To the polls!

[foxgrrl]

So, I'm doing some CSS tweeking on my LJ, and I'm wondering how to make it look best for everyone — or at least for most people viewing it. I'm not going to assume everyone uses the standard VESA modes — I certainly never do, because I'm a VESA Rebel! — But I also didn't want to put this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_display_standard in the poll.

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Edit: Ok, yeah when I created this poll I was thinking of 4:3 aspect ratios, even though I never even run in any of those myself (I'm at 1280x800 at this moment). The only thing that I really need to know is how wide your screen is, so that I know how many columns of pictures, at what size, will fit comfortably across your screen. I don't know if everyone is seeing 1, 2, 3, or even 4 columns of 264px wide images. (I write the html layout so that it'll automagicaly work everywhere, but when I'm trying to group things together, I don't know if I'm going to leave a single photo floating by itself.) Up until now I've been trying to keep things in groups that are even multiples of twelve, but that's a lot of work.

Also, Yes mean style=mine, No means the LJ Default.

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[Poll #878475]
Also, can everyone tell me if they can see the difference between X, Y, and Z on this grayscale chart, shamelessly stolen from http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/common/grayscale.gif

I'm posting all of my photos on the assumption that everyone can see the difference. Also, at my current gamma setting, the O box matches the gray [#777777] of the border. (And I can see the difference between A, B, and C too.)

In other news, I've been reading up on one of my favorite drugs, and supposedly it damages the judgment center(s) of the brain, turning the user into an inhuman monster, with no sense of morals or ethics. (And in general, a bad decision maker. Like, say, shamelessly linking to someone else's grayscale chart.) For those of you who know me in person, would you say that I'm an inhuman monster?
[Poll #878476]

Comments

[stillvisions.livejournal.com]

I can see ABC differences, and barely X, but not YZ... of course, this monitor really needs to be properly calibrated for photos one day as well.

[3ricj.livejournal.com]

I use 1280x800, the native res of my laptop lcd.

[solarbird]

Since "Do you usually read comments in your own style, or in the LJ default style?" is not a yes/no question, I decided "yes" meant custom style and "no" meant LJ default style, and answered no.

On my elderly G4 powerbook, A and B are pretty much the same - there's a bit of an interference line at the intersection, but it's tiny. On the other hand, X, Y, and Z are easily distinguishable as different.

[maradydd.livejournal.com]

I can see the difference between A/B/C and X/Y/Z just fine on a 15" PowerBook.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

I can see the difference between those three squares, though I have to squint.

And I use style=mine a hell of a lot, thanks to some people favoring tiny teeny tinsy text for their own styles...

[wingedelf.livejournal.com]

Dmax values are distinct here, Dmin ones aren't- X,Y and Z are distinct, but A-D aren't. Hmm. Time to recalibrate the monitor, methinks.

[axonfuel.livejournal.com]

To my eyes, the difference between Y and Z is dramatic; X and Y, almost unnoticeable. Of course I'm sitting very close to the monitor; if I tilt my head back, the opposite is true.

[solarbird]

I'm at 1024x768, but I don't maximize my browser windows, and lots of other people don't as well
Ooh, good point. I don't either. In fact, I loathe that with a passion. I don't know why, I just really, really hate it.

[quasilemur.livejournal.com]

On the display of my lap-symbiote, all of the letters are distinguishable.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

A,B and C are distinguishable, X,Y and Z are indistinguishable, O is darker than the border color. N is closest to the border color, but does not entirely match.

[anaisdjuna.livejournal.com]

Yeah.... I dunno..... that gray scale thing.... our friendship may be in jeopardy.....

dyin' to know what you favorite drug is...

i'll ante up first. mine is trammmmmadol.

confession: all this geek stuff you post about... is hot.

[m0usegrrl.livejournal.com]

I can baaaaaarely see a difference between x, y and z -- but then I'm on an aged Dell CRT that I don't think has ever been calibrated. FWIW, a, b and c are easily discernible.

