One of the most frequently asked questions from our readers and friends is related to picking a good monitor for photography needs. It seems like the market is over-saturated with all kinds of choices, whether you visit a local store or browse through an online catalog. There are so many monitors for different budgets, and some models might leave you wondering why they are so expensive compared to others. Since there is no simple answer to this question, I decided to write a detailed article with my personal recommendations.
Currently, there are three main types of monitors that are being offered by manufacturers:
- CRT – the oldest type of monitor that has been almost completely phased out and replaced by newer LCD / LED backlit technologies.
- LCD – currently the most popular and the most widespread monitor type.
- OLED – future technology that will replace LCD.
I won’t talk much about the above, since you can find a lot of useful information on the Internet that explains the differences. Basically, CRT monitors are dead and we are currently in between LCD and OLED technologies. OLED is a new technology and although it will eventually replace the current LCD technology, it is still in its early stages of development and there are not many good products out there for professional photography needs.
Therefore, I will concentrate on LCD monitors and talk about different technologies used in LCD panels, after which I will provide some suggestions on what you should consider for potential investment.
Most people do not know the fact that there are at least four different types of LCD technologies that differ substantially in the way they reproduce colors and tones. Accurate color reproduction is extremely important for every photographer and one needs to have a thorough understanding of these technologies before investing in a monitor, especially if it will be used for professional work.
1) LCD Monitor Technologies
When it comes to monitors, they are primarily manufactured in four distinct panel types:
- TN (Twisted Nematic) – the most popular and the cheapest type used today by almost all manufacturers. These monitors are great for watching movies and playing games, because they have fast refresh rates. But they have very limited viewing angles and in most cases, cannot accurately reproduce colors. In addition, these monitors can only represent 6-bits of color (they use dithering to display all colors) and therefore they are only capable of displaying a very limited gamut of colors.
- IPS (In-Plane Switching) – compared to TN, IPS monitors are true 8-bit (full color reproduction with no dithering), have much wider viewing angles and are capable of accurately reproducing a much bigger color gamut. Some of the older generation IPS monitors suffered from low response times, but most of the latest models offer reasonably good response times/refresh rates as well. IPS monitors are expensive and they are primarily used for professional photography and design. Many of the high-end Apple screens, including the new iPad use IPS displays.
- MVA (Multi-domain Vertical Alignment) – sits between TN and IPS, offering good viewing angles and fast refresh rates, better brightness and color reproduction than TN, but definitely worse than IPS. Similar to IPS, MVA monitors are also 8-bit.
- PVA (Patterned Vertical Alignment) – an alternative version of MVA, but with a higher contrast ratio. The latest “S-PVA” offers excellent viewing angles, fast response times, 8-bit color gamut and very good color reproduction.
2) What Are You Using Today?
So, do you know what type of monitor you are currently using? If you bought your monitor for less than $300, you are most likely using a TN panel. It is very easy to find out if you have one of those – just stand up about a foot above the screen and look at your monitor from the top and see how much of the picture is visible. If you can barely see the screen content, you have a TN monitor. If you can still see everything but some of the brightness is gone, you might have an MVA or PVA monitor. Either way, I highly recommend checking your monitor against TFT Central’s monitor database to identify the type of monitor you are using.
Why is this important? Because if you have a TN or a very old MVA/PVA panel, you need to consider replacing it with an IPS monitor (depending on your budget). If you are thinking about buying a new monitor for your photography needs, definitely skip all TN options and only consider monitors with IPS panels.
3) Does Brand Matter?
Yes, it does. Some brands like Eizo and NEC specialize on high-end monitors and most professional-grade monitors they offer will provide excellent color reproduction, sometimes even right out of the box. No matter what brand you look at, the first thing you need to do is pay attention to the type of technology that is used on the monitor. If you cannot find it, simply go to the same monitor database link that I provided above and perform a search. Also try searching for detailed monitor specifications on the manufacturer’s website – there is often plenty of information provided, along with manuals that contain a wealth of information.
4) What to Look for in a Monitor
Here are some of the things you should look for in a good monitor for photography:
- Minimum 8-bit (and not 6-bit + dithering), ideally 10-bit+ wide gamut
- IPS panel type for best color accuracy and reproduction
- Widescreen instead of square (because most DSLR cameras produce widescreen images)
- Large monitor size of 24 inches and above (preferably at 1920×1200 resolution and above)
- Wide-viewing angles
- Good black depth
- Good uniformity with minimum or nonexistent color tinting and shifting
- Minimum of 1 DP (Display Port) connector
- Fairly good response time (if it will be used for videography as well)
There are many other things that could be important for you, such as additional USB ports or connectors, so feel free to add more to the above list based on your requirements.
5) Monitor Size and Resolution Considerations
While picking a monitor, you want to make sure that you pick the right size and resolution that is ideal to use for post-processing. Unless you have desk space limitations, you should be looking at a minimum of 24″ size monitor in order to be able to comfortably edit your images. And if you are looking for a more productive environment, a dual monitor setup is going to be even more preferred, especially when using two identical IPS monitors. When it comes to monitor resolution, it is important to point out that resolution does not have a direct correlation with the monitor size. For example, you might find that some laptop monitors, despite their small size might provide more resolution than a larger desktop monitor. And with modern monitors providing 4K and higher resolution, you might think that going for more resolution is going to be ideal for editing. However, that’s not necessarily the case – if all the software you are planning to use is not properly optimized to upscale itself when working with a high resolution monitor, it might make it painful to work with. In addition, your images might either look too small on such monitors, or potentially even look too blurry if those images are upscaled to match the higher resolution. And lastly, there are no good budget 4K+ monitor options available on the market yet that can provide good color reproduction and uniformity for serious photography work, so unless you are willing to spend thousands of dollars on a high-end high-resolution monitor, you will be better off sticking with a standard resolution 1920×1200 monitor.
Take a look at the below video that explains monitor size and resolution considerations in more detail:
6) Recommendations
It is tough to make specific recommendations, because they vary based on your budget and your needs. I decided to divide my recommendations to three groups:
a) High Budget ($1,000 and above) – for those who are looking for the best on the market.
b) Medium Budget ($500 to $1,000) – for those with medium budgets, looking for a solid performer and a good price/performance ratio.
c) Low Budget (under $500) – for low-budget PVA/MVA monitors and sizes lower or equal to 24 inches.
6.1) High Budget
The best monitors in the industry today, without a doubt, are Eizo’s ColorEdge and FlexScan monitors. Eizo’s monitors have the most color gamut, superb color accuracy and top-of-the-line overall performance. Expect to pay more than $1,000 for their smallest monitors and $4,000+ for the large models. Some of NEC’s professional line of monitors (the PA series) are also worth noting and they are also superb when it comes to color reproduction and accuracy. B&H carries most of the Eizo monitors with accessories. A good 24″ Eizo monitor like the ColorEdge CG2420 is right around $1,500, whereas a more budget-friendly NEC PA242W will be slightly cheaper at around $950. Both are excellent monitors that will serve you for many years to come.
6.2) Medium Budget
For medium budget monitors, I recommend looking at 24″-27″ monitors by Dell and NEC. My first choice for those on a tight budget would be to get the Dell U2413, because it is a solid monitor that has a built-in look-up table (LUT) that can store color calibration information. This means that you can calibrate the monitor independently and it will produce accurate color no matter what computer you plug into it, whereas a standard calibration technique without LUT involves installing a color profile that needs to be loaded each time your operating system boots up. For best results, you will need to make sure to get a good sample that has acceptable performance and uniformity. For more information on how to properly calibrate this monitor and other similar Dell monitors, check out our article on calibrating Dell wide gamut monitors. I personally own two Dell U2413 monitors and I have been pretty happy with their performance. These 24″ IPS monitors have short response time, good color reproduction and a wide color gamut. For under $500, these are solid monitors that are good enough for most photographers out there.
6.3) Low Budget
When it comes to low budget monitors, you will have to compromise size for a good panel type. And even then, don’t expect any monitor in this price range to provide solid performance and color accuracy. As I have pointed out earlier, cheap monitors are rarely ever good – they will vary in their brightness, contrast and colors significantly and you may never be able to properly color calibrate them for consistency. So keep all of this in mind as you decide on a low budget monitor. In most cases, you will be better off saving money and at least going for a medium budget monitor I recommended above. Now if you are not that serious about photography and you want to get started with something very basic, make sure to at least get a monitor with an IPS panel. While there are too many to list, the particular models I would recommend are the Dell U2415, Asus PA248Q, NEC EA234WMI and maybe the BenQ BL2420PT. If you are having a difficulty finding a particular monitor for your needs, I recommend checking out TFT Central’s monitor selector tool, which always picks the best monitors based on their extensive research.
