Dell widescreen LCD's

[Jeff L]

Hello All.
I'm new to the forum and a first time poster. I'm preparing to get my first wide screen monitor. I'm not new to photography but relatively new to digital photography and the digital darkroom. I consider myself a serious amateur.
Currently I'm using a Mitsubishi 21" diamond Pro 2040u crt and am happy with it. I just want more real estate. Currently using CS3, Lightroom 2. My video card is a EVGA 8800 gtx with 768 mb on board. I'm not prepared to spend the really big bucks for a high end LCD, but see that Dell has some 26" - 30" lcd wide screens in my price range: $1500.00 +/-. The question is: Are they any good? Are any of you users happy with them. I also heard that Planar's are decent and have similar specs to the NEC's but are less expensive. My main priority is will my prints - color and monochrome - look like they do on the screen? I would certainly appreciate any suggestions, tips, advise etc.. should I wait until some of the newer technologies come out? One catch: I'm also a gamer.
Thanks much in advance for your help. I look forward to hearing from you. I also apologize in advance if all this info has already been posted. (I searched but couldn't find specifically what I was looking for.)

[DarkPenguin]

http://www.prad.de/en/guide/hersteller116.html

[walter.sk]

Currently I'm using a Mitsubishi 21" diamond Pro 2040u crt and am happy with it. I just want more real estate. Currently using CS3, Lightroom 2. My video card is a EVGA 8800 gtx with 768 mb on board. I'm not prepared to spend the really big bucks for a high end LCD, but see that Dell has some 26" - 30" lcd wide screens in my price range: $1500.00 +/-. The question is: Are they any good?

I just retired my old Mitsubishi 22" 2060u.  I loved it and trusted it, until I began getting blue smudges to the right of vertical lines and red smudges to the left.  I replaced it with a NEC LCD 3090WQXi and am thrilled with it.  At a luminance setting of 125 candelas I can match my prints at elast as well as I did on the CRT.

You can get an NEC 2690WUXii, which is wide screen and covers 98% of the Adobe RGB gamut, for $1173 at  Provantage. That is well within the price range you mention, and if you already have a colorimeter, $100 at NEC will get you the SpectraViewII software that will allow you to calibrate and profile the 2690 using its internal LUT, which will give you much better performance than by utilizing changes to the LUT (lookup table) in your video card.  Your video card should also be able to run the 2690 at its native resolution of 1900x1200 pixels.

Provantage

[Jeff L]

http://www.prad.de/en/guide/hersteller116.html

Darkpenguin,
thanks for the response. I will check out that link. I appreciate your response.

[Jeff L]

I just retired my old Mitsubishi 22" 2060u.  I loved it and trusted it, until I began getting blue smudges to the right of vertical lines and red smudges to the left.  I replaced it with a NEC LCD 3090WQXi and am thrilled with it.  At a luminance setting of 125 candelas I can match my prints at elast as well as I did on the CRT.

You can get an NEC 2690WUXii, which is wide screen and covers 98% of the Adobe RGB gamut, for $1173 at  Provantage. That is well within the price range you mention, and if you already have a colorimeter, $100 at NEC will get you the SpectraViewII software that will allow you to calibrate and profile the 2690 using its internal LUT, which will give you much better performance than by utilizing changes to the LUT (lookup table) in your video card.  Your video card should also be able to run the 2690 at its native resolution of 1900x1200 pixels.

Provantage

Walter.sk.
Thanks very much for the info and reply. I am definitely going to check out the NEC's. I'm also looking at Planar's. My son has a 26" widescreen that he uses for gaming. don't know how well they'll work for image editing though.
In the meantime thanks to both of you for your input.

[Jeff L]

I just retired my old Mitsubishi 22" 2060u.  I loved it and trusted it, until I began getting blue smudges to the right of vertical lines and red smudges to the left.  I replaced it with a NEC LCD 3090WQXi and am thrilled with it.  At a luminance setting of 125 candelas I can match my prints at elast as well as I did on the CRT.

You can get an NEC 2690WUXii, which is wide screen and covers 98% of the Adobe RGB gamut, for $1173 at  Provantage. That is well within the price range you mention, and if you already have a colorimeter, $100 at NEC will get you the SpectraViewII software that will allow you to calibrate and profile the 2690 using its internal LUT, which will give you much better performance than by utilizing changes to the LUT (lookup table) in your video card.  Your video card should also be able to run the 2690 at its native resolution of 1900x1200 pixels.

Provantage

One other thing Walter.sk.. with my Mitsubishi, I was able to calibrate the monitor with just the Adobe gamma Loader software that comes with adobe products. It worked fine and I didn't have to invest any money on calibration equipment or software. Do you think I could get away with doing that on a LCD?

[Richowens]

Jeff L
 I'm not Walter but I will give you my answer.

 No.

 Do yourself a favor and invest in the calibrator. Until I got an Eye1 I didn't know how bad Adobe Gamma loader was.

 If you wind up with a NEC get the Spectraview software from them. You won't regret it.

Rich

[DarkPenguin]

I agree with that.  Even a huey is better than adobe gamma.

[walter.sk]

I agree with that.  Even a huey is better than adobe gamma.

