monitor wide screen or regular?

gecko fly

gecko fly

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steve brockett
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a little bit of reserch and then in a rush, off i went to buy a widescreen 19" acer monitor...well i thought a larger area to work with photoshop would be handy...plugged in and calibrated the first problem was my grahics card only supported 1024 x 768 res not the native 1440 x 900 resolution that the monitor called for ... and obviously the images are stretched, did a bit of googling and it seemes im not the only one who wonders about this ..the solutions suggested seem confusing ...buying a new graphic card to support the native res or /and buying a non widescreen monitor ..phoned the shop where i had bought it from and he said he would never have recomended a widescreen if most of my work is photo/graphic work said there would always be some stretching to images!
anyway the monitor is back in the shop and i have my money back and think i need some more info before i purchase again!
if anyone can help that would be appreciated
obviously alot of people work with widescreen monitors ,,is it just i didnt have the native resolution that resulted in stretched photos or are there other issues?
 
I had this problem before reformatting my grandparents XP pc....when they first got the monitor it too stretched the images. However a virus meant it needed a format, installed the drivers etc and it worked!
 
If you use Photoshop, Lightroom or similar a widescreen monitor is ideal. It gives you a wider working area. The tools can be put to one side, making it a lot easier to work on.

Does you card support 2 monitors. Despite it limitations it's may do. Check for a second VGA socket on the card. You could then use a second monitor rather than a wide screen version. Keep you images on monitor A your tools on B.

Don't know where this stretching of images bit comes from. If you set the screen resolution correctly on the video card there should be no problem.

I use a 24" wide screen and really wouldn't want to go back to a conventional model.
 
Why would a widescreen monitor stretch images? That doesn't make sense. Only an incorrect set up would stretch images (irrelevant if widescreen or not)
 
I think what you're saying is that your graphics card can only go up to a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels and the monitor had a native resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels. It sounds like the monitor had stretched the 1024 x 768 screen to fit it's wider screen format which will have stretched the image out lengthways. Also the image would have been quite blurry as anything but the monitors native resolution is always blurry.

The solution would be to buy a better graphics card, one that can support 1440 x 900 pixel resoution. You'll then have a clear image that isn't stretched on that 19" monitor. Consider going bigger with the monitor first though, the price of 22" monitors is now quite low and the difference at this size is substantial. A 22" monitor will probably be about 1680 x 1050 pixels resolution so you'd have to get a graphics card to cover that size.

I use two monitors - a 22" widescreen and a 19" widescreen. This makes it so much better working in Lightroom and Photoshop.
 
thanks for the suggestions ...the card does support 2 monitors ,but if there is a fix for a wide screen then i would prefer to use this (conventional monitors also seem to be much pricier) given the cost of a new graphics card i would be happy to install this if i was sure it would work
 
Mark.A said:
I think what you're saying is that your graphics card can only go up to a resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels and the monitor had a native resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels. It sounds like the monitor had stretched the 1024 x 768 screen to fit it's wider screen format which will have stretched the image out lengthways. Also the image would have been quite blurry as anything but the monitors native resolution is always blurry.

The solution would be to buy a better graphics card, one that can support 1440 x 900 pixel resoution. You'll then have a clear image that isn't stretched on that 19" monitor. Consider going bigger with the monitor first though, the price of 22" monitors is now quite low and the difference at this size is substantial. A 22" monitor will probably be about 1680 x 1050 pixels resolution so you'd have to get a graphics card to cover that size.

I use two monitors - a 22" widescreen and a 19" widescreen. This makes it so much better working in Lightroom and Photoshop.
Click to expand...

thanks mark thats very clear info
anyone know what difference in power consumption between something like a 19" or 24" (living off solar and wind so this is a big issue)
 
82852/82855 gm/gme
thats all the info i have ..not sure if thats enough
 
That's an Intel graphics card, I just looked on the Intel site and the manual states that your card should go up to 1600 x 1200 pixels at 85 Hz and up to 2048 x 1536 at 75 Hz, so you should be fine. You may not have the right driver installed for the graphics card. Try downloading the latest driver for it from here.

It could also be the monitor driver that's limiting the resolutions that are available too, try the graphics driver first though. If the monitor is picked up as a generic plug & play monitor then higher resolutions may not be available even though your graphics card and monitor are capable of displaying them. If this is the case you need a driver that is specific for your monitor.
 
Did you change the resolution on the computer. Easy thing to miss. Right click on the desktop and select properties. Monitor resolution is under settings.. Sorry if I'm teaching grandma to suck eggs!!
 
thanks again ...sorry if a bit slow on answering still getting used to forums !
will try and download new driver have conntacted hp to let me know if the laptop will support this sort of card havent heard yet but that info mark is really useful
thanks chappers yes i did change resolution ,played around with lots of them thinking there was some way i could get it to work out without success. seemed like the monitor overuled the settings
 
Right, it's a laptop, lol.

You won't be able to upgrade the graphics card in this case then. You should still be able to connect a 19" widescreen monitor with a 1440 x 900 native resolution. Don't get a 22" monitor though as the native resolution will likely be 1680 x 1050 and your laptops graphics card will only go to 1600 pixels wide. You'll also need to make sure your laptop has separate settings set up for the built in LCD screen (which may well be limited to 1024 x 768 resolution) and the external attached monitor. You should be able to set the resolution for each display in your display properties.
 
I suspect what you have is a conflict between the laptop screen and the extrenal monitor. Probably the Laptop won't support the res for the extrenal monitor and is stopping you changing it

You may need to switch off the lap top screen to get the external monitor to work. Although I'm not sure that is possible. You may then have a problem if you don't reset the res when you go back to the lap top screen.

I don't know what model you have but an email to the manufacturers support operation may yield some help. Dell are pretty good at this as is HP. Can't speak for others ,
 
I don't like widescreen monitors. I have one on my laptop but on my main PC I use a 21" Viewsonic standard format. Widesreen is fine for TV's as most TV footage is shot in the 16:9 widescreen format but for a PC the more screen you have the better IMHO.

To run dual monitors off the same graphics card you must use the same plug on both eg, you can't have one plugged in using a DVI plug and the other using a VGA plug, both must be the same.

Mark:)
 
markjayne said:
To run dual monitors off the same graphics card you must use the same plug on both eg, you can't have one plugged in using a DVI plug and the other using a VGA plug, both must be the same.

Mark:)
Click to expand...

Actually you can. I have a 24" running of the DVI socket and a second 19" conventional running off the VGA. Desktop split across both monitors
 
Yup same card on a Dell 5150. The 24" monitor has both DVI and VGA as has the 19". I'm using DVI to DVI and VGA to VGA . I did have some problems with an older monitor not playing properly. , but the newer ones seem fine.

I think it all depends on the card/monitor set up.
 
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