B&H carries a lot of different monitors and the list is constantly changing with newer models. Their IPS monitor page lists many different models to choose from.
Please let me know if you have any questions in the comments section below!
When i connect my Sony HDR-CX520E camcorder directly to LG HDTV fullHD to view still photos and videos, the results blew me away. However, when i play them back on my Lenovo T61p, the results are only 30% of what HDTV could achieve in terms of color, sharpness and etc.
My question is, will any current IPS monitor by Eizo or Apple product beat HDTV?
Len, laptop displays are not the best for photography and your TV might be over-saturating colors to make everything look very vivid.
Without a doubt, a good IPS monitor from Eizo or Apple will give you a much more accurate color than an HDTV would.
I think you are confusing saturation, brightness and contrast with accuracy.
They are not the same thing.
Hi Nasim:
I took a good look at both monitors and I have decided to go with the Ezio. The Ezio worked out to be about a $100.00 USD more expensive, and came with a 5 year warranty. I feel that, 2 extra years is probably worth the 100 bucks. What took me away from the Apple Cinema display was the glossy screen, I have worked on a few laptops with a glossy screen and it drove me a little crazy with me constantly changing my position to look at various parts of screen.
The Ezio works for me, but I am writing this to thank you for a very helpful Blog.
Walter
Thank you for your feedback Walter, glad you found what you were looking for! Eizo monitors are superb!
I went for Eizo too, the CS2420 is a very very good mid-price option, it’s around 620 EUR (taxes incl.) here.
You are exactly right mon ami.
Glossy screens are rubbish for photo editing especially if you are making prints.
For photography we are trying to lower brightness and contrast not increase it with glossy screens.
Thanks for all this info. I’m a professional photographer and I’m currently working on a 15″ Macbook Pro. I need a bigger screen so I was considering a bigger monitor that I can hook up to our PC and my MAC as the program I want to use for wedding albums isn’t yet made for a MAC.
I was looking at the ASUS PA246Q Black 24″ 6ms P-IPS Height/Swivel/Pivot Adjustable LCD Monitor w/2 USB hub, Card Reader & Display port 400cd/m2 50000:1 DCR that I found on newegg.com but I prefer to spend less and I don’t need all their extra features. I do like that it swivels for the vertical shot but I don’t think I need the USB port as I will be importing all my photos into my MAC anyhow.
Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!
I just bought the ASUS PA246Q and so far it is fabulous!
Good choice.
Ok. When I have my pictures printed, they appear somewhat “dark”. Not underexposed, but just dark. Any suggestions?
They are dark because your monitor is not well calibrated.
You can solve this by either really accurately profiling your monitor against a reference print or soft proofing your image and making a brightness adjustment on an adjustment layer before flattening the layers for printing.
I think it’s one of the most common issues. Most people have the brightbess cranked up way too much to do.a softproof for prints. A reference image & print can already help a bit to find the right display brightness
To expand, You need a different calibration for print as opposed to web and general use.
As Lief says, brightness needs to be turned way down for print. Paper is ‘dull’ compared to a monitor screen so to make them match, the screen brightness (and if possible the contrast ratio) has to be reduced.
Also, both the (soft proof) screen image and your (proof) print need to be looked at under the same lighting conditions to be able to judge.
The best way to sort this out is to make a second calibration just for print preparation and set your target brightness to 80-95Cd/m2 and contrast ratio/black point at about 200:1. Then your screen image will look approximately the same as when you print it. You may need to play with these settings until you get a perfectly matched print and then stick with these calibration targets from that point on.
This is the ‘right way’ and results in WYSIWYG for all your prints and no wasted paper.
Incidentally, most screens typically run at about around 350Cd and 1000:1 contrast ratio (4 or 5 times too bright and contrasty for print editing) so little wonder that prints look dark!
Another way is to simply turn your screen brightness down. This forces you to use higher brightness levels to make your image look ‘right’ on screen and your print will come out brighter – but that’s a bit hit and miss.
Finally, you can make your screen image ‘too bright’ by adding brightness in your editing software adjustments (LR/PS) so that the image looks too bright on screen. Then, when you print, the image will look brighter – but this too, is hit and miss.
After reading your article on photography monitors I started thinking about my Vizio 32″ LCD tv I’m currently using as a computer monitor, thus photo monitor. To watch tv, I have the settings set to “rich color, hi contrast, extra sharp” and so on. After your aricle I went back and set all of the adjustment settings for the picture to normal or standard, and all the sliders to the middle or 50%. Wow, what a difference re – setting made to my pics, which now appear like they all need exposure added! It’s obvious that the settings on the tv or monitor will affect how I adjust all of the sliders in Lightroom, because the tv makes the photo appear . . . for lack of a better term, psuedo processed. The question then is how do I know where to set the tv / monitor? With the settings I have now even the tv programs look a little flat. What do I do? Thanks in advance for any advice.
Richard,
Did you ever get a response to this? I also have a 32″ Vizio and have the same question.
Richard and Martha
Start reading about colour management and calibration….
I find it amazing that photographers are producing digital images without the slightest clue about the importance of managing color.
It’s rather like trying to write a book with no knowledge of grammar.
The result cannot be good.
Richard
There is nothing wrong with your sliders in Lightroom (assuming your editing monitor is calibrated), but as you note, your TV is uncalibrated and cranked up to ridiculous levels. No wonder your pictures look wrong.
Hello colour management.
Your TV is just another monitor – and not a very good one at that.
Calibrate your TV.
Thanks mate, a great post.
I just got an ips monitor based on your advice, the guy in the shop did not even know what he was selling. Lucky for people like you sharing your knowledge.
Thanks again
Hi Nasim! I have been referring to your website for purchasing a monitor for my photography use… I ran across TFT monitors. How are they compared to the IPS monitors?? I surfed on line to see what the differences are but what I found weren’t very helpful. I would like your opinion on this. Thank you!
Please see my article regarding TFT above. If you are serious about colors, don’t buy a TFT monitor.
Hi Nasim,
I’m a newly professional photographer. I do real estate photography and things on the side. I have only printed a handful of times, using labs like Bay photo and Mpix. I have an old Apple cinema display, that has TN technology. Since I don’t view it from extreme angles, I can’t really notice those deficiencies. I use a spider to calibrate this monitor, and I don’t seem to get any surprises when I print. I do a lot of retouching for my clients though. I noticed a Dell monitor (Dell UltraSharp U2412 24-Inch Screen LED-lit Monitor), that had great reviews and an attractive prices. My question would be, would I see a dramatic improvement from what I currently have? Furthermore, out of curiosity, I went to Eizo’s website and cross-referenced their models. I found some models in the 400-700 dollar range. Will these types of monitors give me the performance that reflects this brands prestige? Examples inlcude:
Eizo Nanao – EIZO FlexScan EV2436W-FS
EIZO Foris FS2333-BK 23-Inch Screen LCD Monitor
FlexScan EV2336W 23″ LED LCD Monitor – 16:9 – 6 ms
Thanks,
Mike Kojoori
The viewing angle is not the only consideration.
TN screens are simply inaccurate out of the box and cannot be properly calibrated.
You will see improvements if you use the Dell – but not great ones.
Eizo’s more budget monitors are very good indeed but I would stick with the Flexscans as these have proper hardware controls and can be satisfactorily calibrated. The others are intended more for office/commercial/medical use and not so well suited fot photographic imaging.
Hope that helps.
Nasim,
I have many slides which I want to scan into digital format. Do you have any reviews of photo scanners or service provider recommendations? I have about 1K slides and think I want to buy my own scanner, etc. Many thanks,
Bob
If they are within your budget I would buy a second hand Nikon 8000, 9000ED, 5000 ED or one of the Minolta Dimage series – fabulous quality.
