Ok, so I bought a new wide screen monitor late last year. Its a Samsung SM 226BW 22". Of course when I was looking at buying a new screen I had no way to tell how many bits they displayed at. Well I later found out that my new one is a 6bit. I also have a standard aspect ratio HANNS-G rite next to it in a mutli monitor set up, its an 8bit. When viewing an image on both screens for the first time it almost made me sick how terrible the color reproduction on my new Samsung 6bit is. Sure, I "only" spent 300$ on this new screen but for less money I could have bought the 20" Samsung with same resolution that’s only 1 /12 inches smaller but uses an 8bit display. The smaller one also has a lower pixel pitch IM AN IDIOT. So from now on I will be building stuff on my wide screen monitor and doing all of my color correction on the smaller 8bit screen.

So heres a word.......if you are new to building maps or doing ANY kind of visuals on your computer please make sure you are doing it on an 8 bit screen. Or your could finish your build with some test patterns then move it over to an 8bit if you don’t have one at home. If you try using a color wheel or if you assign your color layout from a book you are going to get fubed if you try to reproduce the colors on a 6bit.

Ive never used a book for my colors at home but I used to do it a lot at the local comunity college(they let you sue their stuff for free). On the Macs they had there, color was almost flawless. I got so usedto doing it there that i never bothered to calibrate my new monitor after I got it. Unless you do a side by side comparison its hard to tell the diferance. But once you do, holy freaking god.

My next monitor is going to be an LED backlit 10bit. Hopefully they should come in the sub 1000$ market by the end of the year.
After seeing the real effect of monitor quality I am just about ready to plop down as munch money on a new monitor as I am on a hole new system. If big LED backlit 10bits dont come down below 1k by 09 I may be very tempted to spend w/e the hell I need to to get one.