russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

I enjoy looking at my pictures. I have over 3 million taken over 43 years. All are digital now. That's a lot of pictures, though. I could never print them and put them in scrapbooks or photo albums. That would take the rest of my life, so I'd never get to sit down and enjoy them. 4K monitors and TVs came to the rescue since they have USB ports, SD ports, Micro SD port, HDMI cables, and more.

I have a 65" 4K Samsung TV in the office. It occasionally gets used to editing since it's connected to my super computer via Bluetooth. Occasionally I watch movies on it. It is always on, even if I'm not doing anything on it, because it cycles through 25,000 pictures on a USB flash drive. If I look up from my computer monitor, I have the pleasure of seeing my pictures cycling through on 10-second transitions.

My super computer monitor is a 30" 4K LG. It is such a joy to work on, especially since I spend 12-18 hours a day editing photos and videos.

The living room has another 65" 4K Samsung TV, always on, and playing through about 100,000 pictures, fauna and flora.

There are 43" 4K Samsungs in the dining room and three bedrooms, always on and cycling through pictures.

There are 30" 4K Samsungs in the two bathrooms, kitchen, breakfast nook, laundry, hallway, and garage, always on and cycling through pictures.

So it doesn't matter where I go or when I go there, I always get to see my pictures. Life is grand.

saxman71 Loc: Wenatchee

I purchased a 27" 4K LG monitor several months ago. When reviewing processed images from the past (before purchase of the LG monitor), the vast majority look significantly over sharpened and noisy to me now. Of course, when I originally processed these images they looked just fine on my old monitor. As a result I have spent some time reprocessing the better images from my past so they look acceptable on my new LG monitor. I wonder if anyone else has had a similar experience? I'm also finding a lot of the shots here on UHH in the Photo Gallery (particularly landscapes) seem to be over sharpened to my eye and wonder if it's a due to different monitor resolution between what I'm using and what the poster used.

ronaldwrightdallas

you don't NEED 4k, but. I just replaced my very good and expensive TV with a bigger 4k oled version. It has been a few months but I still notice the improvement in detail I see in most shows I watch. and they are mostly not 4k shows.
I will be replacing my current computer monitor with a bigger 4k screen when I upgrade my computer in a year or two

redlegfrog

I don't know your age but as for me I'm old enough to have 2K eyes in a 4K world so I don't get to appreciate all that the new technology can deliver.

AirWalter Loc: Tipp City, Ohio

People will tell you that it is the latest and greatest, so that is what you should buy. I was surprised when my Grandson saved His money from his job at Walmart so that He could finally build a new super gaming computer for himself as He had always been using everyone's older outdated equipment. After doing a lot of research on monitors He finally decided on the monitor that He wanted. He talks to a lot of gamers on line, a couple pro gamers, and it has been discovered that 4k monitors were not performing as well as 2k monitors in the gaming neighborhood. He is extremely happy with His new 2k monitor and He saved a little money that He invested in His new $140.00 keyboard. The clarity on the monitor and the graphics are unbelievable.

DaveJ Loc: NE Missouri

I went thru this 4-6 months ago. I took some of my better photos on a thumb drive and looked at them side by side on a Dell 1080 laptop and a Dell 4K (3840 X2160) 15.6 screen. I saw detail in the 4K I could not see in old laptop at home or the 1080 in store. I'm am tight. I bought the 4K and do not regret it. My SO saw the difference (she is also a photographer) and we upgraded her laptop also. A good friend and neighbor who is a better photographer than us, saw our photos on our laptop, brought some of his over to view and he bought a 3840X2160 within a week. If you can, see with your own eyes. PS: I never watch videos (movies)on my laptop, other than short online junk. YMMV, and you can find good values on 4K screen laptops if you do the work.

BebuLamar

Wear prescription glasses, sit closer to the screen.

bwana Loc: Bergen, Alberta, Canada

A 4K display works very nicely for viewing 4K video off modern cameras.

However, a lot of software packages don't display correctly on 4K monitors since the developers were either lazy or never considered people would use a 4K display. Recent software releases are fixing previous problems but still not totally there.

I use Lenovo YOGA 900 & 910 laptops, both with 4K display, and normally run the display at HDMI resolution (1920 pixels wide vs. the 3840 of 4k).

Our desktops use HDMI resolution monitors and they work just fine!

bwa

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

The "standard" for judging still images is not via the monitor you view them on, HD or 4K or what ever, it is by a print of the image on photo paper, say an 8x10" to 16x20" from 300ppi to 600ppi. Ones camera of say 24MP far exceeds the quality or resolution of any Monitor. Again, I'm talking about STILL images. With my PP program Ps CS6 I can zoom in some 800% to 3,200% to clearly see individual image pixel cells as a grid as they are displayed on my 22" standard Monitor, but then you don't see a picture but squares. So one usually checks for sharpness at 100% to 200% only. Of course what is viewed is still made up of "monitor" pixels.

pauldh Loc: Melbourne, Australia

I bought a 28" 4K Dell Monitor and had quite a few issues with text being so small it was barely readable in several application. You are right it is fixable with a bit of reseach on the web.

cambriaman Loc: Central CA Coast

From what I have read using a 4K monitor to view video needs for the monitor to be 65 inches or more for the full effect of the 4K resolution to be gained. That just doesn't work for almost all of us sitting at our computers watching UHH.
My home is mid-century modern (lots of glass in every room) and has almost no place to mount anything larger than 48 inches where it was be comfortable to view (our 42 inch is mounted above the fireplace). Yes, I could put a 65 inch screen in our bathrooms but we would be standing within 4 feet of the viewing surface. Hardly a viable choice. Small screens process down the image size resolution to fit the screen area. So in my case no matter the resolution of the input image it ends up 1080 resolution.

happy sailor Loc: Ontario, Canada

LOL if you read carefully, you still need to spend a chunk of cash, he suggested a monitor that does 98% of the Adobe RGB spectrum which is significant more colour space than most monitors can't do, even most 4k monitors.

I just went through this and ended up with the Benq sw2700pt, amazing colour and it is a 2k monitor, I use it as a second monitor with my 27 inch iMac, I photoshop on the Benq because the colours are so much truer.

On top of that expense you need to calibrate your monitor and that is more money. So there you go, back to an unhappy wife (but you tell her you're worth it) and an unhappier credit card!

Here's a link to that monitor at B&H

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=benq%20sw2700pt&N=0&InitialSearch=yes&sts=ps

ChristianHJensen

That is scaling of menus for readability (size purely)- doesn't affect the resolution of the display at all

aellman Loc: Boston MA

You are so right. It's ridiculous consumerism. A few years
from now there will be 8K, and people will be dumping on 4K.

ChristianHJensen

Gaming is a whole other kettle of fish as it is far less about accurate color rendering than it is about speed (as in frame rate) hence most gamers use 1080P (AKA 2k) monitors as opposed to 4K monitors as the graphics horsepower needed for running 4K at a high frame rate is pretty hefty (in $$$, Power and heat)

Photo use (and even video) is very different

This thread has a whole lot of BS statements - it is clear that most actually do not really have a good understanding of this topic - which is sad since it is very connected to photography