I have used almost all the possible options for this, and IMHO you should not only look at price and image quality, but also at time involved. My recommendation is using a setup similar to a slide duplicator, using your DSLR (18-24MP at least) with 50-100mm macro lens (an $50 enlarger lens or old Micro Nikkor will work fine as well) and a good diffuse light source (slide illuminator, diffused LED panel, old color enlarger head etc.). With some practice you can ‘scan’ several slides per minute in very good quality, while the Nikon Coolscan and similar devices take 15-30 minutes per slide … that is a HUGE difference in practice if you have many slides. I also found that despite the lack of advanced ‘dust/scratch removal’ technologies I have less dust problems with the slide copying setup compared to a semi-pro slide scanner. The only big problem is slides with very high contrast (and color negatives), but such slides are often also a problem with real slide scanners and scanning services. Yes, the most expensive Coolscan may have slightly higher resolution, but sometimes that just means you see the film grain more clearly ;-)
An additional problem with the semi-pro slide scanners is that almost none of them works on current computers (made for nowadays ‘exotic’ interfaces like SCSI, Firewire etc.) and operating systems (most from the Windows95/98 era …). If you really want a slide scanner it might be better to buy a model that works with USB and current operating systems, like Primefilm and Reflecta (they have an affordable one that digitizes 50 slides in one go with decent quality, so you can come back the next morning and load a new tray for scannning …).
My experience with service providers is that this doesn’t work well if you – like most of us – have a collection of slides from many different film types. At best they will optimize for one type of slide and some of the others will turn out really bad. And if you have to mail the slides, there is the risk of loss (and damage …). I guess some services can optimize individual slides, but then you are probably going to pay several $$ for each slide they scan.
I bought an old Beselor copy stand on eBay for slide digitizing. Works great. It’s got a model light and a strobe light built in. Mine has a Nikkor enlarger lens and my Nikon D800 mounts easily. Highly recommended and much much better than scanning.
Enlarger lenses can work well (especially when reversed) but they are corrected for higher reproduction ratios (4:1 upwards) than the 1:1 of a good macro or bellows lens and so are not quite as good – but on the other hand they are great value and much better than a reversed regular lens.
Hi Nasim,
I’m just starting out in my business and I’m on a limited budget. My cheap HP monitor (TN display), although calibrated weekly, is producing very inconsistent results with my print lab’s printers. Not surprising at all, but admittedly I was plagued with wishful thinking!
I looked to your site for help, and found this article. I need help choosing a good, reliable monitor within my budget and to my surprise, I found that the Dell U2410 that you so highly recommend is now priced below $300. I’m seriously thinking of purchasing this monitor based on your recommendation, but since so much time has gone by since this article was written, I thought I’d check in to see if you have any other recommendations that keep me within my $300 budget.
Note: HDMI is not important to me as my current computer does not have an HDMI output.
Thanks for all you do!
Garey
Your printer’s monitor may not be calibrated, in which case he is not seeing what you are sending him.
Are you sending him tagged correctly files and is his set up recognising and honouring those profiles.
If not, nothing you send him will ever match your expectations.
First, I do my own printing and am fortunate enough to be able to use an Eizo monitor and an Epson 4900 Pro prrinter.
Second, if your printer’s monitor is not calibrated, you should be looking for a new printer.
It is simply not acceptable or professional and amounts to printing by guesswork.
So you are right, if the printer’s monitor is not calibrated, he will have absolutely no idea of how the image the photographer sent him is intended to look.
A great recipe for disappointment and waste of money.
try achieving a neutral grey on an apple cinema display, cant be done. will always have a green or purple cast to it. skip the LG made cinema display for photography color accuracy
I need to pull the trigger on a high quality monitor. It looks like there is no right answer vis a vis wide gamut or 4k.
(1) Does using a wide gamut monitor in photography introduce problems with how the photographs will look on most screens (since most screens are sRGB). How can I tell what will be the appearance of my photo on most screens if I edit them in Adobe RGB. (BTW I shoot in Adobe RBG).
(2) Is it possible that I really only want to edit in Adobe RGB on photographs where I plan to print, but otherwise am better off editing in sRGB?
(3) I love the detail on my Mac retina screens and presume that I have to go 4k to get this level of detail on the computer monitor for my MacBook Pro. But my MBP lacks an external GPU and Lightroom CC is already marginal speed even with a 2k monitor. I have 2015 13″ MBP maxed out (16gig, 1TB ssd, I7). The specs say that this will drive a 4k monitor but I’m leaning against it. Am I being too cautious?
(4) Leaning towards getting a NEC, either PA (wide gamut) or EA series. Should I choose the Spectraview option or go with xrite color pro, which i have heard is state of the art. That is, is Spectraview simply packed in with the NEC as a convenience or is Spectraview somehow specially tuned for the NEC?
Thank you!
Art
Art
First, your basic premise in making a choice is incorrect.
4K describes the pixel resolution of a monitor.
Gamut describes the range of colours a monitor can display.
The two are not related.
1. No.
What matters is how you output your images and how they are received.
If your monitor (high gamut or not) is correctly calibrated and profiled, your images will look correct on any other monitor provided it has been calibrated and profiled to the same targets/standard. That is the point of colour management – consistent appearance over multiple imaging devices.
If by “most screens” you mean other viewers on the web, then all bets are off as very people calibrate their screens – although most consumer screens (more or less) support the sRGB colour space.
Worse, not all web browsers support colour management although some, e.g. Safari and Firefox, now do, albeit with some anomalies.
However, the assumed/default colour space on the web is sRGB so if your files are converted into sRGB and tagged sRGB, they stand the best chance of looking as you intend.
Which colour space you edit your images in is irrelevant to how they will look on the web.
What is important is how you output them.
If you output an image to the web tagged as AdobeRGB it will look undersaturated and dull. You need to convert from AdobeRGB to sRGB before putting an image on the web for it to stand the best chance of looking as you intend.
You are not shooting in AdobeRGB unless you are shooting JPEG. (Maybe you are.)
If you are as serious about quality as you seem to be, you should be shooting RAW.
2. No.
You should always edit in a larger colour space (whether for print or web) to avoid the quality losses that are inevitable in the editing process.
Editing in the smaller sRGB space is more likely to lead artefacts such as banding and posterisation.
You can print in AdobeRGB because most decent inkjet drivers support that space. The web, in general, does not.
3. Maybe.
Retina screens are great because they are small and are viewed from very close – laptop, tablet or phone – where a lower pixel count on lesser screens results in a coarser image.
However, most HiDPI, high quality, desktop, graphics monitors have ample pixels for a great viewing experience – e.g.2560 pixels at 100dpi (or thereabouts) and are viewed from much further away.
4K is undoubtedly better in absolute terms, but in this application the difference is not as big as the advertising hype would have you believe.
Where 4K really shines is with TV where the screen size is huge (up to and beyond 60in) and here the high pixel resolution makes a significant difference.
For photography I would favour a (non-4K), wide gamut, dedicated graphics monitor with internal hardware calibration (see below) over a 4K monitor without that capability any day of the week.
But if you can afford it, go the whole hog and get a 4K, wide gamut, dedicated graphics monitor with hardware calibration from NEC or EIZO – they are superb!
4. You can’t go wrong with either an NEC SpectraView or an EIZO ColorEdge from a quality perspective, but in my experience EIZO are more reliable and have an unbeatable 5 year warranty. (A couple of years ago my 30in EIZO went on the blink two days before the warranty ran out. They sent out a rep to pick up my screen, gave me an identical loaner screen for me to use while they refurbished my old screen to ‘as new’ spec and repeated the turn around 10 days later – all at no charge.)
Internal/hardware calibration, where the calibration software has direct control of the screen’s internal 14bit/16bit/3D LUT will always outperform an external calibrator which only adjusts the output of your computer’s (8bit) graphics card. So yes, Spectraview is ‘specially tuned’ for the NEC. The same applies for EIZO’s ColorNavigator for their monitors some of which can actually calibrate/profile themselves automatically at predetermined intervals!
Thanks for the comprehensive response Betty! You even brought up a few points that I did not think to ask of such as hardware / internal calibration.
To clarify, I never mixed up wide gamut with 4k. However, in the market today for 27″ high quality monitors, they are mutually exclusive, as far as I can tell. For example, I can get a NEC EA 4k for under $1000 or NEC PA wide gamut for under $1000, but, to get both I have to drop over $3000 and find space for a 32″ model. I don’t want an iMac, and so, practically speaking in 27″ — as I understand — I can choose wide gamut or 4k, not both. If the situation is different please let me know.
I am shooting RAW + JPEG but rarely use the JPEG. I had no idea that the Adobe setting in my camera only applies to JPEG, not RAW. Thanks for pointing that out. (NIkon D750 and Sony a6000)
I always output my JPEGs as sRGB so it seems that I am on safe ground there.
And it sounds like I should definitely get a wide gamut monitor and edit in wide gamut, period.
