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Author Topic: Monitor recommendations  (Read 50972 times)

Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #20 on: April 05, 2006, 01:31:16 pm »

It depends on how high tech you need, if your regular CRT was good enough then in all likely hood the ACD will be fine, if you needed the artisan as a minimum for your work in the CRT days then you might need something far more expensive.

I think the photographers who are saying that the ACD is barely enough are working at a level that you will probably never ever need, especially coming from a regular uncalibrated CRT.

There are those who need the ultimate colour solutions in a monitor, those shooting for catalogues, for adverts, etc who need perfect representation. For me my CRT calibrated with the original Spyder was giving me (before it started dying) colour within 96% or better accuracy to the prints (some colours were slightly different, not that there was a colour cast) I was getting back from the lab, printed on a frontier and I would not be suprised at all if another 3% of that inaccuracy was due to profile mismatches on their side and/or chemistry/paper issues or maybe just the fact that you will never get a print to be 100% like on screen. I expect better from this new screen with the spyder 2 and any more differences will not be worth the extra thousands of pounds, not for my work, not for my prices and not to the level of accuracy that the vast majority of photographers actually need.

Remember that everyone who writes their opinion has an agenda, the opinion of a large catalogue house where colours of clothes have to be perfect is just not relevant to you (I assume), just as you didn't make sure to buy your film all from the same batch and date code, process in only one lab on a monday of the full moon, etc, etc to ensure the best colour consistency. Yes his opinion is valid - for him!

Maybe someone can back me up here but unless you have extremely exacting standards the ACR calibrated properly should be more than enough for you.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2006, 01:37:27 pm by pom »
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marc.s

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« Reply #21 on: April 05, 2006, 01:49:59 pm »

It's hard to tell since I simply have no idea what the LCDs are capable of compared to the CRTs. When I chose my CRT I did so after reading a bunch of reviews and perhaps looking at 15-20 different displays in person (some of them twice as expensive as the one I chose, but no better in my opinion).

With the LCDs it seems everyone says it's hard to get similar quality as from the CRTs unless you pay through the nose, and they simply aren't displayed here so I can't see what they're like. I would not be happy getting something worse than my current monitor (I know what cheap CRTs are like, they're no good at all for photo editing).

I love quality, but I prioritize quality glass in my budget over a lot of other stuff. I also spend a ton of time editing images, but they're mostly photojournalism style (both for clients and fine art); and I never shoot colour critical catalogue work for agencies. My work is colour critical alright, but through my own subjective criteria, not through the demand of an agency.

If the Apple Cinema display doesn't swivel to a portrait mode it's a bit of a bummer with all the portrait mode shots I do.
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #22 on: April 05, 2006, 02:10:07 pm »

How often did you turn your CRT on its side?  

Seriously, the 20" is no smaller vertically than my present screen so I didn't even think of letting it bother me. I very very rarely view my pictures that large anyway, I process for print not computer viewing so it's never been an issue for me.
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marc.s

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« Reply #23 on: April 05, 2006, 02:41:28 pm »

Quote
How often did you turn your CRT on its side? 

Why, I do that every time I view a portrait picture, don't you??  

I view pictures on the computer all the time, and it always bothers me how small portraits are, it's hard to see them properly. I want big, big, big when I'm making decisions (I like to step back to view, and it's hard if it's the size of a stamp).

I'm warming up to that NEC 2070NX, but it's extremely hard to find any serious review of it so I'm still hoping someone here might have used it. Another thing is that it's 1600x1200 which may make text too small on a 20". I'm used to 1024x768 on my 17" and not sure smaller text than that would be good. Changing the font size in Windows seems to bring mixed results in applications with each one having its own fonts to use.

Oh yeah, and that one doesn't pivot either. Of course, the much-criticized Dell pivots, but that's no use if all my prints are coming out a stop too dark because the display is blinding me.
« Last Edit: April 05, 2006, 02:42:01 pm by marc.s »
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #24 on: April 05, 2006, 04:05:16 pm »

You could get a studio sized sheet of ND filter Gel....    

I'm using 1024x768 on my 17" at present and have the windows display size set to the large size, 120DPI, (display/settings/advanced/general) don't know how people can stand having their screen size set to 90dpi on huge screens, it was a pain and a half when I made my website, trying to accomodate all screen sizes, I ended up making it graphics heavy with all the menu's and titles graphics at a minimum filesize using 'save for web'. It makes it more uniform at least and still far faster than using flash.

