Hi all,
I'm long overdue to upgrade my 7- or 8-year old bottom of the barrel LCD monitor (sRGB), and was hoping to get some guidance from some of the kind folks on this forum. After having done LOTS of research over the last while, I think I've narrowed the process down to a few key questions.
But first, just to give you an idea of my situation, I'm an avid serious amateur nature photographer, and am wanting to start producing fine art prints of my work (possibly for sale). I don't print at home, but the idea is that I will use high-end print shops capable of wide-gamut (beyond sRGB) printing - and I may start printing at home eventually. When I process my pictures, I do so with a proper colour management workflow, editing in 16-bit Adobe RGB 1998, and then converting to 8-bit sRGB for web viewing.
The deal is, I now want to (1) have better image quality with a broader gamut of colours when looking at my finished pictures on my own computer (basically, to improve my own viewing experience when looking at images on screen) and (2) be able to have a better idea of what my photos will look like when printed on wider gamut printers.
Through all my research, I think I've narrowed down my choices to the NEC P242W and NEC PA272W monitors. The main differences between these monitors, as I understand them, are (1) sRGB vs. wide gamut, (2) 24" vs. 27", and (3) 1920 x 1200 vs. 2560 x 1440. But I could really use some help answering the key questions that I think will help me decide between the two:
1. How well does the sRGB emulation mode work on the PA272W? Would an image viewed in that mode look about the same as it would on the P242W? I ask this since, while I do want the ability to know what I'm getting with wide gamut printing, the fact of the matter is that most of what I do ends up on the web.
2. Will the higher resolution of the PA272W require significantly more computer resources? My computer is a decent one (i7 950, 12GB RAM, ATI HD6870 video card), but even with my current 1680 x 1050 monitor, Lightroom still struggles a bit sometimes. I'm therefore worried that the substantially higher resolution of the PA272W will make using LR too much of a pain.
3. When editing pictures in LR and PS, will having a 27" screen provide much more practical real estate over a 24" screen? Keep in mind that I could use my old monitor as a second display to put toolbars and so forth on - however, again, I'm worried that having to drive two displays might slow down LR significantly (in the past, when I had a 1600 x 1200 CRT as a secondary display, using both monitors would slow down LR noticeably).
This is where my internet searching has come to a dead end, I'm afraid, so I would hugely appreciate some help with these questions.
Thanks!