There is an additional question that I did not think to ask: When using a wide gamut monitor does one have to switch frequently between the wide gamut and sRGB modes?
I have read on forums that sRGB images look over-saturated on a wide gamut monitor in wide gamut mode. This counter to my intuition. Wide gamut includes the sRGB space, so it seems to me that any sRGB image should show up just fine in wide gamut. But I read reports that this is not true.
So for normally viewing the web, for example, or even reviewing my own sRGB output JPEGS, will I want to switch to sRGB mode? Will there be an extra step every time I start to edit photographs, and that is to switch the monitor to wide gamut. I will do it. It is worth it. But I just want to understand what I”m getting into.
Even worse, might this situation be browser dependent? Viewing software dependent? What is your experience?
Thanks again for your advice.
Art
You are on the right track but still a little confused.
I agree, a wide gamut monitor is overall the best option for photographic editing as ‘what you see’ is closer to ‘what you get’ in a colour managed environment.
You can edit any image in a large colour space e.g. ProphotoRGB using a either a standard gamut (approx) sRGB or a wide gamut e.g. (approx) Adobe RGB monitor. This is how colour management works – colours are translated from one colour space to another by changing the colour numbers in order to keep the appearance the same.
The oversaturation problem only arises when untagged images from the web are viewed on a wide gamut monitor – because the software has no information as to how to convert the colours of the untagged image.
Wide gamut monitors must be used in a fully colour managed environment, no exception. That also means you must have a valid monitor profile for your software to use i.e. your monitor must be calibrated and profiled. With that one requirement satisfied, there are no issues and a wide gamut monitor can be used just like any other monitor, web included.
To expand, the ICC profile for a (calibrated and profiled monitor) tells any application that uses colour management what the colour values for the display are. Thus Photoshop/Lightroom et al , which use the profile, read and remap them to the monitor profile giving correct results. Non-colour managed applications (such as some web browsers) do not use the profile but send the image straight to the monitor – thus the colours end up over-saturated on a wide gamut screen. This is not the fault of the profile but the lack of a profile (which makes the colour look wrong in non-colour managed applications.
So you just need to be clear on which of your applications are colour managed and which are not. Today most browsers are. But one problem with web is that a lot of material does not have an embedded profile.This means that the required conversion into the monitor profile doesn’t happen, for the simple reason that there’s nothing to convert from. So the color management chain breaks.Firefox and Safari (Mac version only) both have an elegant strategy to deal with this: they assign/assume sRGB to all untagged material thus allowing conversion to the monitor profile. This works IF the untagged image is actually sRGB (which it mostly will be). This allows the colour management chain to operate, and it will display correctly on a wide gamut monitor. Browsers which do not do this are effectively useless for the accurate display of colour.
The heart of the problem is that web material is by common consent created in sRGB and/or is assumed to be sRGB. So if you have a monitor that is natively close to sRGB, you don’t need colour management for it to display roughly right (although you need colour management for it to display exactly right).
If you have to work with applications that aren’t colour managed, the only option is to dumb down the monitor to the sRGB preset. But then of course it is no longer wide gamut.
For your own images, if your monitor is calibrated and profiled and you convert your images to sRGB (JPEG) for output to the web, they will display (more or less) correctly on the web for most people – provided they are using a ‘colour savvy’ browser.
Yes, it’s a mess – but it is slowly improving.
It depend of your web browser.
Firefox can manage colors. See this KB :
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Gfx.color_management.enabled
Excellent response, thanks very much! Essentially, once I use wide gamut monitor, I will need to be conscious of the application I’m using – is it color managed and/or does it make appropriate assumptions regarding un-tagged material.
Do you happen to know whether Chrome or Firefox are color managed on Macintosh OSX? I have heard that Safari is, and the others are not but that information is at least a year old. What about the app “Preview”? Searching on the web I’m not finding answer to these questions.
Betty, you must have gone through a lot over time to both understand this stuff and be able to explain it so well!
You need to be aware of the browser you are using – that’s where the problems lie. Most applications (photographic applications that is) employ colour management virtually by default.
The following is my best current understanding of how things are at present but I am not an expert so it’s not gospel. This stuff is on the move all the time so I stick with browsers which I know work from a photo imaging perspective.
Firefox and Safari are the only browsers, as far as I know, that are fully and properly colour managed in that they can be configured to handle tagged (ICC v2 and v4), untagged and CSS (page graphics elements and text) correctly – but you have to set this up in the Preferences – it is not a default behaviour.
Tagged images are read correctly and converted to the monitor profile.
Untagged images are assumed to be sRGB, have sRGB assigned, and are converted to the monitor profile.
CSS Page/Graphics elements are also (correctly) assumed to be sRGB, have sRGB assigned and are converted to the monitor profile.
Chrome (latest Mac version) I believe now supports ICC profiles but still does not render untagged graphics correctly – they are not assigned a profile or converted but are passed straight through (effectively as sRGB) and get rendered on the full monitor display gamut and so appear over-saturated. Useless for graphics professionals.
The Windows version of Chrome is better in that it has a command line switch with which the user can force the browser to interpret all untagged images and page elements as being in the sRGb colour space and then convert them to the monitor profile – which is the correct thing to do.
I don’t understand why browsers are so poor and so disparate in the way they tackle (or rather fail to tackle) colour management.
It’s not that difficult. How about this?
Bring full ICC v2 and v4 color profile support to both Mac and Windows versions of all browsers.
Allow users who care about colour to configure, in the browser preferences, how untagged images and page elements should be rendered: either in sRGB or on the full display gamut. Assume sRGB by default. The rest will be perfectly happy with the factory defaults as they have no idea what they are missing. Job done.
With regard to Preview, Apple uses active colour management with ColorSync in OSX. It includes a color management module (CMM). This is a mathematical engine that converts color data from one device to another. OS X ships a default CMM, the Apple CMM, as part of ColorSync. – so yes, Preview is colour managed and tagged images will display correctly using the display’s profile.
“Betty, you must have gone through a lot over time to both understand this stuff and be able to explain it so well!”
Thank you and yes, I have suffered for my art!
Seriously though, when I changed from film to digital imaging I was frankly computer illiterate. I had no idea how to use Google let alone how to edit my images. Predictably, I quickly came up against, and got very bogged down in, colour management issues. I remember sitting up to 3am many a time trying to unravel the mysteries of colour spaces, profiling and all that stuff. I was greatly helped by Neil Barstow of colourmanagement.net who set me on the right path.
He has published an e-book which you may find helpful. http://www.colourmanagement.net/products/e-book/.
Another useful reference is http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/embeddedJPEGprofiles.html
Your sleepless nights start here!
Wow, Betty, you take this seriously and that is a compliment. Thanks for the information regarding web browsers. I never even considered color calibration for the web because it seemed all over the place. Now that I know there are differences, I will learn and adjust my output. What I take seriously is printed output and I can match that up very well without spending the type of cash you are spending. I have been using Dell Ultrasharp IPS monitors since forever. These are not wide gamut monitors.
That said, with regular calibration, the Dells have served me very well. I use the same print labs and Epson printers (currently a 3880) Based on the results – what I see is what I get – I have a hard time justifying the added expense of one of the Eizo or NEC monitors. Am I missing something beyond wide gamut?
sceptical1
Thank you for your kind comments.
What gear anyone uses is always a personal choice and as long it’s an informed choice and the gear suits its intended purpose, then all is well.
If your Dell calibrates well (or at least well enough) and you are happy with the results you are getting, I see no reason to change. Not being wide gamut just means you are not seeing as wide a range of colour as perhaps you could, but if you are shooting and printing in sRGB, it doesn’t matter as the whole colour ‘envelope’ is smaller. If however, you shoot RAW and edit in a larger colour space, then having an sRGB monitor is a limitation as you have less ‘WYSIWYG’ – you can’t see the full range of colour in the file or control which colours will reproduce well and which will be out of gamut (clipped). So until you can see what you are missing, you don’t know you are missing it!
Eizo ColorEdge and NEC Spectraviews are flagship products of the finest quality. Some photographers doing absolutely colour critical commercial/scientific proofing actually do need them. Others (myself included) just enjoy trying to get the best possible results from their hobby and can justify the expense to achieve that goal. That’s why we buy top quality lenses and cameras too.
So for some, top of the range equipment is a necessity, for some it’s simply a ‘want’ and for a few it’s a form of personal jewellery.