Also, my screen rez is 1280x1024, but I don't keep my browser maximized; most sites are just too spread out at that rez, and I've got Google Desktop running as a sidebar, taking away some of the screen real estate. [IM ON UR DESKTOP HOGGING UR SKREEN RESOLUTION. ::snort!:: Sorry, couldn't resist. ^_^]

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

...which drug is that?

I cannot detect a difference between Y and Z, otherwise that makes sense.

I have a weird monitor. I'm at 1600x1024 resolution.

*shinkicks*

[wolfwings.livejournal.com]

You set up the poll so widescreens don't have any valid options to pick. So I went by vertical height on my pick since I run at 1280x768 as that's the native setting of my laptop. =^.^=

[roadknight.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can tell the difference between X, Y and Z on my 12" AlBook here.
HTH

[foxgrrl]

About two years ago, I was contracted to do a bunch of Linux kernel hacking to make Linux work on various braindead laptops. Fixing ACPI bugs, and getting X11 to run in the correct video modes, maybe even 3-D (GL) acceleration. (Software modems, etc. etc.) Anyway, yeah one of the things that a lot of them &mdash the Intel 810/855 series chipsets in particular — have is the wrong video modes for the LCD, in the Video BIOS. And since Intel refuses to open the specs for the chipset. The Linux drivers use the old BIOS INT10 interface to setup the video hardware when switching modes. So to get 1450x800 mode, for example, you need to patch one of the modes that you don't use, with the setting for the new mode you want, in the (real mode) Video BIOS ROM (or at least a mmap'ed copy of it).

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

On this monitor, I cannot tell the difference between Y and Z. Can tell the difference between X and Y, but only if it's nighttime and my lights are off. All the other shades of grey are distinct enough, though.

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

Yes, she is an inhuman monster, but in the good way.

That was drugs? I always figured Peggy just bit you at some point.

She's contagious, you know. };E

Geryscale:

[kitten-goddess.livejournal.com]

I can easily see the difference between A and C. Everything from Q to Z looks like the same shade of black to me.

vidi

[gaelfling.livejournal.com]

on the greyscale chart I can see the dif between x y z- and inhuman IMO isn't a bad thing, in fact it would be a complement ;)

[proudlyfallen.livejournal.com]

Where the monitor is comfortable for me, I can tell the difference between A B and C easily, but Y and Z look almost identical. If I tilt the screen towards me though, it's easy to see the difference. (IBM Thinkpad R51)

[foxgrrl]

Darwin Peggy.local 8.8.1 Darwin Kernel Version 8.8.1: Mon Sep 25 19:42:00 PDT 2006; root:xnu-792.13.8.obj~1/RELEASE_I386 i386 i386

But really, I think I was already infected, but she gave it style and class.

Re: Geryscale:

[foxgrrl]

Everything from Q to Z looks like the same shade of black to me.

Ok, that was exactly what I was wondering. You had mentioned that some of the photos I was posting looked too dark/underexposed. On my screen, Q is almost 50% gray, if it's almost black for you, then you're loosing half of the dynamic range. Check your monitor settings.

[trema-slo.livejournal.com]

I can see a subtle difference between x,y, and z, and even more subtle a and b.

I usually see two pictures in a row on your posts.

Sometimes the text is way too small, sometimes it's ok.

[mooflyfoof.livejournal.com]

I can tell the difference between x, y, and z on this computer. I'm at work. I know I probably wouldn't be able to on my home computer (which is dumb and something I should fix since that's where I do most of my photo editing).

[vintage-fish.livejournal.com]

I can clearly see the difference between X Y and Z.

[gidget23.livejournal.com]

I can clearly see the scale shift from a to z on my ancient Dell laptop.

[arethinn]

1280x1024 is my LCD's native res AFAIK. In comments is the only place I typically see people's journal designs, if they have one, since I almost never just load up someone's journal to read it directly (vs. friends page, which of course appears in my own style). I don't use style=mine though.

XYZ are easily distinguishable; ABC are not. (D is barely different. If you put D next to A I could probably see it easily.) But my whites are not white since I have my brightness turned down more than is considered "correct", as otherwise it hurts to look at.