I agree about the Adobe Gamma.  In fact, I don't think it is included with CS4.  It depended on your room illumination, your distance from the monitor, your ability to squint just the right amount, the other colors in your visual field, and many other variables.

There is a slippery slope ahead of you in terms of learning about color management and getting some basic hardware and software to help.  It really doesn't pay to get a good monitor unless you plan to profile it accurately.  Fortunately today there are sources for decent paper profiles for you printer, some free and some custom made, but what you want to do is be able to optimize your pictures on a good monitor, and know that what comes out of the printer will accurately reflect your hard work on the images.

You mentioned a budget of $1500, which would get you the NEC 2690 WUXi2 and the SpectraViewII software with an iOne Display 2 colorimeter.  I strongly recommend the video by Michael Reichmann and Jeff Shewe called From Camera To Print, which is available on the Luminous Landscape home page for about $35.  It consists of almost 7 hours of well thought out lessons on things you have to know if you want to make the best use of the expensive equipment you already have, or will be using.  Their segments on monitor profiling, color management and softproofing are easily understood.  If you start out now with learning that material you will save money in the long run by not buying the wrong types of equipment, and you will also develop tried and true ways of working with your images.

I can list several categories of equipment where the original sticker shock made me think that cheaper equipment would do just fine.  Tripods are one, for example, and I can show you a lineup of tripods ranging from cheap to not so cheap, but when you add up the prices, they amount to at least as much as my good tripod cost, but they sit in the closet because they do not do the job.

I'll get off the soapbox now.  I didn't intend to preach, but...

[mikev1]

I agree about the Adobe Gamma.  In fact, I don't think it is included with CS4.  It depended on your room illumination, your distance from the monitor, your ability to squint just the right amount, the other colors in your visual field, and many other variables.

There is a slippery slope ahead of you in terms of learning about color management and getting some basic hardware and software to help.  It really doesn't pay to get a good monitor unless you plan to profile it accurately.  Fortunately today there are sources for decent paper profiles for you printer, some free and some custom made, but what you want to do is be able to optimize your pictures on a good monitor, and know that what comes out of the printer will accurately reflect your hard work on the images.

You mentioned a budget of $1500, which would get you the NEC 2690 WUXi2 and the SpectraViewII software with an iOne Display 2 colorimeter.  I strongly recommend the video by Michael Reichmann and Jeff Shewe called From Camera To Print, which is available on the Luminous Landscape home page for about $35.  It consists of almost 7 hours of well thought out lessons on things you have to know if you want to make the best use of the expensive equipment you already have, or will be using.  Their segments on monitor profiling, color management and softproofing are easily understood.  If you start out now with learning that material you will save money in the long run by not buying the wrong types of equipment, and you will also develop tried and true ways of working with your images.

I can list several categories of equipment where the original sticker shock made me think that cheaper equipment would do just fine.  Tripods are one, for example, and I can show you a lineup of tripods ranging from cheap to not so cheap, but when you add up the prices, they amount to at least as much as my good tripod cost, but they sit in the closet because they do not do the job.

I'll get off the soapbox now.  I didn't intend to preach, but...

Walter makes some great points,  if you intend to spend money on a premium monitor you should plan to profile your equipment or what is the point?  Though be warned this can lead to a quick decent into your worst nightmare if you don't do things properly.  I spend a couple of months trying to get a monitor and printer that were previously in sync back to the point where I was getting acceptable output.  Never did find out what I did wrong.   It just worked one day.  The Color management forum has lots of great suggestions at what you should be looking at.

[bwest5]

I just retired my old Mitsubishi 22" 2060u.  I loved it and trusted it, until I began getting blue smudges to the right of vertical lines and red smudges to the left.  I replaced it with a NEC LCD 3090WQXi and am thrilled with it.  At a luminance setting of 125 candelas I can match my prints at elast as well as I did on the CRT.

You can get an NEC 2690WUXii, which is wide screen and covers 98% of the Adobe RGB gamut, for $1173 at  Provantage. That is well within the price range you mention, and if you already have a colorimeter, $100 at NEC will get you the SpectraViewII software that will allow you to calibrate and profile the 2690 using its internal LUT, which will give you much better performance than by utilizing changes to the LUT (lookup table) in your video card.  Your video card should also be able to run the 2690 at its native resolution of 1900x1200 pixels.

Provantage

Hi Walter:

The 26" NEC Monitor you should be looking at is the NEC LCD2690WUXi2 which has just come out and is an upgrade to the NEC LCD 3090WQXi.  It costs the same but in fact has the 98 percent color gamut noted above.  There old model had 93 percent if I am not mistaken.  You can get specs at these to URL:

http://www.necdisplay.com/Products/Product...c3-37506ddc9775

http://www.necdisplay.com/Products/Product...de-14309a636738

Also there is further discussions on color monitors on the site which you might want to check out.

Bob West

[walter.sk]

Hi Walter:

The 26" NEC Monitor you should be looking at is the NEC LCD2690WUXi2 which has just come out and is an upgrade to the NEC LCD 3090WQXi.  It costs the same but in fact has the 98 percent color gamut noted above.  There old model had 93 percent if I am not mistaken.  
Bob West

The 2690WUXi2 is an upgrade to the 2690WUXi, but has the same specs as the 3090WQXi, which is rated at ~98% of the Adobe RGB space.