My ‘argument’ is that achieving the best quality possible depends on the quality chain being consistent (at whatever level) and unbroken. For instance there would little point in buying a D5 and a set of pro lenses if you were to print the results on a budget office laser jet or only put the images on Facebook. An iPhone is good enough. On the other hand, an iPhone is not good enough if you want to project images on a large screen or make big prints.
It’s all only as good as the weakest link.
For me, it is difficult to justify the cost of these monitors in the same way that it is difficult to justify the cost of D5’s. I don’t see enough quality difference and neither do my clients. Plus, that is $$ straight out of living expenses, travel accounts and retirement funds. I don’t skimp on glass or much of anything else because I can clearly see the difference in results or in equipment that makes it difficult to get proper results.
Your comment regarding wide gamut is certainly valid. As you say “until you can see what you are missing, you don’t know you are missing it!” So there is an advantage to purchasing a higher end monitor for that. The other reason to consider a higher end monitor was mentioned in later comments – they are quick and easy to calibrate.
sceptical1
I implied no criticism.
We all have our own criteria for choosing what we use.
If as you say you earn a living from photography it has to be a cost/benefit analysis. For a pro, equipment is a tool of the trade and has to earn its keep or you don’t eat.
For hobbyists like me it is also cost/benefit but from disposable income. That’s a much easier choice.
The recent release of Dell UP2716D makes panel selections even tougher. I have kept my eyes on the NEC PA272W-BW-SK for a long time. It costs $1,349 at B&H but reduces to $1,099 on Black Friday sale. Great reduction!
Since I am not a professional photo editor (just an amateur), I still thought $1,099 would be a little steep for my hobby as I try to stay below $1K. Without the bundled X-Rite i1Display Pro, it would have been $899 which is quite reasonable for this NEC panel. Do I really need the X-Rite calibration device for sRGB photo edits? The sweet spot for such a wide-gamut panel is for AdobeRGB edits which makes more sense. But my (Nikon) photos were taken in sRGB. But does it matter in RAW edits?
I also had been considering a more reasonably priced (older) ASUS PA279Q at $699. It comes factory calibrated and cannot be calibrated at the LUT level. But many reviewers have claimed that it performed perfectly in the sRGB space.
All 3 use LG AH-IPS panels. I typically use Adobe Lightroom and if needed, Photoshop on special edits.
Anyone here also in a similar situation shopping for a new panel? Have experience and could advice on the above panels?
Forgot to mention the new Dell costs $749 at B&H which is only a difference of $150 to the NEC when on sale. This makes the decision tough. So what should be the deciding factors?
David
It’s hard to tell from your questions what it is that you are trying to achieve.
“Do I really need the X-Rite calibration device for sRGB photo edits? ”
It depends on whether you want to see accurate colour or not.
Calibrating (and profiling) a display has to do with creating an environment that enables the accurate, predictable and consistent colour output across different devices (such as monitor screens, printers ,etc.) – irrespective of file type. This means that when you send me an image file or you display an image on the web, it will always look the same and as you intended – today, tomorrow and the day after. Well, that’s the theory anyway!
Most decent displays today come factory calibrated ‘pretty well’ which means that they are set to a predefined set of industry standard, target values (white point colour and brightness, black point and RGB gamma).
Also, most decent displays come from the factory displaying the SRGB or AdobeRGB colour space ‘pretty well’ – depending whether they are consumer or wide gamut displays.
The operative word is ‘pretty’.
But ‘pretty’ does not last – these values drift over time and must be reset.
Worse, the factory default brightness values are almost always set far too high for photographic editing.
In addition, every monitor coming off the production line does not display colour exactly the same as every other – there are variances between individual examples of the same model.
This is where profiling comes in ( and your X-Rite device).
This device reads the colours coming out of your display, compares them to a set of reference colour values, calculates the amount of deviation and applies a correction – the profile – for that device.
Normally calibration and profiling are carried out at the same time when using a device like X-Rite in conjunction with its associated software.
Better still, calibrating this way allows you to set more realistic brightness values for photographic work.
If you shoot and work mostly in the sRGB colour space, there is not much point in getting a wide gamut monitor. A bit like using a Ferrari to do the weekly shopping – you will never see what it is capable of. If your Nikon photos were shot in sRGB you cannot be using RAW.
If you shoot and work mostly in AdobeRGB, a wide gamut monitor will allow you to see more of the colours in your image file.
If you shoot RAW, a wide gamut monitor is virtually mandatory – as is working in a large colour space like AdobeRGB or ProphotoRGB. Otherwise large amounts of colour information will be clipped and lost.
So if you want accurate colour, yes, you do need (in this case) the X-Rite calibration device – regardless of which display you buy.
Otherwise, as most monitors come (more or less) well calibrated from the factory and display (more or less) the sRGB or AdobeRGB colour space, you will get ‘more or less’ accurate colour.
However, if you want truly accurate colour from camera to screen or print, you need to have a colour managed workflow – without that, it matters little what display you use because the colour will never be accurate or consistent. You may reach a pleasing result on your particular set up today, but it is unlikely to look the same when you display it somewhere else and it will certainly look different tomorrow compared to how it looks today.
Many photographers get hung up on which is the ‘best’ panel to buy not realising that without setting it up correctly and managing their colour workflow, they will never reap the benefits – no matter how good the panel is in theory. A bit like buying a sports car before passing your driving test.
As in most matters photographic, it matters less what equipment you use than how well you use and understand it.
Deciding factors?
High bit depth panel electronics 10,12, 14 or 16 bit and good access to them. Typical mid priced panels have 6bit (ugh!) or 8bit chip sets – which means adjustment of just 256 levels which means tonal compression and banding can quickly become a problem when calibrating them. High bit depth makes a panel flexible and accurate – all adjustments are made directly in the high bit LUT in the monitor itself using high bit depth math.
Capable of being calibrated properly – preferably direct hardware calibration but software calibration is fine too nowadays given a decent panel with a good video card.
General accuracy – high end monitors leave the factory calibrated to a standard unheard of in the consumer market.
Proper calibration controls – for adjusting their output to appropriate targets – especially brightness. Many monitors are far too bright and contrasty and cannot be sufficiently adjusted without inducing artefacts. On good monitors, all of these physical calibration adjustments are done in higher bit depth chips and the result is no artefacts on adjustment. Lesser quality monitors suffer banding in greyscale gradients when calibrated or having brightness/contrast reduced.
Proper Contrast Control – 1000:1 contrast ratio may be great for gaming and movies but is horrendous for photography especially for print which is inherently a low (200:1) contrast medium. Good monitors allow the setting of specific target values for white point and black point and hence contrast ratio. Most monitors are twice as bright and four times as contrasty as they should be for editing for print.
Uniformity Systems – high quality monitors have their panels measured over multiple zones each of which is then individually tuned to have perfectly uniform illumination. Internal software then keeps it that way. Lesser monitors can have as much as 2 stops difference from centre to edge.
Matte not Gloss Surface – gloss increases contrast and surface reflections – both undesirable for photo work.
Wide Gamut Support – allows greater accuracy of display as cameras and printers improve.
Ease of Use – many monitors have awful on screen controls and menu systems.
Back up, service and warranty – zero dead pixel guarantees, 3-5 year warranties and outstanding service are the province of companies like Eizo and NEC – few others come close.
Hope this helps.
Thanks, Betty. That last post was as useful as the original article.
I wish that Nassim would install “like” buttons in the comments area of this forum!
What is your experience with BenQ monitors?
There is a 31.5″ 4K monitor as of Jan this year I believe.
How would that compare with the NEC or Dell?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
Theresa, most 4K monitors are unsuitable for photography work. The technology is too new and calibration options are very bad. Most 4K monitors are consumer-grade and anything high-end is going to cost you thousands of dollars. I would recommend to skip on 4K for now and wait until reliable panels become available. For now, our recommendations still stand with high-end Eizo and NEC monitors and perhaps a medium budget Dell U2413 monitor. Everything else does not look good and has a lot of calibration problems.
Thank you
I am thinking I will go NEC
Hi Nasim. I owned NEC 272pa for a little while and it was fantastic for photo editing. However I find that now that I am used to retina screens on my mobile devices and my Macboo Pro, the text displayed on the (2.5k) NEC looked noticably soft. So I currently use a 4k Dell 24″ that I run in 2k mode which gets me near retina sharpness and I was able to calibrate it successfully with xrite. It is sRGB only though and overall NOT nearly as satisfying for photo editing as my old NEC. I think that I need separate monitors for photo editing and other tasks. Sure hope the technologies converge soon. I did try a 4k NEC Ea Series – it was wide gamut so I thought that would work great – but it was buggy, displaying splotches of color blocks at times instead of white. Sigh.
