State of 4K monitors for photo editing

[Czornyj]

I'm not 100% sure about SVII, but I have accidentally noticed that EA2x4WMi series displays supported by GammaComp MD QA can also be calibrated with SVII - it's not official, so I guess you can't ask for any help in case of problems, but works. So I'm quite confident the EA244UHD will be no exception to this rule.

All I know is the information from NEC site:
http://www.nec-display.com/jp/display/business_standard/lcdea244uhd/

It states the display is equipped with the same 14bit LUT as the PA series, uniformity compensation, GBr LED backlight and 23kHz PWM dimmer. So basically it looks like the mighty PA in sheep's clothing. Probably it won't be as robust, individually calibrated, nor supported by Multiprofiler.

Hmm they've really added internal 14bit 3D LUT to the EA series now? And SVII support? How is it not PA series then? Is it missing the uniformity compensator then I guess and that is the difference? Are EA series still all regular gamut only, maybe it lacks wide gamut?

I wrote it off since I didn't think it would have internal calibration (or uniformity control) and didn't think it would be wide gamut. I guess I was wrong about the fancy color engine control and calibration hmm. Am I wrong about the wide gamut too?

EDIT: Hmm it IS wide gamut too.

Hmm so the only thing it lacks then is the uniformity compensation? Or does it even have that too? If so why didn't they just call it the PA244UHD?

[hjulenissen]

...Does Lightroom jab soft proofing and can you explain what it is in simple terms?

I can have a jab at it :-)

Soft proofing tries to emulate (certain aspects of) the appearance of a print using your display by having accurate profiles of both display and printer/ink/paper. Thus, you can have instant feedback on your editing, instead of wasting expensive paper/ink/time for every slider move.

-h

[feppe]

EA244UHD is build on PA series DNA, so it has 14(16)bit 3DLUT + DUC driven AH-IPS GBr LED panel with 23kHz PWM.

That's some pretty impressive alphabet soup 

[D Fosse]

That's some pretty impressive alphabet soup

 

Here's how that would sound to my wife:

"AE673OKS is build on LY series GED, so it has 23(67)bit 4KMZD + WQP driven AN-EFP DNs KOQ panel with 38mAi MZD".

<oh, mzd...that's so cute...let's have two, shall we...?>

 

[WombatHorror]

hmm wow, kind of bizarre they didn't just call it PA, maybe it's a way to sneak out a PA242 UHD and charge not much more than for the PA242 HD and not upset the pricing scales on the HD PA series?

Maybe it is worth waiting to see exactly how it pans out before jumping at the Dell. Oh well.

Oh I wonder though for the monitors not officially supported by SV II but where it works anyway, would SV II know to use the proper wide gamut LED backlight table for the i1 Display pro probe or might it end up using the wrong table??

I'm not 100% sure about SVII, but I have accidentally noticed that EA2x4WMi series displays supported by GammaComp MD QA can also be calibrated with SVII - it's not official, so I guess you can't ask for any help in case of problems, but works. So I'm quite confident the EA244UHD will be no exception to this rule.

All I know is the information from NEC site:
http://www.nec-display.com/jp/display/business_standard/lcdea244uhd/

It states the display is equipped with the same 14bit LUT as the PA series, uniformity compensation, GBr LED backlight and 23kHz PWM dimmer. So basically it looks like the mighty PA in sheep's clothing. Probably it won't be as robust, individually calibrated, nor supported by Multiprofiler.

[jjj]

EA244UHD is build on PA series DNA, so it has 14(16)bit 3DLUT + DUC driven AH-IPS GBr LED panel with 23kHz PWM.

I'm going to get one of these instead!

[Harry Jackson]

Hi everyone.its good to be here.am quite new here though and hope i wont be sounding odd here if i ask the op hw long he has been working with dell please

[Czornyj]

This thing is mind-blowing! It's as close as it gets to a limit between LCD and LSD

[feppe]

I've used Photoshop CC now for 20 or so hours with the Dell, so sharing my experience. All of the time was editing large format drum scans, massive ~250MP 16-bit files.

Using the UI is quite difficult with the extremely tiny icons. They are easy enough to hit with a medium-sized Intuos tablet, but hovering over the icon to figure out what it does is fiddly for less often used tasks.

The screen does come to its own when editing, though. The high DPI is great especially for spotting and pixel editing the scans, colors are succulent and accurate, gamut is indeed wide, and the monitor is just a joy to use. The high DPI helps by getting much more image real estate on the screen. I haven't tried soft-proofing or printing comparisons, yet.

I also haven't done testing of proper sharpening preview settings. I recall Schewe mentioned years ago that 50% setting on screen is appropriate to compare to printing, but I have a feeling that might be reliant on screen DPI.

Overall it works, but it is tedious to use. If I edited photos as my day job I wouldn't want to use PS on this monitor until the UI scales better, but for my use (1-3 hours at a time) it is fine. I wish Adobe/nVidia would get their act together and offer proper support for 4K monitors. They've been around for a year now at reasonable prices, and are only becoming more popular.

[Czornyj]

I've just started to use NEC EA244UHD as a companion to my 30" NEC:

Right now I'm keeping UI elements on 30" and edit images on this mighty little bastard. But I hope OSX will get an 4k HiDPI update soon...

[Czornyj]

The detailness is awesome!

