Stephen,

I've been looking at LCD monitors in depth because my Sony Trinitron CRT is definitely aging. Here is my wishlist for an LCD monitor:
- Size: 19" or more, 1280x1024 or more
- Technology: IPS strongly prefered
- Pixel pitch: prefer 0.287 or more to keep submenus big enough to read
- Brightness: 200 nits (cd/m^2) or more
- Backlight adjust: 80-120 nits or less
- Contrast ratio: 500 or more, 600 or more prefered
- Black level control: prefered
- Gamma correction: 10bits minimum, 12bits prefered
- Viewing angles: 170 degrees or more
- Color temperature: at least 5000K and 6500K
- Gamma range: 1.8-2.2 or wider
- RGB controls: yes
- Color gamut: at least 69% of Adobe RGB (1998) or better
- Pixel out specification: per ISO13406-2 Class II
- Calibration method: in-monitor LUT strongly prefered
Right now my short list includes the Eizo CE210W, the NEC LCD1990SXi, LCD2090UXi, LCD2190UXi, LCD2490WUXi, LCD2690WUXi and possibly the Samsung XL20 LED backlit unit. Prices for these including a good calibrator range from about $1000 to $2000. The monitors you mentioned are not on my list because they don't meet my criteria spelled out above.

I personally want the monitor and digital darkroom lighting to match in color temperature and brightness, so 5000K is a must for me. You may want to read the article I wrote on the subject of digital darkroom lighting. You can find it at: http://www.solux.net/ies_files/Digital%20Darkroom%20Lighting.pdf

Frans Waterlander

Stephen,

I've had the good fortune , at the cost of a lot of work of course, which I enjoy doing, of actually working with just about every LCD you want to consider. Also I am not wealthy or paid highly, but if I wanted to I could readily afford a larger screen size like the Samsung Synchmaster 244T I tested, or a 23" Apple Cinema Display, but the extra size does not improve anything that just having the screen a little bit closer accomplishes. In fact I find that even the older 20.1 inch models actually display as much detail and somewhat sharper than the larger sizes. And if you shoot typically, a fairly high percentage of verticals (portrait mode orientation) to display them full screen on a 24" the image size is no bigger that with a 3:4 format ratio 21". In other words the 2:3 aspect ratio HD format for photography provides little more of an image displayed full-frame than the much less costly 3:4 aspect ratio displays. In other words unless you are specifically working exclusively with 2:3 images always in horizontal format orientation (landscape) you are spending too much and will be often frustrated working with vertically oriented images (portrait).

So I would suggest using your budget for LCD performance quality rather than size.

And if you do decide otherwise and want a very good quality LCD display in terms of exceptional color reproduction quality, the Samsung 244T is really hard to beat. And don't be intimidated by my reported experience with it. I've learned more about setting up, calibrating and profiling LCD's since and it can be done simply, primarily using the calibration and profiling process with ColorVision's Spyder2 Pro system. I have used the Eye-One recently and it produced inferior profile results so I have not recommended its use. Plus the Colorvision Spyder 2 Pro is a bit less costly from most sources.

Hello Frans,

While I very much appreciate your reply, I really do not want this thread to turn into another repeat of the same argument that appears countless times all over this forum - in a nutshell, whether it is necessary to view printed photos in light of the same color temperature as that of the display monitor. It's been hashed and rehashed and rerehashed and I don't think it is necessary to cover it again.

I have my own opinions about this, but the point is moot as I have no intention of setting up a viewing booth with either 6500 or 5000K lighting (or room to do so) and won't be printing my own prints, but rather, using a local custom printing shop.

Also, most of those monitors you mention are not 1900 x 1200 resolution (or larger), which I do need for completely separate reasons, and as I said in my initial post, I think the NEC 2490 and 2690 are going to be out of my price range even when they do finally appear. I haven't heard any specifics on this, but it seems likely to me they will be closer to $2000 than $1000.

