Total palette of approximately 16.7 million colours - which sounds likeĪ lot but there's still only 256 pure greys in there). Only output 8 bit signals (because there are three channels (RGB) means a However, the bottleneck in this system is the video card - it can Video card signal is 8 bit, these values range from 0 to 255). The computer to output tones on the monitor (remember - because the Vastly more precision is available in the mapping of input tones from Levels - and the best is 16 bit with over 65000 levels - basically, Up - 10 bit means 1024 levels, 12 bit means 4096 and 14 bit means 16,384 Quality (really the amount of signal finessing that can be done) moves Helps as colour error is rarely just along one axis.Īs monitors get more expensive, the LUTs get better, with 10 and 12īit being most common in higher end monitors. Good monitors now have so calledģD LUTs which allow them to adjust R, G and B simultaneously, which Also, the monitor LUTs are single dimension - that is Quite cheap or quite expensive monitors - 8 bit video cards and 8 bit This is the way it works for almost all normal scenarios, except for Signal to send the monitor to later get the right colour). Red 128, Red 129 etc, measures them, and creates a table of what actualĬolours these values represent - this table is then used to know what What is happening - the calibrator tells the monitor to display Red 127, But odds are this is still not enoughįinesse to get the right colour. There are now 256 reds to play with - this increases accuracy, as Redġ27 might be a bit too strong, 128 is closer, 129 is too strong, so 128 Move up to an 8 bit monitor, and the choice is improved somewhat as Monitor to choose a correct colour (as odds are Red 31 is not right, and So choices for the actual tone the monitorĭisplays are very, very limited and it's basically impossible for the With, for example, a 6 bit LUT, there are onlyĦ4 shades of red available. Uses it's LUTs (look up tables) to choose which colour to actuallyĭisplay for this signal. Once the signal actually reaches the monitor, and for example letsĬhoose (128, 0, 0) which is a medium strength red - then the monitor 99.99% of computers and monitors on the planet work
Signal levels to play with - and this is the normal scenario for videoĬard output signals - your computer can only ever output a value ofīetween 0 and 255 for each of Red Green and Blue, which combined form a Put very simply, you can choose 31 (mightīe too red) or 32 (might be too blue), but there's no concept of 31.5 Signals to play with - meaning there are only 64 possible adjustments
However, these cards remain, both in software and hardware terms, much less stable than the workstation cards, so we still recommend a workstation card if imaging work is your primary use.įor example, any 6 bit system has just 64
THUS - If you want reliable 10 bit support - both general and for imaging applications - then the advice on the PC remains the same as it has for several years now - your best & most stable option is an NVIDIA Quadro workstation card.įrom around 2020 on, consumer video cards received the 'Studio' drivers that enabled 10 bit, and these work reasonably well. Years now, but again - they use their own specific OpenGL/OpenCL based solution for 10 bit. Adobe apps like Photoshop have supported 10 bit for several This means getting an NVIDIA Quadro card (best, stable drivers) or AMD FireProĪpplication support for 10 bit is still much wider on the PC than However, for imaging work, you should get a workstation level card - as these support 10 bit OpenGL display, used by most major imaging applications. You just need a 10īit capable card, and the vast majority of cards and drivers currently available support general 10 bit display. General 10 bit support has been possible for years and years already.
and now regularly available even with consumer video cards, and 10 bit support with OpenGL acceleration, needed for specific Adobe Apps like Photoshop. There is 'standard' 10 bit support, which is used for video etc. There are really two types of 10 bit on the PC.