Last week I received my
Dell UP2414Q monitor. It is a 24-inch 4K monitor, which is video geek speak for Ultra HD resolution of 3840 x 2160, four times the pixels of Full HD, aka 1080p. There is also a 32" and 28" 4K monitor from Dell, with differing specs.
The 24" I bought has a rather impressive 184ppi, near some of the highest-resolution tablets out there. Other features include portrait mode, DP and HDMI inputs, USB ports and card reader. In addition, it covers 99% of AdobeRGB, comes factory calibrated (mine was close to or below 1 deltaE), and supports hardware calibration with i1Display Pro.
I've done some testing over the weekend on the monitor, and thought I'd share brief experiences with Lightroom and Photoshop CC versions running on Windows 7, and Gimp on Linux Mint 16. I don't have my i1Display, and haven't done thorough tweaking of the programs, yet. The only change to settings was to drop Brightness to 27, as the default 50 is way too bright for my rather dark workspace.
Full disclosure and disclaimer: I work for Dell, but this post is purely my personal views, and does not represent my employer's views. I bought the monitor myself.
First, some notes on hardware. Current HDMI spec doesn't have the bandwidth for 60Hz at 4K, so you're stuck with 30Hz if HDMI is the only output you have. Upcoming HDMI update will support 60Hz. The monitor comes with DisplayPort cable, which does go up to 60Hz if your GPU supports DP 1.2. I'm using MSI GTX760, an nVidia GPU, and 60Hz works with it. Driver and OS support for MST (DP 1.2 at 60Hz) is spotty at the moment, though, and you have to power cycle the monitor sometimes to fix the image. SST (DP 1.2
off) at 30Hz works flawlessly on both Win7 and Mint, though.
The monitor supports 10-bit output via
AFRC. On Windows you need a Quadro card to get 10-bit output, though. Apparently nVidia's Linux drivers allow 10-bit output even on consumer-grade GPUs, but I haven't looked into that, yet. If that is true, this would mean that nVidia's Windows drivers are purposefully crippled, just like X-Rite's ColorMunki vs i1Display Pro (same hardware, 5x faster calibration).
In any case, since Photoshop is pretty much the only software out there that supports 10 bits, and its benefits are very likely marginal, I'm not in much hurry to research this further.
I've set Windows 7 UI scaling at 150%, which is the max. Win8.1 allows it to be set to 200%, I believe, but 150% is perfectly fine for my needs. I've set Mint at 150%, although it goes to 200%, maybe higher. The extremely high ppi makes text readable at much smaller pitches than at 1080p or 2160p resolutions. And the monitor is beautifully sharp, making text extremely crisp.
Off to software. Lightroom scales extremely well. It consistently honors the UI scaling set in Win7, and the tools are easy to use. There is a lot of real estate left over for the image even when you open up both side tabs, and the widescreen high-ppi monitor really comes to life and is a joy to use with LR.
Photoshop is a different story. Menus and popups scale as expected, but none of the icons do. For example, the standard selection, eyedropper and draw tool icons are about quarter the size of an average pinky nail. No exaggeration here. I can kinda tell which one is which from normal viewing distance, partly because I know their order already. But I can see it becoming a
very frustrating and eye-straining experience with any serious editing job requiring more than a passing visit to PS. Hitting the right icon with an Intuos tablet or mouse is difficult.
Finally, GIMP. I haven't used GIMP much, and won't until they come with 16-bit support. This is promised in version 2.10, which hopefully, perhaps, maybe arrives this decade. 16-bit editing has been promised for years and years, but this is another topic.
GIMP has similar issues as Photoshop, but not as bad. UI scales well with larger fonts, but icons do not. Fortunately GIMP's icons are larger than PS's, so they are a bit easier to discern and hit.
Bottom line is that all three photo editing softwares work. LR works well. Very well, in fact. But both PS and GIMP will be painful to use, I'm afraid literally after an hour or two. Adobe forums threads going back to last fall about the subject point to a blame game between Adobe and nVidia/AMD, so it's hard to say who can and will fix it, or when.
Images on the monitor look stunning, beautiful, and other superlatives. When I first saw the 32" version of the screen in our showroom, I spent a good half an hour on my website just admiring my photos, seen in entirely new light. Just like seeing 1080p for the first time 10+ years ago, that trip became quite expensive, as I just
needed to upgrade to 4K - it really is that good!
And that brings to a related topic. As 4K becomes more popular, people will start demanding higher-resolution images. I upgraded my travel photography website to high def last year, but now I need to go even higher to cater to the increasing number of visitors with 4K monitors.
Full-resolution screenshots follow to give an idea of what to expect. Below Lightroom 5 CC Library module.
addendum: to pre-empt the inevitable "who needs 4K", here a
handy screen resolution chart I've been using for years. It's for projectors, but the principle is the same. For my viewing distance of 50-60cm, I'm at or near the "full benefit" from 4K. There are more detailed calculators available which take into account visual acuity, but for most people's monitor use, 4K will bring a real and visible improvement over lower-resolution alternatives. 8K is another discussion...