The Ultimate BenQ SW & Palette Master Element Calibration Walkthrough!

Thanks for the helpful videos. I realize this is old, but can you explain the relationship between the Windows ICC profile (the one selected in Windows Color Management) and the hardware calibration? Specifically, (1) what should the Windows ICC profile be set to when performing the calibration and (2) once the calibration is complete, PM creates a new Windows ICC profile in addition to the hardware LUT profile... do we need to select both the Windows profile and the hardware profile? I switch between profiles for sRGB and AdobeRGB, so I have two hardware LUT profiles and two Windows profiles. Thanks!

Hi friend ! The screen is HDR compatible and on macos if left on it won't pass the calibration verification. I manually disabled it but what about when editing pictures, is there an easy way to switch?

So I use a i1display. Do you recommend the i1profiler software or pallete master element to calibrate for this monitor?

Hi Art - you videos are amazing! Just curious, does BenQ make a monitor for photographers that print. By this I mean a color accurate monitor with 100pp1 and 0.25 pixel pitch? I am struggle to find a monitor with these specs. This is need to printing large in order to accurately see the critical sharpening, which as you know is really important.

Great great video man!!! I am using monitor first time and I normally edited photos in laptop’s monitor. I got questions or asking help that’s (1) Do i have to calibrate monitor separately for website, general use or others used not for print? (2) or Can I use same I calibrated monitor for especially Print in website or general use? (3) Do I need change any settings in Lightroom Classic and Photoshop and Normally Lightroom and photoshop comes with Adobe RGB or Prophoto? If yes the how? (4) in Calibrate monitor my all raw photos look flat or very less contrast and less saturated? Do you have any Ideas? Do I separately calibrate Monitor for Print, website, social media, client delivery and other general use??? What is best Luminance value for website or general used if like calibrate monitor??? My picture looks less contrast and saturate means for me lifeless picture. Please if you help me it’s much a lot for me…

Hi Art, I am calibrating the sw321c for Davinci Resolve. I am using the BenQ to preview via the "clean feed" mode. So the monitor is hooked up as a secondary screen. I am wondering which PC color mode I am to use: 0-255 or 16-235?

Way too complicated.

Hi! I intend to buy a SW240. It has 14bit LUT. You did recomended to set the value in Palette Master Element to 16bit LUT. It will work fine or will be a confrlict? Thank you!

Hi , what luminance would you target for photos that is just displayed online ?

Black point relative = absolute? I am a bit confused about black point (Mac).

What is the sRGB gamma selection used for? Should i use this when calibrating for sRGB or stick with 2.2?

What happen to my monitor BENQ FP92W nonpreset mode and go black screen after 2second

Hi Art. I followed your walkthrough and was able to get a good validation pass. My question is, why are we not able to change the brightness on a calibrated profile? Is there a way to change the brightness, or can we control how bright the finished calibrated profile will be?

I have gone through most all your videos and you are a sole user of the macbooks. I do not use a mac because my design work is with a built pc for photoshop. Now, I have use a top of the line nec for 10 years and have loved it. Calibrating has never, ever been an issue. So, it seems that you have all these different versions for different monitors and to date, after watching and listening to your videos, I still don't know what software to use for my ws240 that will arrive on Wednesday, tomorrow. There is a new version and then, there is this one. So what software shall I use for the sw 240 monitor? Please advise. If I can't get proper calibration, I must look at other monitors that will not be so hard to get answers . Next- I design from home, I prefer working with a built pc to work with an select my own hardware. I love mac's to play with and that's it. I can built my own pc's and I'm a woman. Now, you also talk about cable that are sent with monitor and I'm begining to realize that benQ only prefers laptop cables????? Many people use a pc. Question2_ What cable do I need to purchase? I have a display port I probable can use, I hope, but what about the calibrator. I have some usb3 and usb2 ports. No c ports because it's not a mac. Don't want to work on mac.
Please advise because I would like to setup tomorrow when it arrives. Calibration is mandatory for my ad my work. I will probably have to call BenQ because I couldn't fnd answers to these two questions. Please advise.
Thank you for all you hard work but I do believe you need to speak more about pc's. Not just laptops.
Thank you again,
Linda Weaver/

Hi Art! I just bought a SW271C + Mac Studio M1 Max with Ventura 13.0.1. I’ve disabled all MacOS settings affecting calibration such True Color, Night Shift etc. I understand that after calibration PME will have set brightness to the desired value (80, 100, 120 cd) regardless the monitor menu value. But I am a bit worried about what about if later on I accidentally change the brightness for instance through the hotkey puck dial? Many thanks!