I am curious about one thing though... in all the discussions I've seen about this topic, the argument has always revolved around calibrating the monitor to a 5000K temperature. Given that the Adobe RGB standard is 6500K and that most monitors use backlight much nearer that temperature, why don't you just recommend using a 6500K light in your viewing room? While lamps of this temperature are something of a specialty item, color correction filters are easy to come by (theater, film and television use them constantly) and this would seem to satisfy all of your arguments for using a 5000K setting on your monitor while putting you in perfect harmony with the rest of the color calibration world. I'll probably regret bringing it up, but as someone who is constantly using different types of lamps and filtering color in live situations, I've wondered about that since the first time I read one of the many arguments between you and David Brooks.

Thanks,

Stephen

Hola David,

Thanks for the info. While I did at first seriously consider buying a higher end but smaller monitor, there are a few reasons that I decided to go with the larger size. First and foremost, I do some HD video editing, and for various specialty reasons, the 1900 x 1200 format will come in very handy for that. On top of that, back when I did photography with film (its been about 8 years since all my gear was stolen, and I couldn't afford to replace it) I gravitated towards large format prints... 16" x 20" and larger. The 10 megapixel D80 I bought will finally allow me to approach that territory with digital, which is one of the reasons I bought it, and I know from my own experience with my work habits that being able to step back and look at a potential print at near its final size from a distance is going to save me a great deal of reprinting. On top of all that, the 3872 x 2592 images the Nikon creates are roughly double (1936 x 1296) that resolution, and editing with a 2:1 pixel ratio and a near exact fit on the widescreen format has a good feel to it.

Your note about portrait vs landscape mode is a good one, and one that I know well, as the first time I bought a wide screen monitor (a Dell) I was shocked to find that I was actually having more trouble drafting light plots because it actually had less height to it than my old monitor. It had serious backlight bleed problems as well, and I ended up sending it back and buying the Samsung 4:3 that I own now.

As I did more reading today, I was leaning towards the Samsung for this very reason, as it pivots from landscape to portrait mode, and again, will let me step back and take a good look from a distance. Your recommendation of it, over the Apple has pretty much convinced me, I think.

I know I'm not getting the absolute best monitor I could, and ideally I'd own an Apple 30" to edit video and a super high end Eizo to edit photographs, but it's the real world, and in the immortal words of Donald Rumsfeld, You go to war with the army you have. Lets just hope my foray into photography goes better than his...

Best,

Stephen

ps - thanks for the note about the Spyder2. Unlike monitors, I've had a hard time finding good comparisons between the various calibration systems, so hearing that helps.

Stephen,

The NEC 24" LCD2490WUXi is rumored to cost about $1250 when it will ship in January 2007.

I don't think that 5000K versus 6500K is a mute point when you don't print yourself. 5000K is a lot closer to real life conditions than 6500K. Here are a couple of examples:
- Average daylight: 5000-5500K
- Indoor light sources: 2500-5000K
I prefer to edit my images at a color temperature that is closer to real life conditions, not one that has been arbitrarily choosen. The Adobe RGB (1998) color space is an abstract space, not related to the real world and the arbitrarily choosen 6500K has no relationship to the real world. It is used for transformations from one color space to the next, but that is about as meaningful as it gets. The industry's penchant for 6500K originates from the desire for TV and monitor brightness specifications to look good on paper. Many LCD monitors follow this lead and use 6500K backlighting, although some professional LCD monitors come factory calibrated at 5000K.

Why would I apply filters to increase my light source's color temperature to 6500K, compromise the color spectrum and loose brightness if I want to work with 5000K light? My aim is not to be in perfect harmony with the rest of the world, but to promote an approach supported by real life conditions and color science.

Stephen (and all)
I use the Apple 23" cinema display at work and I have no complaints other than I found it a bit difficult to calibrate and I'm still looking for suggestions on calibration software and hardware. We are still using a combination of LCD and CRT displays at work and I really need to get them all in sync. I haven't looked at what is available in a long time, but my 19" monitor at home is losing sharpness and needs replacing.