I've just sat here for a couple of seconds wondering why vertical pictures don't bother me on my screen. Took me a while to realise that I rarely do anything in vertical. Not that I don't shoot in vertical, I do a lot of vertical shooting, but I have them set not to rotate in camera for a larger view on screen (especially as I have it permenantly in 'info' mode) and because the actions I use when batching include resizing and often cropping (for 7X5" proofs) and having seperate batching for vertical/horizontal would be a pain in the neck, I've long ago gotten used to doing all the editing in horizontal. My wife used to get a sore neck trying to see the photos but I'm so used to it I hardly ever rotate to work in the correct orientation.

This is a quote from Karl Lang who designed the Artisan, from another thread here re his advice on LCD displays.

Quote
Price performance wise the great bargain is the NEC 1980SXI BK the
price/vs colorimetric performance of this display can't be beat. The
2180ux Is a great display at a reasonable but high end price.

In the mid-high wide screen I like the Apple and the SONY. Reject the
display if uniformity is bad and make sure whomever you buy it from
will exchange it.

The Eizo 210 is great if you can justify the current cost. Give it two
years and most high-end displays should perform at this level. 220 is a
great display but suffers from all the downfalls of any wide gamut
display.

There is no reason to buy the La Cie 321 it's just an NEC with their
label on it and an extra $400.

No doubt you've seen it already, I think someone already linked to the thread early on here, but it does mention a NEC...
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marc.s

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« Reply #25 on: April 05, 2006, 04:23:36 pm »

I'm not sure I follow regarding the gel..?

As for text size, the problem is just that not everything scales up properly so a few things will be out of whack, like some websites and some programs that insist on specific fonts and sizes (or use graphics). The standard 96 dpi setting works for me with the same res and monitor size, but I'll try to check some stores to see how things look in terms of size (much easier than getting to see good displays).

I did see Karl Lang's recommendation, but the 1980SXI is a big chunk more expensive than the 1980FXI here, I would not feel comfortable stretching that far. I haven't seen any real mention of other NEC displays..

Oh, and I have no idea how you can edit pictures that are turned sideways, but we probably have very different workflows. I spend a lot of time considering composition (thus the need to move away from the monitor), and can labour over a single image for quite a while. Sideways? I guess I would have to do it lying down with the monitor on the floor..
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #26 on: April 05, 2006, 04:29:03 pm »

Nope, just try editing a wedding worth of photos in a couple of hours! It's not landscape stuff that can take hours per photo, I can tweak 200 files from a wedding in 45 mins using ACR. You get used to not bothering to rotate, the composition has been taken care of in camera, tweaking brighness, shadows and curves doesn't need the photo to be the right way up per se. Culling the files down to the required set of proofs is harder when they are all horizontal, sometimes though rarely I will rotate when having difficulty choosing between two similar photos, but most of the time I don't have a problem.
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ddolde

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« Reply #27 on: April 05, 2006, 09:07:21 pm »

I have an EIZO Coloredge CG21.   I couldn't ask for a better monitor unless it was the new wide screen CG220.
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Bobtrips

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« Reply #28 on: April 05, 2006, 09:24:14 pm »

Quote
I spend a lot of time considering composition (thus the need to move away from the monitor), and can labour over a single image for quite a while.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=61934\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]


By moving away from the monitor what are you doing except making the image 'smaller'?

Why not just make it smaller?

(Well, I suppose you'd miss out on the exercise....)
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marc.s

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« Reply #29 on: April 06, 2006, 06:17:40 am »

Quote
By moving away from the monitor what are you doing except making the image 'smaller'?

Why not just make it smaller?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=61975\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I'm not sure why exactly it works, it just does. I also change the size on screen constantly for the same reason, but the best way for me to determine composition is from further away provided the picture is large enough to see. I suppose the answer is the same as to why would you want to watch a film on a big screen from far away rather than on a small screen close up? If the angle of view is identical, what's the point? Well, it clearly makes a difference. Maybe it's partly a resolution factor, partly a stereoscopic factor.

The Eizo CG21 is out of my league. Right now I'm looking at the NEC 2170NX; same price as the Apple 20" and 21" 1600x1200.
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #30 on: April 06, 2006, 09:37:04 pm »

Just got my apple and sorted it out, it's smaller than I imagined but looks just fine next to my 17" compaq which is now my 2nd screen, looks pretty fuzzy in comparison!

