Shutter Island Photography

I'm looking for a new monitor for my computer and I'm wondering what I should be looking for in a monitor to get my best results in the finished product.

david vt Loc: Vermont

This topic comes up frequently. As a new user, you may not realize there is a search function option at the top. The engine is not fantastic, but it will likely give you 50+ threads discussing monitor requirements and comparisons

As important would be the graphics card as well. You may want to search on this on its own, or under “computers for editing”
Good luck

Just Fred Loc: Darwin's Waiting Room

The search function is a bit limited. But you can also use Google. Simply open a Google search page and type your search criteria followed by (without the quotes) "site:www.uglyhedgehog.com".

Shutter Island Photography

Thank you

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

Best? That's simple Eizo ColorEdge CG277 27" Hardware Calibration IPS LCD Monitor https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1038829-REG/eizo_cg277_bk_27_wide_screen_color_gamut.html?ap=y&c3api=1876%2C%7Bcreative%7D%2C%7Bkeyword%7D&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgrbZwPO22QIVkLbACh1AKQPjEAYYASABEgKGKfD_BwE
--Bob

jackpi Loc: Southwest Ohio

Unless you are printing, the monitor you use is not relevant. If you are posting on the web, those viewing your image will be using all sorts of monitors of which 99% will be uncalibrated. If you are printing, calibrate the monitor you have, for best results. Even with a high quality calibrated monitor, you will have to make adjustments to you colors and sharpness to replicate in print what you see on your monitor.

Shutter Island Photography

I'll keep that in mind but my monitor is really old (close to 15 yrs) and is starting to have lines going across it. I'm just waiting for it to not turn on one day lol.

RolandDieter

If you shoot raw+jpeg you might like the wide screen LG monitor. You can view two images side-by-side, so I put the cameras jpeg on the left and process the raw on the right. Having the jpeg helps me make sure I am not going overboard with the raw corrections.

Shutter Island Photography

Thanks, I really like that idea. I'll look into that. Is that something with the video card or is it the monitor?

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Dell and ASUS make some decent, wide gamut (99% AdobeRBG) displays. This is just part of what you need to get best results. The other part is a hardware based profiling tool. Since Spyder does not support displays with programmable LUTs (like Dell and some of the higher end displays from HP and Eizo), you'd do well if you got an Xrite i1 Display Pro to profile the screen.

What you don't want to do is use an unprofiled screen even if you are just making jpegs for viewing on line. Much of the content that is posted on line is color accurate - unless you are looking at photo images from amateurs and those that use cellphone and point and shoot cameras - these will lack color accuracy.

If you profile your screen to a known standard then you can be reasonably assured that others will see close to what you see. If their display produces a green cast, then everything will have a green cast, and they will still perceptually see things somewhat "correctly" It's no different than looking at a blue shirt under fluorescent, incandescent and mid-day outdoor lighting. each situation produces a different color if measured, but your visual perception will still perceive "blue" as the color.

But if your display has a green cast, and you adjust it to add a bunch of magenta, then the colors on un-profiled displays will have a strong magenta cast.

GregoriusU

Also bear in mind that if you are working in a wide gamut (AdobeRGB and above) color model on a wide gamut monitor and wish your photos to show up well on an sRGB monitor, simply converting the image to sRGB may NOT give you the exact results you want. Many wide gamut monitors allow you to switch to an sRGB mode. Once you've converted, switch your monitor to sRGB mode and do any color tweaking you may think necessary to give your image the presentation it deserves. Of course, this only applies to single images. If you have a batch job, you're kind of limited to "convert and hope".

This is even more apparent when you're converting for color printing, but then you're not just converting from one RGB to another, you're converting to a CMYK model which probably has an even smaller gamut and brightness range. Not only that, but you have to take the room lighting into account. Believe me, I've wasted a lot of ink doing test images and learned to do them tests small before settling on a large one.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

This is where Photoshop CC's Soft Proofing tool comes in handy. You don't mess with your monitor at all... Calibrate it, profile it, and when it's time to evaluate sRGB or CMYK, enable soft proofing and set it to the proper simulation profile. You can even simulate various papers and inkjet printers, or various photo labs' printers, or different kinds of papers, inks, and offset presses. MOST better post-processing programs have some sort of soft proofing, or simulation profile mode.

bullethole

My advice is to get a 4K or a 5k monitor with the right graphics card to drive it. I have my 5k iMac and a second 4K display next to it. Now I spend all day looking at these displays and when I have to use the crappy displays at headquarters I get headaches

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

It is THAT old?

df61743 Loc: Corpus Christi, TX

Shutter Island,

Something you need to understand is that it takes two devices to display an image. The most obvious is the monitor, and the sometimes overlooked piece is the graphics card. Those two items must be compatible. If you have a 4K monitor (3840x2160 pixels) you must also have a 4K graphics card that can drive that monitor at that resolution. For you to know the highest resolution monitor you can attach to your machine, you first need to know the make, model, and specs on your graphics card. When I speak of resolution, I'm referring to the pixel dimensions of the screen.

Furthermore, many graphics cards today will easily drive two or three monitors. When you start thinking about upgrading a monitor, it may well be time to also consider an upgrade to your graphics card.

For example, a desktop I have has a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti SC 4GB card with two 27" Asus PB278Q monitors side by side, each set at 2560x1440. Another tower machine has a AMD Radeon R9 270 2GB card with two 28" ASUS PB287Q monitors side by side, each set at 3840x2160 (4K)

Dick