Happy Holidays!

[editor]

From the staff of Photoshop Elements Techniques and this forum, our best wishes for a very Happy and Safe holiday season!

We will be "closed" December 23-27, so while the forum discussions will continue, there will be little or no staff interactionn during that time.

Have a good one!

[michoumisalade]

Merry Christmas to all! I wish you a lot of fun with your relatives, friends and families!

[Wendy]

Merry Christmas to everyone


Wendy

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pi...qw0fIhvuKHCUs0

[Mary]

May the joyous spirit of Christmas be with you all year!

[DocLotus]

Nice pictures everyone :lol:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, HAPPY NEW YEAR and all that other neat stuff.

[Jodi Frye]

Hope ya all had a great one ! Guess what ? I don't feel like going back to work...so I wont

[DocLotus]

Me neither, Jodi...

I'm retired and LOVING it :lol:

[Jodi Frye]

I'm runnin out of room in my webspace....can i hang my extra pixels in here ?


na, i wont do that to all of yas but I do have a question...what is a 'good' graphics card ? Runnin XP. Currently usin a low cost ATI Radeon 9000 series 64mb( desperate walmart purchase just over a year ago ). I'm not really sure i need a new card but lately I noticed some slight ghosting ....not sure it's called that...but on the right of all images and text there is like a repetetive light halo that gradually fades out. I just bought this Samsung 950b about a year ago and I'd hate to think my hard earned 185 bucks to NewEgg was a mistake. I've done quite a bit of different things to fix it...like re-installing drivers for both the card and monitor...degauss, moire removal...changed the monitor power cord...I'm running out of ideas. Is there something obvious I'm missing ?

I changed resoluion settings, refresh rates etc....no difference. Help !

[DocLotus]

Hi Jodi;

It's not your video card; LCD monitors are notorious for just what you are describing.

As you are running an ATI video card I will assume that you are running Windows

There are FOUR possible resolves to this common problem.

1: Analog or Digital monitor input...
The ATI 9000 has both Analog (VGA) and Digital (DVI) outputs. Which one you select is dependent on the type of monitor that you have. Some are Analog only, some are Digital only and others will accept both. It is often stated by many that on an LCD monitor Digital input can sometimes make a BIG difference in image quality. My Samsung 243t LCD accepts both but I am running Analog as that is all that my ATI 9600 All-In-Wonder has for the monitor output. Text image is simply stunning; 1 point fonts are very clear (providing I zoom to 500 percent in Word); 6 pt fonts are readable at 100 percent zoom. The choice to go Analog or Digital can vary from one model of monitor to another and from one video card to another so you will just have to try both and see which is better in your case.

2: Smooth Edges of Screen Fonts...
Start Menu, Settings, Control Panel, System, Advanced tab, Performance Settings, put a check in the Smooth edges of screen fonts box, click apply. I have never found this one to be of much help but it may in you case so you will simply have to try it and see.

3: ClearType fonts...
Start Menu, Settings, Control Panel, Display, select the Appearance tab then the Effects button. Put a check in the Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts, select ClearType. ClearType was designed especially for LCD monitors. It may or may not help in you case.

4: Microsoft's wonderful new ClearType Tuning PowerToy tool...
This one is a MUST HAVE for anyone running an LCD monitor...
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...powertoys.mspx
This great little new PowerToy will let you tune the type quality on any LCD monitor; you can even change the overall lightness or darkness of all text. It is very nicely done indeed.

Hope that one (or all) of the above helps.

[DocLotus]

One more thing, Jodi, the Microsoft ClearType Tuning PowerToy tool also has controls to get rid of the ghosting you described that often looks like a faint blue halo on one side of all text. It show many text samples, you select the cleanest one and that then effects all text on you computer. It also shows a Before and After window so you can really fine tune your text and see the results right now.