Even after calibration and the brightness on the lowest setting the screen is too bright for me, I lowered it to 90% using the video card setting just to get it right according to my print test target. I would be horrified to imagine what the dell would be like if, for me, even the apple is too bright.
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marc.s

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« Reply #31 on: April 07, 2006, 07:58:58 am »

TFTs are typically set to 110-120 candela while CRTs are usually running at 85-95 if they are working well (not too old). So it's tricky to have a CRT next to a TFT the way TFTs are normally run..

That was just a tidbit of information I've gathered in my own search over the last few days, I guarantee none of the content to be correct

How do you like the Apple otherwise? Are the gradients smooth or is there visible banding?
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #32 on: April 07, 2006, 11:14:52 am »

If I could get this bloody Spyder 2 software to install (keeps crashing) then I would be able to calibrate and tell you!  
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marc.s

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« Reply #33 on: April 07, 2006, 11:53:17 am »

I just saw the Apple 20" today in a store demo, it was smaller than I thought as well! It's the diagonal of widescreen that plays its trickery. Photos looked very nice, colours looked natural..

Maybe there's an update to the Spyder software you can use?
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #34 on: April 07, 2006, 12:39:32 pm »

I did, downloaded it and it worked fine.

Firstly, people seem to say that you should calibrate for 'native', after trying it with this display I heartily disagree, 6500 was far more accurate for me.

Other than that I'm struggling with dimming the brightness while keeping control of the contrast. The blacks still seem too open and the contrast is too high. If anyone can help me calibrate and keep the brightness down without getting funky blacks and contrast then I would be most appreciative.

It's a great screen and I'm loving the widescreen, but I need to get the brighness/contrast/colour right, after all that is what it's for.
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digitaldog

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« Reply #35 on: April 07, 2006, 12:50:52 pm »

Quote
Firstly, people seem to say that you should calibrate for 'native', after trying it with this display I heartily disagree, 6500 was far more accurate for me.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=62082\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

First if it's an LCD, the native white point should be pretty close to 6500K.

How are you viewing the differences? You want to be doing something like this (assuming you're on a Mac):

Load first profile (say built using Native) in the control panel. You'll see LUT update.
Switch to Photoshop with image open. As soon as you do, you'll see it update the preview. It's using the profile you just "loaded"

Load the 2nd profile (6500K). IGNORE LUT udpate and go into Photoshop and examine.

Both previews in Photoshop should look virtually identical because PS is using the profile and compensating based on how it's built. The minor difference you may see is banding on smooth gradients using 6500K versus Native. And you'll have to ASSIGN those profiles to the test gradient.

If Native is really really close to 6500K, you may not see any difference at all. But one is doing nothing to the graphic card and the other might be. The more adjustment on the graphic card, the more banding you'll likely to see.
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #36 on: April 07, 2006, 01:01:25 pm »

The difference is pretty noticeable with native being a good 500-1000K cooler to my eyes. I'm using a recent wedding I shot for reference, i know what the prints looked like, i know what they looked like on the CRT, on the LCD the blacks are far too open, over contrasty and have colour shifts. The facial tones are OK-ish but the blacks are unnacceptable. Would it be worth trying to calibrate at gamma 1.8 instead of 2.2?
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digitaldog

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« Reply #37 on: April 07, 2006, 01:14:20 pm »

Quote
Would it be worth trying to calibrate at gamma 1.8 instead of 2.2?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=62085\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Not really. IF the calibration and profile are "accurate" using either would produce roughly the same previews in Photoshop. The main difference would be the degree of correction occurring at the graphic card. We want to do as little as possible.

White Point will look different even with Display Using Monitor Compensation in an ICC aware application. But the difference between Native and 6500 shouldn't be much. Do you have a D65 option to try?
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Ben Rubinstein

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« Reply #38 on: April 07, 2006, 01:32:59 pm »

I'm trying everything at present just to try and get accurate blacks!

I'm going to try the native again, see what happens.
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marc.s

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« Reply #39 on: April 07, 2006, 04:28:49 pm »

Yikes, not liking the sound of all this trouble, and I haven't even bought one yet.

Is it possible that the Spyder 2 doesn't work well with the Apple?

Also, how bright is your display since you're trying to dim it? If you're only dimming it to match the CRT, but the accuracy goes down the drain with too dim light, perhaps that's where the problem lies? Have you measured the brightness?
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