Anyway, I'm new here and I really enjoy the give and take and I appreciate everyone taking the time to help others.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Thanks fdeaton,

I know the Apple's are good, and no one seems to have anything but praise for the 30" screens, but I haven't heard nearly as much good about the 23's, which given that its Apple, and the rabid fans base which is never quiet about proclaiming the virtues of anything Mac (that's coming from someone who has bought nothing But Macs for the last 12 years), I think speaks for itself. I do wonder why no one has commented on the Eizo. Is it just a case of them not being worth the extra money unless you go all the way up to the top of the line products?

I'm definitely leaning towards the Samsung, even though I have found that the magicrotation feature doesn't seem to work with the intel macs, or least there are no supported intel mac video cards listed on their website. Even so, I can handle that manually in Photoshop, and work with full size images in portrait and landscape mode. I'm also leaning away from buying off ebay... even though I could save about a hundred dollars off the cheapest online source, the risk that I'll get a bad unit and not be able to return it scares me. I wish someone in Austin had them so that I could go take a look... that would make me feel better about the purchase by itself. I've seen plenty of the Apples, of course.

FYI, I picked up a Spyder2 Pro calibration set up from Amazon yesterday, as per David's recommendation... on sale for $216 and with a $60 rebate (mail in) that knocks it down to $156. That seemed like a good deal, and it's now on the way.

Frans... all along your arguments have been about consistency between the viewing light and the monitor. Why now is 5000k suddenly inherently better than 6500k? I think you're going to have an even harder time selling that than the consistency issue.

Happy New Year to everyone!

Stephen

Stephen,

I've maintained all along that 5000K is closer to real life than 6500 and yes, I've also maintained that you should match the monitor and lighting. I really don't care if anything is a hard sell or not; I'm not selling anything.

I run a G5 with a dual 23" Apple setup. Have no complaints about display quality from my own experience. When I was looking at getting the G%, I looked at many many screens outside of Apple's and from a subjective viewing standpoint I couldn't find anything I though was heads above. As for the previous mention of difficulty in calibration, I haven't had any trouble using a Spyder2 setup. It's been as cut and dried as calibrating some older dell 19's I have. As for the 30", I've seen quite a few people remark about the screen being almost too big for them. I can say that when I borrowed one to try, I had the same feeling. It was straining at times to focus on the prime work area and then have to refocus out towards the edges. Image quality didn't seem to be any better than the 23's I have.

Quote:
I am curious about one thing though... in all the discussions I've seen about this topic, the argument has always revolved around calibrating the monitor to a 5000K temperature. Given that the Adobe RGB standard is 6500K and that most monitors use backlight much nearer that temperature, why don't you just recommend using a 6500K light in your viewing room?

As a side-note. Adobe RGB was developed with desktop publishing in mind, and was fine-tuned to the inks used in the printing trades. If you are working in a pre-press service bureau, it is likely the colour space to use. The goal was to match the output of CMYK process inks in an RGB viewing environment.

On the other hand, sRGB was designed by HP and Microsoft and universally accepted in the industry, as the standard for computer monitors, printers and World Wide Web.

Which is best? Both are - when used for their intended purpose. If you are processing in a pre-press environment, then you should be working in the Adobe RGB colour space. If your work ends up as inkjet prints or on the web, then sRGB is best.

While the semi-informed will get really shrill on the topic, it is not a matter of quality, but which constituency is being served. A larger gamut is needed for process inks and spot colour when the printing press it the output device, so Adobe RGB meets that need. It will generally produce fairly acceptable colour with an inkjet, for those who are rather undemanding about colour accuracy.

Some wish to turn it into a religious issue, using the wrong space as an article of blind faith. There have been some truly tedious flame wars over the topic by those who could find the information easily by a few moments of web research.

Larry,

What you say is essentially true, but there is more to it . First historically the pre-press, DTP and graphics computing began with Apple to a very large extent, and in those days the default Apple monitor color temperature was 5000K. This was carried on in publishing, even when a small contingent of Windows users got involved (Windows fefault is 6500K), and to this day many pre-press publishing shops and service bureaus continue to maintain the 5000K standard, and nearly all viewing booths used in the publishing industry, and transparency light tables, are 5000K primarily to provide a monitor match for input like scanning and color correction adjustment with Photoshop.

