LCD Color Corrector?

colorContrast asks: " I've currently got a Viewsonic VG700b, and as of recent, it has been giving me some trouble. Instead of showing real black, i'm now getting a red hue for black, and the pixels on the screen have become more pronounced than they used to be. The odd thing is that when I brought my monitor home over vacation, the problem was fixed for a short while, but now it appears to be broken again. Does anyone have any suggestions on if its time to get a new LCD, or if they know of a fix for this problem? (I have attempted to manually correct it by changing the colors but that did little.)"

I have one

[Gyga]

like this I think the cable is messed up try wiggling the cable to see if the connection is bad (colors will change when wigling). If it does I found placing on leg on the cable keeps it in place, you might be able to replace it though.

Probably damanged BUT

[Sycraft-fu]

There are devices that can help. I'm with most of the others in that it's likely damage, and check that out first. Cable, obviously first since it's cheap, but might be the backlight or actual LCD array too. Could also be a video card.

At any rate, if you want something that will do colour correction, what you are after is called, unsupprisingly, a Colorimeter. Basically it's a little device you stick on your monitor that measures colour values from the monitor, helps you change settings, and then builds a mapping table for your video card.

The good news is they work great. On a good monitor they will get you slightly better, more neutral colour and a good match to properly calibrated printers. On bad moniotrs they can take a horrible image and make it acceptable.

The bad news is that they are expensive. Not super expensive, but enough that it'll put a dent in your wallet.

If you decide to go this route, I recommend the Spyder 2 from ColorVision (aka Datacolor). While it doesn't get the best results on some monitors, it always gets good results on all monitors. Also has good, easy to use software. The normal Spyder 2 is like $150, the Studio version is $250. Both use the smae hardware sensor, the Studio version just has better software which lets you do things like multiple monitors with different profiles, custom colour temp and gamma targets, and so on.

However, I more recommend this for doing the fine tuning of a good monitor, rather than fixing a bad one. For the price, you can pretty much get a new monitor, which is more worth while. It's only really worth it as a fix-it tool for like a large lab or something. If you have a ton of compuers with various old monitors that you can't necessiarly replace, they work well for getting the best out of them.

newish product- pantone huey..

[way2trivial]

plugs into usb, color corrects your monitor, and bonus- if you leave it plugged in and pointing out, as the room gets lighter/darker it adjusts the screen acording to room lighting conditions....

http://www.pantone.com/products/products.asp?idSub Area=0&idArea=2&idProduct=103&idArticleType_Produc ts=0 [pantone.com]