I have a Benq SW 240 monitor and calibrate the monitor using Pallette Master Element and Spyder X. Should I reset the monitor to factory set values before calibration? I choose the brightness level of 80 nits in the Palette Master Element while calibrating. What brightness level should I set the monitor to ( from the drop down menu on the monitor) after the calibration?

Hi Art, question I’ve had for awhile. If I set luminance to 80,100,120 on the 3 puck slots and that’s the only change made. Does the profile on the Mac need to be changed when I switch between those? Or can I keep one profile on the mac when this is the only change being made when switching the slots. Would love to hear your thoughts!

Thanks for the video. I don't understand why the Panel Native RGB Primary is the best setting. If I edit photos in sRGB or Adobe RGB with Photoshop or Lightroom, shouldn't I choose the sRGB RGB Primary or the Adobe RGB RGB Primary? And what RGB Primary should I choose for Davinci Resolve right now?

I have one doubt. I have a Benq SW 240C momitor. I have set the monitor to brightness level of 55 as indicated in the menu. While calibrating the monitor with Spyder X colorimeter and Palette Master Element, I set the brightness to 80 nits. In the light of this, what brightness setting should I set the monitor to? Or, does this matter ( display brightness on the monitor) if set the brightness to 80 nits in the Palette Mmaster Element at the time of calibration? Will this affecft my editing of the photos. ( I use Capture One 22 Pro).

I have SWC 240 C monitor. I have been calibrating the monitor using Spyder X. My doubt is whether I need to calibrate the software as well as hardware. i.e., the display card (my laptop has NVIDIA dispay care) as well as the hardware in the monitor. Please clarify.

hi Art, I struggle getting a better calibration than the factory settings one. what colour profile shall I apply to the Benq SW270C BEFORE I start the Pallette Master? thanks a mil for your advice. (macbook pro, 2.3 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7, eGPU pro)

Hi Art, i just got a SW321c and updated to the newest Palette Master Element.
I noticed in the blackpoint section, i no longer get relative and absolute zero as demonstrated on your view. I got blackpoint with a input box set to 0.5 nits (that can be changed) or absolute zero. What value should i set for the best photo paper printing accuracy? Thank you in advance!

I followed this guide but used PME v1.3.18 on a sw321c with windows 10 os and X rite pro plus and looked fine until it finished writing the lut then the benq screen went dark and I have been unable to revive it. :( any thoughts?

Hi Art
I just installed PME1.3.18.0 and did my first calibrations on my SW271C. Everything went well and it looks OK. After the calibrations were done and validated OK. I became a bit curious about how to validate the calibrations without doing a completely new calibration. So I chose "validation" instead of "profiling". Now to the question: how do I choose which profile to validate? That's the one I'm using at the moment. Have tried but whichever I use, the same profile is written in the validation report, eg "SW271C 1_D65_L120.G22 2022-10-10-01T1742.46Z"

Great video. Few questions if I may. I’m using this monitor with the Mac Mini M1 with HDMI port and I have no functionality with the extra USB / headphone ports or SD Card reader. Can you tell me what I’m doing wrong?

… or just buy an Apple Retina computer/ monitor

So if I do both photo and video, could I do 2 different calibrations like one gamma 2.2 panel native for photo and another gamma 2.4 and rec 709 roe Resolve? and then switch accordingly between the 2 (on a SW series monitor)?

I bought a SW270C to use with a new Dell XPS, what is the best software version to use? I downloaded the 1.3.17 version from the website but after watching several of your videos I learned that the latest is not always the best. Thanks for that info, I've always thought that the latest would be best, good to know that's not always the case. The new Dell will run Windows 11. I will use a SpyderX Pro to do the calibration.

Hi Art, thank you for another great video!
A question, If I calibrate my SW271 with my SpiderX calibrator and software will I have the same calibration features as with PME ? I.E will the calibration be saved into the monitor hardware etc. ?

Hi Art! Thanks so much for all the tutorials. I have the Spyder5Pro and BenQ SW2700PT monitor that I use with the new Mac Studio M1 Max and have been running some calibrations. I've managed to get the colors very close to perfect but I can't seem to get the black levels as good as the default Adobe RGB colour profile. With the default Adobe RGB profile the colours are not as perfect but in this mode I can make out the difference of black levels all the way to 0 and 1(I have the brightness set to 20). When calibrated though (using 0.5 blackpoint, also tried 0.3) I can only make out the difference between 4 and 5. 1 to 3 are all black. I also tried calibrating with 0.8 but that didn't help. Any advice on how I could achieve the desired black levels? And another question should one be able to make out the difference in the highlights all the way to 255? I can only differentiate 233 but not further. I'm using Palette Master V1.3.17 and my monitor MFG is Jan 2018. Calibrating settings: D65, Panel Native, 2.2. Thank you!