What is the 27″ version of the Dell U2413?
I was thinking about upgrading my Monitor to an IPS monitor. However, won’t the majority of consumers be viewing pictures on the internet using TN type monitor as opposed to IPS. If your products end result is for the web, then what you see in Photoshop and Lightworks on a TN monitor will closely represent what the majority of consumers will see over the internet. Therefor, you might as well use a TN monitor. IPS monitors are three times more expensive and the consumer will only buy the TN monitor.
Muddled thinking.
Two wrongs don’t make a right.
First, without calibration what you output to the web (or anywhere else for that matter) will be hit and miss.
Second, using an inferior, innaccurate device at the first stage in the imaging chain will make you unable to make informed decisions about the colour and sharpness of your image and will just serve to ensure that the degradation is compounded right through the whole image making process.
If you output a high quality image then even when viewed on a lesser screen, it will be as good as it can be.
If you output rubbish at the outset, you know what to expect at the other end.
I have the nec pa 27 inch! Nice monitor and what I love about it is the calibration process! With the xrite nec calibrator, you put it on the screen, come back 8 minutes later and the monitor is perfectly calibrated! It doesnt get easier then that!
Nice monitor and you are reaping the benefits of making a wise choice.
When calibration is straightforward it’s (almost!) a pleasure to do, but for many it’s an endlessy frustrating PITA as there are so many limitations and pitfalls.
By the way, it does get even easier than that.
My old EIZO was calibrated in much the same way as your NEC using iDisplay and Eizo’s ColorNavigator software. Straightforward and took about ten minutes.
My new EIZO wakes itself up at preset intervals (day or night), calibrates itself with its own built in calibrator and then goes to sleep again until needed.
Bliss.
I always loved your posts Betty :-)
Would you mind telling me exactly which EIZO you now have?
Theresa
Thanks.
After nearly 9 years my big, old EIZO CG301W finally died, so I lashed out the cash and bought the new EIZO CG318-4K.
The reviews are right. It’s near perfect and calibration is embarrassingly easy.
It’s just a pity that it’s a professional monitor with a ‘professional’ price as it could be calibrated by a total newbie with absolutely no knowledge other than inputting the required targets.
INMHO all monitors should be like this. Just set it, forget it and get on with what matters – photography.
I have a very aggravating problem with a delay in my primary monitor, which is a Viewsonic VP2765 LED. My secondary monitor is a Viewsonic VP2365 LED. In Lightroom CC when switching to a new image in the Develop Module my secondary monitor displays the image immediately, but my primary monitor lags behind by about 5-6 seconds. My video Graphics card is a Nvidia Quadro K620/PCIe/SSE2. Any idea what might be causing this?
My problem is finding a good traveling laptop for on the site editing in Lightroom. I have an older 17″ Acer machine that cost $600 and I can never get it set in a position that will give me the stable edits that I need to my get back to my NEC PA 20 71W monitor. The laptop is too heavy so I am in the market for a replacement. Any suggestions? Just throw money at a Lenovo x1. If I do that can I move my 1T SSD drive that I upgraded on the Acer last year. or do I just go with their smaller drive and use portable external drives for my photos?
When I upgraded to Windows 10 the spectravision unit required direct connection from the monitor direct to the PC in order to calibrate. Therefore I bought a spider five elite which may be overkill because I’m not quite sure how to use the advanced features.
MacBook Pro 2016 or 2017 is a good choice. It has bright screen with effective anti-reflecting coating. Also it supports DCI-P3 colour gamut and well calibrated from the box. It’s compact but yet powerful. Battery life is pretty good. All the these things a very important when editing images on site and travelling.
My Dell U2415 calibrates very well with the X-Rite i1Display Pro, yielding small deltas. I’m slightly less confident about the accuracy of the brightness I’m getting. It is only sRGB (actually slightly larger), but there are additional pluses of this monitor:
(1) It has 16:10 aspect ratio. It gives a little extra vertical space for vertically formatted photos and for text. I really really dislike 16:9.
(2) It has zero flicker, all the way down to to 0% brightness. My eyes are really sensitive to monitor flicker. When not doing photo editing, I like to set it at 10% brightness to go easy on my eyes.
(3) It plays well with my Mac, and has no sleep/wake issues.
This is an excellent budget monitor.
Dell P2415Q is one of the great monitors for photography.
There are also PLS Panels since a few years, which seems to be the same as IPS. At first I found it confusing, but some Panel OEMs seem to like to use their own names
Nasim, I have an aging Hewlett-Packard TN monitor (model 2159) that I would like to replace for my Photoshop editing.
The Dell Dell U2413 seems like the perfect fit for me price-wise plus I already have a Dell software support contract for my Dell PC.
I use a Spyder system for calibration with my current HP monitor and my calibrated color profile loads up on every reboot–which is okay for me.
My questions are: Should I continue to use the Spyder system with the replacement Dell monitor? Related, would I fist de-install the Spyder application before installing the Dell monitor and then re-install the Spyder software after attaching the Dell monitor?
Great and timely article! Appreciate it.
Lawson
Dell has a new monitor UP2718Q that is 27″, 4k, 100% of Adobe RGB and 97% of P3. As I mentioned above, while I don’t feel that I need 4k for photo editing, I do want it for other purposes especially reading text, where 2.5k in 27″ or 2k in 24″ seems soft by today’s standards.
The UP2718Q has a street price around $1500. What I wonder is whether it is really up to the quality of the NEC PA272 in terms of details of color control, bit rate, etc. Seems doubtful. I already have experience with telephone support from Dell (frustrating) and NEC (superb), ….. but keep hoping to be able to get my color spaces, color control and 4k experience all in one unit.
Increasingly I see P3 as an advantage as well since Apple is making P3 the standard in all it’s new devices.
Art
Whether the Dell is up to the quality of the NEC is almost irrelevant ( it isn’t by the way). What really matters is how well and how easily it can be calibrated. You have seen from the recent articles on how to calibrate a Dell (and others) that it’s potentially a nightmare merry go round of incompatibilities between the monitor, the calibration instrument and the software. The NEC is a walk in the park by comparison and it’s a better monitor, with better quality control and better support.
I wouldn’t get hung up on the DCI-P3 colour space either. It’s a video editing space for digital cinema systems. It’s a bizarre choice and seems to have been adopted by Apple because it aligns slightly better with sRGB than Adobe RGB does. If you are doing colour grading, special effects or editing for a movie then it makes sense for your monitor to support a similar gamut, but most people that are in the movie business use high end Adobe RGB screens (like the EIZO ColorEdge range) that include DCI-P3 emulation but also, crucially, are very accurate screens with their own colour calibration system.
The DCI-P3 standard refers to more than just a colour gamut. It also specifies a gamma curve and luminance level. So anyone actually needing to work in P3 needs a better screen than even the new iMac. Incidentally, iMacs, even the 4/5K ones, are overly bright, highly reflective and have no quality standards for uniformity or consistency,
P3 is not a standard designed for consumers, and it has problems for any photographer, designer or prepress user when compared to the much more widely supported Adobe RGB gamut.
The main issue with P3 as a monitor colour gamut is that it is smaller than Adobe RGB in the cyan and green area so it covers less of typical CMYK printer colour spaces. It is larger than Adobe RGB in reds and yellows but even with high gamut inkjet printers you loose more greens than you gain reds. So for the core markets for wide gamut displays – (photographers and prepress) DCI- P3 is less suitable, although it’s still an improvement on sRGB.
Also, if you are viewing content through a poorly colour managed browser, images will look oversaturated because the sRGB data won’t be converted to DCI-P3. And this leads on to the other downside of Apple switching to DCI-P3 from sRGB. Most web browsers and many none colour critical applications assume the monitor gamut is sRGB and do not convert colours using the monitor profile. Apple have supplied a DCI-P3 gamut profile for the new iMac that is set as default, but even large parts of the Apple user interface aren’t colour managed so you can end up with very vivid dock icons and other elements if you use a wide gamut screen.
Using P3 for the new iMacs and most photographers just muddies the water.
Hello Betty.
