Archive for November, 2007

I had previously indicated that I successfully calmibrated a Hyundai Q17 LCD display for a better color management. Today, in order to work in the best possible conditions when handling digital photos on my main PC system using a Dell 2407WFP as my primary display and still the same Hyundai Q17 as secondary display, I did again a full color calibration of the screens under Windows XP using a Spyder Pro sensor and the Optical software from Pantone.

The result is as satisfactory as always and allows to come back to a fair color balance that is more precise than before (for the Hyundai display, since the Dell screen is so near to perfection that installing the color profile just built leads to only a really minor colorimetric change).

For those interested in the technical details, here are the characteristics I used:

• Gamma 2.5 for PC (it would be 1.8 for Mac)
• Brightness to 0 (LCD displays are generally much to bright for normal use - this makes them nicer on store shelves)
• Contrast to 50 for the Dell 2407WFP, to 100 for the old Hyundai Q17

GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. That makes it a quite serious competitor to Adobe Photoshop, even if Adobe is still both much higher-priced and more powerful and flexible. This is the reason why it is interesting to notice the arrival of a new version (v2.4/v2.4.1).

Scripts have been moved to a more discreet menu, scalable brushes and improved selection options, easier alignment tools and better zoom. The digital photographer will appreciated even more the better color management, crop features and improved printing.

GIMP v2.4 new features.

As plenty other people you may have already downloaded the Crysis demo because you wanted to taste the PC game of the end of the year. But some Internet web site went further and stressed the demo to the point that you can get a good feeling of what this video game will be capable of. Here is an interesting list:

• 13 graphics cards tested under Crysis by Revioo.com (français)
• DirectX 9 vs 10 in the Crysis Demo (English)
• Tweaks to get Crysis DX10ish Features in Windows XP (English)
• “Crysis 32 vs 64 bit - the real story?” is YouGamers commenting on the “Crysis (Demo Performance)” short post of Legion Hardware (English).

What you will notice is that plenty of these web sites consider that a normal display must have 1440×900 or 1680×1050 resolution to play Crysis confortably (I did not say “to play cheaply”).