[MrSmith]

But what happens when you want to work at 100% for paths/details/masking etc? I use a retina MBP to shoot to and some on set retouch and have to view at 200% to get me close to a normal screens 100% view and to check sharpness. You are getting interpolation at his level and always wait until I am back on my Eizo 'normal' monitor as the bigger 100%view is easier to work with and far better to judge sharpening (though I do very little as images are for repro and I leave that to client as it's dependent on output size and media, I don't print inkjet prints)
The 100% view on a 4k monitor would be too small? Or have I got it wrong and the pixel size is the same but there's just more monitor real estate?

[feppe]

But what happens when you want to work at 100% for paths/details/masking etc? I use a retina MBP to shoot to and some on set retouch and have to view at 200% to get me close to a normal screens 100% view and to check sharpness. You are getting interpolation at his level and always wait until I am back on my Eizo 'normal' monitor as the bigger 100%view is easier to work with and far better to judge sharpening (though I do very little as images are for repro and I leave that to client as it's dependent on output size and media, I don't print inkjet prints)
The 100% view on a 4k monitor would be too small? Or have I got it wrong and the pixel size is the same but there's just more monitor real estate?

100% on a 4k monitor is smaller for a similarly sized 1080p monitor. Exactly quarter the size. This is actually a nice "feature" of 4k, as you can scale 1080p up to 4k by doubling both x and y pixel dimensions. Not very relevant to this site or what this monitor is for, but very relevant for movie viewing on a TV or projector, since blurays are 1080p and can be scaled up without any loss in detail.

Pixel size on a 24" 4k monitor is much smaller than any other non-4k monitor out there. Whether that's too small depends on the person. Some say 24" is too small to get full benefit of 4k, which is patently false for most monitor uses for people with normal vision as I argued in the OP. Nevertheless, some prefer larger screen sizes no matter the pixel pitch, and those are available from Dell and others. Possibly some find the small pixel size pointless, but can't really see how that would occur after one has used such a monitor for any length of time, UI issues with OS and PS notwithstanding. It really is that good.

As for editing, I tend to go between 12.5% and 100% for most editing, just like I did with my old 1680x1050 monitor. I find myself going to 200% or 300% for difficult masking or pixel-level editing. 200% zoom doesn't require interpolation, although I don't know (or care) what PS does under the hood to get there. In any case, there's no way any inaccuracies resulting from zooming in would be detectable on a print, or even at 100% - and not sure how they would even occur. This is from photographer perspective, not graphic designer or pixel peeping.

[Alan Klein]

I'm in the market for a 4K HDTV for watching movies as well as display of my photos and my DVD video shows.  Does anyone know how the up rez scaling is done for smaller than the native 4k size?

[WombatHorror]

I'm in the market for a 4K HDTV for watching movies as well as display of my photos and my DVD video shows.  Does anyone know how the up rez scaling is done for smaller than the native 4k size?

It all depends upon is doing the showing and how things are set. Probably not many set top boxes/external DVD or blu-ray players and such scale to 4k so mostly that stuff would be done by the TV's scaler.
Driving things off of a PC it depends on the program. Some like MPC with plug-ins let you chose between all sorts of different upscaling algorithms others like Windows Media Player or Windows Media Center are locked into whatever it is they do to scale.

And for photos it all totally depends upon the image viewing program.

[Czornyj]

Just like I suspected, now it's official - EA244UHD is supported by Spectraview II:

A newer version 1.1.17 is available for download.
The following changes have been made in this version:

1. Added support for Photo Research Spectroradiometers.
2. Improved the 'Update Internal Calibration' function calibration accuracy on PAxx2 series displays.
3. Added support for the EA244UHD and EA304WMi displays.
4. Added BT.1886 gamma curve preset.
5. Improved UI layout

[Czornyj]

After having a good time with new NEC PA322UHD (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=91411.msg743865#msg743865) I came back to EA244UHD to counteract horrible UHD withdrawal syndrome

A couple of words about the NEC screen surface, which is very smart, and IMHO very well adapted for photo editing work. All new NEC PA and some EA series displays (including EA244UHD) feature satin diffuser.

It reflects the light incident at a large angle:


...but diffuses the light incident straight on the diffuser:




Such solution gives cleaner image - there's no "clouding", "sparkling" effect, like in case of heavy matte diffusers. The screen is also less prone to flare from ambient light, that reduces the perceived contrast ratio of the display.

[yalag]

Does anyone know what the current state is with 4k for OSX? I'm really interested in getting a 4k monitor, my mac pro just arrived but:

1) Will the text and UI in OSX be too small to use in 4k resolution?

2) I also do video editing, and need to view them in 60 fps. Is there going to be a problem with that?

[Jim Kasson]

The new NEC 4K monitor came yesterday. I swapped it in ot a Win 7 x64 system, replacing a 30 inch NEC PA 301W. The old AMI display adapter, which wasn't supposed to support 4K, recognized the display and switched to full res. I changed the Windows fonts to 150%. I fired up Lr. Looked great. I launched Ps. The toolbar is really tiny. So is the top status bar. The open tools on the right are smaller, but I can deal with that.

It's hard to quickly find the right tool now, and hard to change the setting of the current tool. Anybody have any ideas, besides learning all the keyboard shortcuts? Does it work this way on the Mac?

Jim

[Peter McLennan]

What version of Photoshop are you running?  It's possible they've fixed it with current releases.  If not, they should.