What you say about sRGB and Adobe RGB (1998) is true, and both have the same primary attributes relative to monitor/display of D65 (6500K) and a gamma of 2.2. Adobe RGB (1998) differ primarily in the size of the color gamut, which is about 33% larger than sRGB.

In the mid-90's Apple and Adobe shifted to a default color standard with a color temperature of 6500K, D65 and a monitor gamma of 2.2. Roughly in that same time frame many of the worlds top graphics, publishing and computing companies joined together and founded the International Color Consortium (ICC) and established the standards for a basis for an interoptible, cross- platform color management system. These companies and the ICC board includes many of the world's leading color scientists who have lent there expertise to the establishment of the default color standards used by most of the industry today.

Hi Larry, thanks for the info... I'm curious about what you say in that it relates to inkjet prints. The Nikon D80 is set up to record color in either the RGB or sRGB formats, and I've been using it in RGB, since that has a wider range, and I see no reason to artificially limit what the camera can do, especially as I'm already dealing with the limitations of digital versus film. Given that I am going to be doing all my processing with Photoshop (actually I'm looking into lightroom and Aperture for the initial file management and conversion) and printing at the best place I can find in town, I don't see a reason to use anything other than RGB... but given that all high end shops do use an inkjet printing process (even if the printers are ones I could never afford on my own) that would imply that sRGB would be the better system to be using.

I haven't started approaching the shops yet (there are three in town that have been recommended and that I feel good about), and obviously when I do I'll be asking them about what sort of color management systems they use, but your post would imply that most professional printers are going to be using sRGB... is this true?

Obviously the difference is in the transition from older printing techniques to inkjet... but I find it hard to believe that the entire industry would willingly move to a standard that provides a SMALLER color range than they were using already, no matter how much cheaper and more convenient.

Of course maybe I'm just misunderstanding, and it's only the consumer type inkjets that prefer the sRGB standard, as opposed to the high end ones in print shops.

Now I'm curious...

-Stephen

Many of the top online photography print shops use sRGB as their default colorspace. I think I've only seen one during my search for a printer to make sizes above what I'm capable of with my 13 X 19 printers that used either colorspace depending on your own specs.

Hey everyone,

Just a little update at my misadventures in computing.

First off, last week I'd caught a Mac Pro in the refurbished store that I wanted and bought it. I'd sold my G5 system when I left the country last summer, planning on buying a new Intel system when I got back. Of course the day it arrived, I read that there is a possibility that the 8 cores are getting released this week in San Fransisco. The office at my apartment complex had already accepted the delivery, but I hadn't opened the box yet, so I'm letting it stay sealed until I see what is announced on Tuesday. I'm in the process of moving into this apartment, so I'm trying to pretend it's just another box of books instead of a new Mac waiting to be opened and fired up. It's tough though.

But, that is just the latest glitch on the last two months of the worst computer karma I've ever had. In November, after carrying my 12" powerbook all over Eastern and Southern Europe in a backpack for four months without a scratch, I tripped getting off the subway in NYC, fell, barely caught myself, and found out later I hadn't quite caught myself in time. The slight dent on the top of the powerbook cracked the LCD from the inside, making 2/3 of the screen useless. (Frighteningly, it was the lens of my Nikon D80 that dented it, not in its usual case as I had been taking photos on the train and just put it into the messenger bag I wore in front as I was getting off the train. There was a moment where I thought I'd ruined both the computer and the $800 lens with one bad step, but that seems to not be the case, as the lens appears to be doing fine work still.)

I was on some serious deadlines, so when the apple store there said it would cost $1200 to repair it (because that's not covered by the applecare, don't you know, and besides that, it was only 11 months old, so it was still under the regular Apple warranty, which Also doesn't cover user clumsiness) I spent the money on a new Macbook instead.

Generally, I have been fairly pleased with the Macbook, but I have to say it feels slow. Not just in photoshop, which is obvious, but even Universal apps, like itunes, which I use a lot. I got the fastest model (the black, because it had the biggest hard drive in it) but it still felt sluggish on a lot of things.