Hi, I have sw270c and when I view a gray scale (after calibration) I see that in some parts of the grayscale there is a color cast. For me, it's more noticeable when the grays get a little warmer rather than cooler where I tend not to notice. Repeated calibrations don't make much difference, but using matrix instead of LUT, can make a small difference. When I run a validation, the delta E remains under 1.0 through the grayscale but my eye says there is a color cast in some areas. Most of the scale looks neutral to me, so it's annoying when viewing images that there's a band of color tint that corresponds to the part of scale that's affected. Is this typical?

Hi my benq monitor is connected with hdmi port in my laptop, and as soon as i try to run the pallete master it says that i need to connect the usb from the monitor to the computer. Please help

Your presentation was outstanding!!

This tutorial was very, very helpful. Thank you for taking the time to explain set up and calibration in detail. I have one question. I am connecting my 2015 macbook air to my benq sw270c with a displayport cable. I also connected the usb cable for hardware calibration. After calibration, can I only use the displayport cable and leave the usb cable disconnected if I'm not use the monitor's SD card reader or usb inputs? Is there any benefit to leaving the usb cable connected after calibration other than gaining access to the monitor's SD card reader and usb input? Thank you!!

i follow all the instructions but my prints is coming really dark

I ran through all of the calibration settings and instructions like you said. I am using a Spyder 4. Everything works great- but validation "report summary" failed. What should I do?

Hi Art, thank you for these helpful guides!
This is my first time calibrating a monitor and i followed your guide exactly to calibrating my SW320.
As this is my first time i just wanted to ask, post calibration is the monitor suppose to look less bright and vibrant? (i used luminance value 80).
I did this as i want to use this profile to best match what i get on screen to paper print, and to my knowledge the luminance value is suppose to be low as paper is quite dull and not vibrant?
The screen however now does not look as attractive as if i had left it on adobe RGB color profile. This is normal right?

So good, clear and clarifying! I've always used Eizo and I'm just about to buy my first BenQ and this video really help to understand the hardware calibration terms and software on the Benwq...esssentially same principle and settings of Eizo colour navigator software
thanks for explaining it so well!

Hi,

I have a Benq sw 270C monitor, I calibrate it with an X-rite display pro. Most of the time I work on the web, so I set srgb as my primary setting. What I do with the calibration: srgb, 6500k, luminance: 140, Black point: 0.3. profile v2, 16bit lut path size large. And the result is a darker screen, white rather than white is more gray. The colors are perfect anyway. In this case, should the color management in the windows remain the calibrated icc profile and the monitor on calibration 1? or switch to factory default setting on the monitor? (what if you went to calibration 2 in an adobe rgb mode, do i always have to change the windows color management icc?)

Hi, Art. Thank you for these videos. For my line of work (graphic design/online viewing), Is Native Panel still good for sRGB/graphic design workflows? Or should I go with sRGB. I'd imagine the best settings for the other two is still Relative Black and 16 Bit LUT. Thank you!

So Matrix for Mac and 16 bit LUT for PC? Or Matrix for Spectrophotometer and 16 bit LUT for Colorimeter?

Should I be calibrating with Palette Master INSTEAD OF the i1 profiler software that came with my i1 Display Pro?? Or in addition to it?

Phew! Thanks to your awesome videos and recent advice about calibrators, I got my new SW270c to pass validation in PME. It took a few tries; I had to use PME 1.3.16 (no luck with 15) and factory reset my monitor. Now I've got a panel native calibration set to button 1 on the puck, at luminance of 90. For button 2, I'd like to have a setting that allows me to preview what my images will look like to other people when viewing on the web, and for general office work. Should I just leave it on the factory sRGB setting so I can adjust the brightness? Or calibrate using sRGB at a higher luminance than my panel native? I'm hoping to leave button 3 for BW.

Art, newbie question here: does the palette master program used for color calibration run through the computer's graphics card? And does this impact the signals being used for calibration? I bypass my graphics card using a video interface to feed a clean signal directly into my reference monitor for color grading, and I'm worried that the palette master software calibration program will be skewed by its test signals being processed through the computer's graphics card, if that is indeed what's happening. I'm new to this, so I'm just trying to think through the signal flow, but I could be conceptualizing the situation incorrectly. Your guidance is much appreciated.

I find your videos so great as you explain the important details in a way most folks can understand. Well done!

Max I am failing calibration on a Mac mini m1, what am I doing wrong?

I have a new SW270c display as an extended monitor for my iMac 27 5K 2019 computer and get the flicker in Lightroom you said was a bug that had been corrected. I am still getting it. What is the workaround? I am calibrating my display with a colorchecker display pro that I also recently got. Thank you.