First, may I say that your encyclopaedic knowledge of color management/calibration is most impressive! As for myself, I am a “semi-pro” photographer (doing IT QA by day, and micro-stock photography on the side), who is entrenched in the Apple eco-system since my son turned me on to the iPhone several generations ago. Prior to getting an iMac (4K 21.5″) almost 2 years back, I was a firm Dell PC guy (especially since most all of IT work is done on PC’s (Dell, HP, or other). I currently use the Fujifilm X-System, and must say that when I viewed my still images on the iMac for the first time, I was fairly impressed with the sharpness, detail, saturation, and overall image quality! (I’m very much into sharpness and detail, having come from using large format systems with high-end optics many years back.) I fully understand that this iMac’s “built-in” 4K display cannot even approach your Eizo High-end display in most all image characteristics, especially color. However, I’m sort of like the “kid with a Ferrari who hasn’t yet passed his driving test”…I could never realize “what I’m missing”, because regrettably I am quite color-blind! Thus, what I see as an amazing image with saturated, dynamic, true-to-life color, may in reality, be quite far from it! That said, I have made some rather nice poster prints of landscapes that seem to me (and other non-color-blind folks) to be rather nice. I’d love to be able to take advantage of your Eizo with self-calibrating functions, but I think its’ potential would be “wasted” on me, due to my color-blindness. Thanks again, Betty, for your inspriational comments!
Steve Solomon
Thanks for your kind comments – greatly appreciated. I find it really funny because if you had seen me at my starting point about ten years ago, you would have fallen off you chair laughing while tears of pity rolled down your face.
I know I sometimes sound like I am slating the iMac, but it should be borne in mind that such criticisms are relative to a very high standard indeed. Also, of course, for the price of a top end Eizo or NEC, Apple throws in an entire high end computer for nothing!
Recent iMacs with IPS screens are extremely fine machines, the screens are greatly improved and off course, they are ravishingly beautiful (rather like myself in that key area). Calibration is much easier with the i1Display Pro and the ADC feature, but brightness is still problematic I believe. They are still too shiny and reflective and the screen uniformity is not that great.
That said, I am a huge fan of all things Apple (except the screens) and in spite of the iMac’s drawbacks plan to buy one for my partner who shoots video and is in sore need of a general upgrade from the current ageing Macbook Pro.
Very interesting, Betty! Also, thank you for the detailed reply! Yes, I’m generally quite pleased with the iMac! Again, being (ironically) a color-blind photographer who is quite passionate about photography, I find the iMac sufficient for my current needs. If interested, please feel free to check out my work at totalqualityphoto[dot]com. As I mentioned, I manage to generate some highly detailed poster prints from my small X-Pro2, using some stellar Fujinon XF lenses. BTW, do you have a page on which you show samples of your work? I’m sure many of us would be most interested!
If you dig deep you will find a handful on PL forums under Critique and Wildlife. I may put some more up soon.
I looked at your site. If I wanted sharp, I’d be in the right place!
Excellent! Thank you very much, Betty. I look forward to seeing your work!
Hi Nasim,
From this article, I feel that Dell U2413 is a good choice with solid capabilities. However, reading another article ( https://photographylife.com/how-to-calibrate-dell-wide-gamut-monitors ) by a guest poster, I get the impression that it is a not so good choice because of ghosting and other issues.
Am I missing something here?
Excellent article BUT, I went to Dell’s site to view the details of your recommended U2413 monitor and was unable to find it. Finally found a section at dell.com that told me: “Sorry, this item is not available anymore for purchase online. Please see our recommended replacement product.” I ended up “talking with a Dell Rep who told me that the U2413 model is no longer produced.
Any other suggestions from Dell?
I’m surprised that there is no mention of the Eizo ColorEdge CS-series monitors which share many features with the highend monitors. I think that for semiprofessional photographers they are a great choice in the medium budget range, offering hardware calibration, wide gamut, a 10bit panel, 16bit Luts, brightness uniformity and the Eizo ColorNavigator software.
Good point. They are very high quality and a great choice for photo editing – and perhaps most important of all, are easy to calibrate properly.
How about IGZO technology?
I bought an Eizo ColorEdge CG2420 earlier this year and I’ve been perfectly happy with the results. It was a bit expensive but it will last for years, and the included self-calibrating device that does its thing at night while I’m sleeping is just perfectly convenient. The anti-glare visor/hood/whatever-you-call-it is also great to use, even though I work in subdued lighting —couldn’t do without now that I’ve tried it.
I warmly recommend to make the investment in a genuinely professional monitor, the difference is visible (earlier, I had a very good “photo” Dell monitor… not quite the same thing!).
Dominique R
“I warmly recommend to make the investment in a genuinely professional monitor, the difference is visible (earlier, I had a very good “photo” Dell monitor… not quite the same thing!).”
It’s nice to see that there is a growing recognition that investing in a high quality monitor is as important as investing in quality cameras and glass.
NEC and EIZO, even their more budget models, are for me no brainers for the reasons outlined by Alexander – quality control, straightforward hardware calibration, high bit LUTs, screen uniformity control, long guarantees and pro level support.
And, as you say, the difference is clearly visible – once you have experienced it, there is no going back.
Why buy a headache from one of the rest?
Hi Nasim,
I am looking at some bigger option – what do you think about 34″ Dell U3417W ? It’s big enough, it’s IPS and below $1000. Is it ok from your point of view or do you have any other candidates at this size?
Thanks, Marek
Nasim,
I have bought the Dell up3214q 3 years ago and the spyder pro5 arround 2 years ago. Do you think there are any calibration issues with the given setup?
p.s. excellent article as usual, congratulations!
Valentin
Hi Nasim,
I am considering to replace my Samsung-monitor with a newer and better IPS-monitor. I have been considering also the Dell U2413, but then I noticed from Dell and Amazon internet sites that this model is now discontinued. May be it is possible to get from some retailers, but what could be the other as good options from Dell in the same price and size category?
Pekka
Free calibrationAider may be of interest.
http://www.imagingassociates.co.au
Regards
Andrew Reid
I have got the self-calibrating Eizo CG245W. I just checked and to my big surprise, I bought it nearly 7 years ago and it is still a superb monitor.
It can be set to automatically perform calibration at specific intervals like for instance once a month.
Yes, that shows you get what you pay for.
(My old Eizo kept going for nearly 9 years).
Here, I think, are a couple of stories.
I think that what you said above is spot on – every link in the chain needs to be the same quality (back in film days you were always told that it’s pointless having better camera lenses than your enlarger lens).
And another contributor talked about which laptop and recommended Macbook Pros.
I find computers thoroughly dull and hate buying them. Hence I have a Macbook Pro because I expect it to last. Every shop salesman told me that they are more reliable than their rivals. Yes, it’s now rather slow – it’s a 2011 model and I run Lightroom 6. It was better with 3. I have a Nikon D7100.
All these – and my Canon Pro100 printer – need to be about the same. They aren’t quite. I don’t want to have to buy a laptop more than every 6 years (ideally longer) and I can certainly avoid buying a camera more than every 6 years. So I need them to be in sync. But on the whole they aren’t bad. My best lenses are the 70-200/f4 and 300/f4D – my D7100 might take better, but I’m at the top of my budget and they are fine lenses. I don’t need any better – they exceed my capabilities.
What’s quite interesting is that my printer cost about £350 and my monitor (Dell 2412) cost £200. Together that’s just half the price of only the 300/f4 plus 1.4TC (I got the lens 2nd hand).
I suspect most of us can ensure that our ‘backroom’ kit is up to scratch before we set off on the next lens purchase.
I find it impossible to believe any of you are pros or know about color accuracy when you don’t even know the monitors you’re using are scams. They’re all 8+FRC and not true 10-bit. You need to do your research.
anon
What you say is true in that many photographers are deluding themselves in thinking that they have true 10 bit display, Yes, using an 10 bit display with an 8 bit video card is a delusion, but for you to say that “all monitors are 6 or 8 bit + FRC (Frame Rate Control) is simply rubbish.
10 bit display has been possible for years but was not practical mostly because very few apps supported it. Even my ancient and now defunct, Eizo CG301W was 10 bit capable – but neither the Mac OS, nor Adobe apps, nor my old Mac hardware supported it, so effectively 10 bit display was out of reach.
High quality 10 bit capable monitors like those from Eizo and NEC (and others) with high bit depth internal look up tables are most certainly 10 bit and no, they are not scams.
For those that don’t know, and you clearly don’t, is that what is vital to understand is that the whole imaging pipeline has to support 10 bit for it to work. That means:
A 10 bit capable monitor with 10, 12, 14 or 16 bit (even better, 3D LUT!) and (preferably) internal hardware calibration.
Sufficiently up to date computer hardware.
A truly 10 bit capable video card (with 10 bit support activated where necessary).