So, after downloading the Lightroom beta and starting it up, I realized that I really, really had to put more memory in this computer. Trying to use Lightroom was like jogging through molasses as it struggled to import the 10 megapixel RAW images. So I bought 2 gigs from memorytogo.com and went to install them two nights ago. I hate the fact that you have to either pay Apple a huge price or basically throw away the 1 gig that is in the machine, but since I bought mine in the retail store, I didn't even have that choice. So I installed the new memory, hit the power button, and... nothing happened. The LED on the front came on, but nothing else. After replacing the memory, reinstalling the old memory, and messing with it for over an hour, it never came back. The next day, my local Apple repair shop (Mac Alliance, who rock) tried all the resets, tried putting new memory in, and everything they could do, and had no luck either. They don't do warranty work, so now it's at a different Apple repair shop, and I'm waiting to see if they can fix it or if they just have to send it back to Apple. I haven't the faintest idea what happened... I've replaced memory in my computers dozens of times with no problems at all. I was careful of static, and took all the usual precautions. Of course it's being repaired with the original Apple memory, so I have no idea if the cards from memorytogo are bad or if I just didn't get them pushed all the way in and caused a problem.

So, I've got the Pro sitting there that I don't want to open, and the Macbook is in the shop, possibly out for several days or more. And of course I have tons of work I need to get done...

Well, happily, Mac Alliance had a used LCD from an older 12" powerbook which they made work on my newer, but busted model for one third of the Apple repair quote, so I'm back to using that again, and I have to say, despite the dim and fuzzy screen (I'm a glossy convert now) and the crappy wifi reception, the G4 still feels snappier than the Macbook did. Maybe I should have bought the Macbook Pro model instead, but I really prefer my laptops to be portable, rather than requiring a sherpa, and all my intense work gets done on the desktop system anyway(when it's not hiding in a box). Right now that little powerbook is hooked up to a 19" Samsung external monitor, running itunes wirelessly through airport express to my stereo, and editing photos in Photoshop CS2 off a 400gig external firewire hard drive with my full size keyboard and mouse plugged in, not to mention running Firefox at the same time. And all with its maxed out 1.25 gigs of RAM. What a trooper! I was going to sell it now that I have (had) the Macbook, but I hate to after the way it's saved me this week.

Anyway... back to the topic of this thread. The Spyder2 Pro set up arrived around the same time all of that happened, and David was right... it's easy to use and gave great results both on the laptop screen and the Samsung 19" screen. The Samsung 244t should arrive Monday or Tuesday, and on Tuesday I'll find out if I'm ordering a new Mac Pro or taking the one I've got out of the box. Meanwhile, the peppy little 12" Powerbook is sitting on my desk with wires coming out of almost all the ports, while I'm still waiting to hear the fate of the shiny but less reliable Macbook.

So there you have it.

Best,

Stephen

To address the seeming sluggishness of the MacBook, it could be due to the graphics setup in comparison to the old PowerBooks and the the new MBP. The MacBook uses shared memory for graphics rendering while the PB's and new MBP's use full graphics cards. Shared memory can be much slower in accomplishing screen rewrites. In general, it is good to avoid for any serious graphical work while it does work well for general apps. It can as you've found also lead to slow operation with some programs that can be memory hogs.

Yes, of course I knew the trade offs when I bought the Macbook, but even photoshop, the heaviest graphic program I'd be using on that computer doesn't use the graphics card the way a game or a 3D modeling program does, which along with the fact that this computer is two full generations newer than the 12" Powerbook (a 1.5ghz model) lead me to believe that the Macbook would at least be on equal terms with the G4. I figured if it was at least as fast, with the benefits of the bigger, glossy screen, bigger hard drive, more memory capacity and plastic, instead of aluminum shell (no dents that break the LCD, better wifi), plus the fact that all the mac programs are moving to universal binary, then it was a good trade. Like I said, it's not a bad computer, but I was surprised that it felt slow. And like I said... it didn't just feel slow in Photoshop. I mean, come on... itunes???? It's Apple's flagship in many ways. How can it be that my G4 runs it better than the Macbook? I didn't even mention that when playing music wirelessly, the Macbook tends to drop out pretty frequently. I've yet to hear the powerbook do it. It just seems really screwy.

-s