[ertla.livejournal.com]

The fastest way to get me to stop reading a journal, is to post pictures (or anything else) too wide for my browser window, and not put them behind a cut. I hate needing a left-right scroll bar in order to view my friends page, since it makes it next to impossible to read actual text. (Actually, that's the second fastest way. The absolute fastest is to post, without a cut _and_ warning, pictures I could get into trouble for viewing at work ;-))

And I have no idea what width(s) I typically use, expressed in pixels - but around 80 columns of text.

On this monitor, I can see a difference between Y and Z at some angles, but not between X and Y. I doubt I'd see any detail in a picture composed of e.g W through Z - it would probably register as a black blur. Much the same applies for A through E. I can see differences if I focus, but I'm not really sure if the differences are real.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

Another reasont hat EVERYONE should calibrate their monitor once a month. The pucks are under $200 now; there's not a lot of ecxcuse if you have a good, fairly new computer for not making sure the dynamic range is correct and adjusted properly when trying to view the work of other people, or watch video, or... Yeah, you get the picture. I use a GretagMacBeth Eye One Display, the 1st gen. puck (which can be had used for as cheap as $100), and the grayscale charts are bang-on; the basics of the monitor profile are loaded into Windows at startup, so there might be slight color casts here and there, but the white, black, and gamma re all bang-on, and most of the color cast is gone (this is a particularly large issue for laptops, and presumably, for LCD monitors as well). OS X goes one better, and color-manages EVERYTHING internally, so you can profile your monitor and then EVERYTHING will display accurately in EVERY program, plus the OS.

The more I get to know you, the more wonderful I think you are. I tend to lump anti-drug messages into the "reefer madness" camp; while there are drugs that'll fuck up your life and make you sick and insane from addiction (coke, crack, meth), if you are not using drugs to escape your problems (or do it for that purpose once in a while as a mini-vacation, but not at an increasing rate over time), what's the problem? Then again, I *am* a libertarian in principles if not party...

[varaviksne.livejournal.com]

All versions of MacOS going back 20 years have managed the gamma, not just OS X.

On the monitor I'm using right now, I can just barely see the differences between ABC and also XYZ. If I move my head left, right, or down, ABC become more distinct and XYZ become indistinguishable. If I move my head up, then XYZ become more distinct and ABC become indistinguishable.

I never run my browser window full screen (I'm on a Mac afterall). On either machine I might use, I see two columns of your pictures.

[oygevalte.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware of that, but then again, I didn't use a Mac much at all between around 1993 and a year or two ago; I only became "color-aware" with publishing and whatnot and being a pro digital photographer in perhaps the last 4-5 years.

Are you using an LCD monitor? This is one of the things I hate about many of them; get at ALL off-axis and the gammma changes terribly...

[chirik.livejournal.com]

I try to calibrate my monitors as best I can using the naked eye.

In a brightly lit room, I am able to distinctly see differences all the way to X, but Y&Z blend together. Depending on how I view it, I can see the difference, but only sometimes and barely.

[chirik.livejournal.com]

Oh....

With my left eye, I can see them all. With my right eye, the blacks blend together. My monitor is fine. My eyes need calibration.

[tlttlotd.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do see a difference in blocks x, y, and z.

[idea-fairy.livejournal.com]

I too do not run with my browser (Mozilla 1.7.8 in Debian Sarge Linux) maximized, although I sometimes maximize it temporarily for pictures and such.

As for the grayscale thing, I think I can see a difference between U and V but I'm not positive. The ones darker than that are just black. A and B are distinct. This is on a Samsung SyncMaster 753df at 1024 x 768. I don't recall when I got this monitor but I'm pretty sure it's at least a couple of years old.

I view user pages in whatever style they're set for (yours is green type on black, with pictures of mushrooms behind the text frame), except that when I view my Friends page it's in its own style (black text on white, dark blue outside the text frames), possibly some default or something. I haven't bothered messing with the settings.

I hope this helps.

[varaviksne.livejournal.com]

Yup, I've an LCD. My only color CRT started dying years ago.