Using Two Monitors

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Amy McCray

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Dec 3, 2002
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North Prairie, WI
I little while ago I got an Apple Cinema Display and it is a night-and-day difference! One of the best parts though is that today I hooked up the older monitor as well and now can use 2 monitors simultaneously!

It is soooooo much fun and great for photoshop. I get the biggest kick out of watching the cursor just slide from one screen to the other. I can drag windows, files, anything across. :D

On the older monitor's background, I put a gorgeous shot of just blue sky w/ clouds and a flock of geese in formation. Took the pic right outside our front yard. It's very refreshing to be able to glance over and see the sky right on my desk!

I'm sure this is :sleep: to many, but I'm thinking this is way cool! Yeah, I'm a cheap date.
 
So... did you calibrate them so they look alike??
 
No, I didn't. I plan on using only the Cinema Display for photoshop, and I didn't want to mess with the good color I already get on that.

I use the other one to put all the palettes in one place to get them off the main screen. The older one is noticeably darker!

Is there a way to calibrate that one so it doesn't mess up the Cinema Display?
 
Amy McCray said:
No, I didn't. I plan on using only the Cinema Display for photoshop, and I didn't want to mess with the good color I already get on that.

I use the other one to put all the palettes in one place to get them off the main screen. The older one is noticeably darker!

Is there a way to calibrate that one so it doesn't mess up the Cinema Display?
Click to expand...

I found a spot on HP's website that automatically recalibrates their monitors. I do own calibration software and equipment but have not taken it out of the box. The monitor on my 5 year old laptop was getting very dark but popped back into shape after running the app. Each montor should be running independant of the other if you are running them as 2 and not just an extension of the one so it would not change the new one if you were to recalibrate the old one.
 
Actually, she did say she was going to use them as one. She will be working in PS with the image on one screen and the palattes on the other. That means they have to be working together.

As long as you only ever use the good one for the image work, then the other one doesn't matter for calibrating.

I'm hoping to set up my second LaCie 324 monitor this weekend and will calibrate them together as I do not know whether or not I will ever
use them for images at the same time.

Better safe than sorry.
 
I thought they were independent because they are connected to separate ports on the back of the computer.

However I just tried to open Excel on the 2nd monitor and it launched on the main one. I can drag an opened excel file over to the 2nd one and work on it there, but the toolbar remains on the main monitor. hmmmmm.

I thought I'd be able to run the two completely independently. Will look into that.
 
Jeff Rodier said:
You will need an additional video card for them to run independantly.
Click to expand...

It depends on the video card. I am running 3 monitors using two video cards. My main monitor is a 24" 1920x1200 monitor on a single card. The left and right monitors are 1280x1024 19" monitors running off a single video card with dual dvi outputs. All three are independent with the desktop extending across all three. I can open a program like Photoshop and extend it across all three monitors.
 
If the desktop extends across all three, then they aren't independent,
they are set up as one continuous screen. If you can open PS and extend it over all 3 monitors, they are set up to act as one big screen.

All of the monitors would only see one OS thus they would all be seeing the same desktop. The fact that you could open up a different app in different monitors only means that they are in different areas of the overall desktop display.

You should be able to set them up so that they each see the whole desktop on each monitor, but then what you do on one would show up on them all at the same time.

The only way you would have different desktops show up on different monitors is if they were hooked up to different computers.

Doesn't matter how many video cards you have installed, as you only have one OS in the computer running they can only see the result of that OS running.
If you want a different app to run on the other screen, then the 2 screens need to be set so they are one continuous desktop and then you just move that app over to the other screen... or to another part of the desktop.
 
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