. Sitting back a few feet and slightly squinting your eyes will help a ton.

Once you've done that and find that you have to lighten or darken the picture just a little bit use the RGB adjustments and not the brightness or contrast but make sure you adjust each, red, blue, and green evenly up or down (you shouldn't have to adjust much from the step above.)

That's it! Doesn't matter if I'm viewing live TV, games, or photos and home videos everything now falls into place. Skin tones are spot on, there's no white or black crush (test images below) and everything is vibrant and clear. My TV's where so much more simple to setup and I don't know why this monitor was giving such grief. The person who told me to do the above procedure said that they're a photographer with monitor calibration equipment and the simple steps above gets pretty much the same end result as using actual calibration hardware.

Some images below for testing black/white levels/crush...




On my display I can make out every step in the above images and in the first image you should be able to see two faint circles on the brightest and darkest bands in the grey scale. Oh, I forgot to add to make sure that the monitor has been warmed up for at least 30 minutes prior to setting it up. I also find setting the Overdrive to Normal to be the sweet spot for this display.

I don't think you can use someone else's setting since each monitor will vary at least slightly (as you can see from peoples posts who's bought three of these for multi-monitor widescreen and each one looks a little different) but here's my personal setting for this monitor just in case. The sticker on the bottom of my monitor says October 2017 so I guess that's the manufacturing date? Anyway, here's my settings...

Monitor setting: GameVisual=Racing mode
Brightness 100
Contrast 100
Color Temp: User Mode R57 G36 B66
Image: Overdrive Normal

As you can see, out of the box my monitor was VERY green as green had to be turned down the most! Don't ask me how using that first image and procedure above works, I don't know, but it did. When I can look at pictures and video I've personally taken and they look EXACTLY like being there in person with no black or white crush and all test images checked out I know it's correct and works.

BTW, this monitor rocks! (now that I have it looking good.) Can't believe I was trying to play twitch shooters and racing games online on a 60hz panel before, LOL. What a difference in control and smoothness!!
160,542 Views
9 REPLIES 9

Kalorean
Level 7
Appreciats this. My ENB-modded Skyrim looks even more vivid.

TYVM.

cljustin
Level 8
Awesome, will try this !

I can't properly save the shared images, making it impossible for me to calibrate. Do you have a external link to them?

I only remember the link to the first image. http://www.skpphotographers.com/pt_gamma/ The page says to use a app called quickgamma but don't use that app and use the monitors built in color adjustments because the app introduces color banding and the built in adjustments within the monitor doesn't (I tried both ways). Not to mention, the software solution would only be good while running Windows while using the monitors built in adjustments will work everywhere (bios, secondary device/input).

Image links from my imgur account:

Image 1: https://i.imgur.com/TtZHAVs.jpg
Image 2: https://i.imgur.com/lHnvt5F.png
Image 3: https://i.imgur.com/MtbYJkB.png

Lacan
Level 7
I'll certainly try your method, appreciate your post. I've been using TFTCentral's color profile and settings forever.

Lacan wrote:
I'll certainly try your method, appreciate your post. I've been using TFTCentral's color profile and settings forever.


Tried that and it didn't make any discernible difference what-so-ever. Don't know why color profiles don't take or have any effect on my system but when I checked what profile was active in Windows 10 it said it was using the profile and I even deleted the profile that gets installed with the Asus monitor driver and nothing seemed to make a difference. But as always, make a new restore point and type down your monitor settings in a text file so that you can always easily revert back to where you where. And like I said, the problem with using software based solutions like color profiles, that gamma util, or even driver settings is that they only take effect when Windows is up and running and wont have any effect outside Windows (BIOS screen, using a secondary device like a PS4/Xbox, etc.)

Because of this I think using the built in controls is always the best solution since they're in effect 100% of the time and like I also said in an above post, the gamma util although it was better than nothing, it was clearly introducing some quite noticeable color banding for me (and the driver settings in the nvidia control panel can introduce white and black crush easily if you're not careful). And trust me, I'm a super stickler for image quality and I was about to box this monitor up and take it back to try that popular Dell TN panel (forget the model number) because I just wasn't seeing the so-called great IPS color that you relentlessly read about online and if I'm going to have poor color anyway, might as well not have IPS glow or back light bleeding and get that TN panel, right? But right now my PG279Q has some of the best greys and color accuracy I've ever seen...even better then my $3000 Vizio P series (p75-c1) full array local dimming TV (not saying that the Vizio couldn't be further tweaked to be better but the adjustments in that TV are so extensive and robust that it's more easy to make things worse than better). If only the PG279Q could have the black levels and uniformity of the Vizio P series it would pretty much be the perfect display. But after I did this final calibration (which I didn't think would get me anywhere from everything else I tried) I can live with the IPS glow and little bit of backlight bleed which since getting the monitor I'm used to it now and doesn't really stick out anymore.

IPS glow/back light bleed you only see here and there. But poor color you see all the time. I'll take this trade-off and keep the PQ279Q. 😉

I was sceptical but this is really the way to do it! Ended up with a noticeable improvement compared to my old calibrated settings.

Thank you for sharing this!

Shampoo
Level 9
Emig5m wrote:
Got this monitor and struggled to make it look as good as my two 4k TVs (albeit one is a $3000 Full Array Local Dimming HDR display). Had someone tell me to do this and didn't think it would work but now my monitor looks like looking through a windows into reality. Pictures and home video I've taken myself look exactly like being there.

Step one, make sure you're viewing this image unscaled (zooming in a browser or Windows 10 desktop and app scaling). I just used my photo editing software to where I have it configured to ignore Windows 10 scaling (or I guess you could just have scaling off)

70721

Using the GameVisual Racing Mode turn your brightness and contrast to 100%. Don't get nervous, just do it.

Now go to Color Temp > User Mode and start adjusting each color down until each block blends into the one next to it so that it's as close to being the same shade, brightness, etc. making as close to as possible one solid block out of the two separate ones side-by-side. Sitting back a few feet and slightly squinting your eyes will help a ton.

Once you've done that and find that you have to lighten or darken the picture just a little bit use the RGB adjustments and not the brightness or contrast but make sure you adjust each, red, blue, and green evenly up or down (you shouldn't have to adjust much from the step above.)

That's it! Doesn't matter if I'm viewing live TV, games, or photos and home videos everything now falls into place. Skin tones are spot on, there's no white or black crush (test images below) and everything is vibrant and clear. My TV's where so much more simple to setup and I don't know why this monitor was giving such grief. The person who told me to do the above procedure said that they're a photographer with monitor calibration equipment and the simple steps above gets pretty much the same end result as using actual calibration hardware.

Some images below for testing black/white levels/crush...




On my display I can make out every step in the above images and in the first image you should be able to see two faint circles on the brightest and darkest bands in the grey scale. Oh, I forgot to add to make sure that the monitor has been warmed up for at least 30 minutes prior to setting it up. I also find setting the Overdrive to Normal to be the sweet spot for this display.

I don't think you can use someone else's setting since each monitor will vary at least slightly (as you can see from peoples posts who's bought three of these for multi-monitor widescreen and each one looks a little different) but here's my personal setting for this monitor just in case. The sticker on the bottom of my monitor says October 2017 so I guess that's the manufacturing date? Anyway, here's my settings...

Monitor setting: GameVisual=Racing mode
Brightness 100
Contrast 100
Color Temp: User Mode R57 G36 B66
Image: Overdrive Normal

As you can see, out of the box my monitor was VERY green as green had to be turned down the most! Don't ask me how using that first image and procedure above works, I don't know, but it did. When I can look at pictures and video I've personally taken and they look EXACTLY like being there in person with no black or white crush and all test images checked out I know it's correct and works.

BTW, this monitor rocks! (now that I have it looking good.) Can't believe I was trying to play twitch shooters and racing games online on a 60hz panel before, LOL. What a difference in control and smoothness!!


I just wanted to come on here and thank you!
Since picking up this monitor I've always felt the calibration was off, but just dealt with an overly warm image.
I'd seen other calibration methods to try and blend colours, but never to max out brightness/contrast and go from there.
I just did a quick adjustment, nothing crazy it's late, and already I'm seeing a huge difference, it's pleasing to my eyes. Thank you so much!
Going to just eyeball it for all of my displays now.
Cheers!

You awsome !!!! Now i have nicer brightness

100 Bright
100 Contrast ( I might put those around 80% one day) if i can find right setting Think lowering it will prolonge life time.

MY rgb atm Again you awsome
R 47 (Edit 55)
G 49 (Edit 55)
B 55 (Edit 65) ( Seems Yellow is the brightest we see) Red and Green should be low)
( My first setting was so bad) with 55R 55G and blue 10% higher made it more WoW