Mac OSX 10 bit support (El Capitan and higher). Windows has been 10 bit capable for quite some time.
A 10 bit capable video connection (Displayport or Thunderbolt – never DVI)
Apps capable of handling 10 bit AND activation of 10 bit mode in those apps.
If any one of these is missing, 10 bit display will not happen.
If they are all there, 10 bit display will certainly happen.
Before making sweeping generalisations, I believe it’s you who needs to do your research.
“..or know about color accuracy”
As a ‘pro’ you should know this is meaningless. The term colour accuracy is both ambiguous and relative. Accuracy – compared to what reference? Under what conditions? Using what terminology? Perhaps you would like to explain what colour accuracy is?
Nasim, dude I think we need a better recommendation for the mid-range.. your U2413 is not available from any more. B&H only lists used as well as Amazon and N/A on Dell.
I would really love to hear what you think as I’m wondering whether an iMac is the best option for me.
currently working with a 12 year old Samsung 22″ 16:10 and a 9 year old custom built AMD Phenom II X4 95 (16GB + SSD + 3TB 7200)
thanks!
Betty,
Your posts are so informative, and I appreciate all the information you supply.
I hope I am not too late to this thread, and I now understand that the pipeline must go from the monitor all the way through the apps and Printer where relevant.
I have an 8bit ASUS monitor which I am looking to upgrade.
I have a fairly recently built Windows system based on articles Nasim has written over the last few years.
PC running Windows 10 with plenty of ram and fast processor.
I am planning to buy either the NEC Pa or an Eizo monitor.
1)Unfortunately , I have a nvidia GTX 970 video card , and the best that I can tell from reading various threads , this card will not support 10 bit output(particularly since it only has Display port 1.2 . My understanding is you need Display port 1.4 to display 10 bit).
Sounds like I will need to upgrade my video card to achieve true 10 bit. Any suggestions on that front?
2) I currently calibrate my monitor with the Color Munki Display and print output on Canon Pixma Pro 100. I realize that there is still a problem with WYSIWYG, and have considered buying the Color Munki Photo program to also calibrate my monitor to the monitor. ..So, if one buys the Eizo or NEC Pa monitors, would one then still calibrate the monitor and use those ICC profiles derived from the Color Munki Photo with the new monitors? It makes sense to me that calibrating the printer does not affect the self calibration of the monitors, that the ICC profiles obtained thru calibrating the printer/paper combination instructs the Lightroom or Photoshop programs thru the monitor display during ‘Soft Proofing’ stage how you one might want to adjust the color/brightness/contrast etc so that you can print in Gamut and achieve the grail of WYSIWYG.
Thanks in advance.
Paul
Addendum: Just read that that the GTX 970 card could support 10 bit output using HDMI ( I believe version 2.0).
Paul
I am not a Windows/PC user so take what I say with a pinch of salt.
1. As far as I know, none of the GeForce series will support 10 bit display, (or rather they will, but only in Direct X) – but not because of Displayport 1.2.
DP1.2 is the connector of choice for both 4K and 10bit display.
DP1.4 was developed for displays up to 8K at up to 120Hz. Overkill for most of us at present.
it’s a shame really as I believe the hardware/chips in both GeForce and Quadro cards are identical. Nvidia decided to ‘segment the market’ by selectively enabling some features through the software and firmware to prevent their high end graphics customers from using their less expensive gaming/consumer cards. Very cynical, but that’s life.
You will need a Quadro or FirePro series card. Luckily even the more modest versions support 10bit and 4K. You will need to choose based on the performance you want, whether you plan on having a 4K monitor and budget. Quadro 600/1000/1200 upwards as they all support 4K and 10 bit – the only differences are memory and speed/performance.
That said, are you sure you need 10 bit display or is it just a ‘want’? The GTX970 is an excellent card and will run a 4K wide gamut display very well indeed. In your shoes I think I would keep the card and get a better monitor. A well (preferably hardware) calibrated wide gamut Eizo or NEC, even without 4K, will produce beautifully smooth gradients and overall knock your socks off while the visible improvement with 10 bit display will be at best marginal. Also with the exception of Photoshop and Lightroom, very few apps yet support 10 bit.
It’s a minefield. I had a Quadro K5000 for Mac. This supported 10 bit – which at the time was useless as Mac OSX was incompatible! Then just when El Capitan solved that problem and I was thinking of 4K, I found it would only support 4K at 30Hz with my new monitor ( nice jittery scrolling and mouse pointer)!
I ended up getting an Nvidia 980GTX Ti from MacVid who have found a way of flashing these cards but retaining the boot screen and normal driver updating procedure without any complicated card switching nonsense. It’s very fast, supports 4K, 10 bit and Open GL, etc, and so is great for photo editing.
2. Yes, you can calibrate with the ColorMunki Display and generate a profile for your new monitor.
Then, with the correct printer profile (manufacturers’ paper profiles are pretty good nowadays) your soft proof in Ps or LR will give you a good approximation on screen of your potential print and in turn your print should come out as expected – WYSIWYG! For print just remember that you need a lower brightness target for your monitor profile (about 90cd) or your prints will come darker than expected. In other words, make two profiles, one for print and one for web display.
“Addendum: Just read that that the GTX 970 card could support 10 bit output using HDMI ( I believe version 2.0).”
I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. For gaming using DirectX maybe, but not for photography. Sounds like internet hogwash to me.
Happy to be corrected on any of the above.
Betty,
Thank you for your response, and I now have a much better understanding of what I am looking for. Confusion on my part , thinking that a 10 bit display was what was needed, rather than a monitor with wide gamut.
Also, now realize , that 4K is a separate issue.
Based on above, I realize I will not have to replace my Video card( a cost savings as you noted) , and now ‘merely’ have to decide on the Eizo vs NEC route, and then on size.
I currently have the 27 inch ASUS , so I would like to purchase a new monitor with at least that size.
In your opinion , is there a big difference between the Eizo CG and CS series?
Again, thank you for your help in clarifying the issues for me.
Paul
If you want a 27″ monitor at less than CG series prices, I would go for the CS2730. It’s properly 2560x1440px, wide gamut, factory adjusted for accuracy, has 16bit look up table for calibration, is 10 bit capable (for the future), has uniformity control, multiple inputs, zero faulty pixels and a 5 year guarantee. It also comes with clever Quick Color Match software which greatly simplifies soft proofing and print.
It’s difficult for me to compare Eizo with NEC as I have never owned one, but from what I am told they are also excellent. Overall, I think Eizo has the edge nowadays especially with ease of calibration and support.
At the risk of sounding like a sales person, I am sure you will not be disappointed!
Hi Betty,
There is a newer Eizo CG 2730.
Is that the same as the CS 2730 you mentioned above?
Thanks
Theresa
Theresa
Yes Theresa, it is.
Looks like a wizard machine. However, all the CS range monitors are made for photographic/graphics work and all are straightforward to calibrate accurately with the included ColorNavigator software. Most are wide gamut and 10 bit capable and If you are not too fixated on a huge screen the prices are quite reasonable. Also as the new versions come out there are deals to be had!
Theresa
The CS2420 (24inch) looks like great value.
Hi Betty,
I’d like to keep my budget below 1000. Which of the NEC models would you recommend today?
I’ve been reading all the comments above and have also seen reviews on Dells complaining that sometimes it’s a question of luck whether you get a good piece – apparently a lot of variation between individual monitors. That has kind of put me off trying Dell and would like to go for NEC instead – also for the ease of calibration that you have mentioned several times! Any thoughts on a mid-range NEC? Thanks for your great posts! A wealth of information.
Susanna
Help! I am becoming the monitor consultant! I am not an NEC user and certainly not a consultant!
I have always stuck with Eizo, but that said, I don’t think there is much between them.
I would personally stay away from Dell, Benq, LG and the rest for the reasons outlined by Nasim and Iliah – patchy quality control, temperamental calibration software and no screen uniformity control to name but three.
Looking at what’s on offer at around your price range, I would go with PA272W/PA242W. Both are wide gamut, IPS screens with 14bit look up tables (16bit processing), Spectraview hardware calibration, are 10bit capable and have ample inputs (Displayport, HDMI, DVI-D). The only difference is size.
If you hanker for 4K, then EA244UHD/EA275UHD fit the bill – but do check that your graphics card can drive them properly. That’s another black hole just waiting to swallow up the unwary – as I found to my cost.
Remember, to get the best from them (by hardware calibrating with their Spectraview software) you will also need to budget for an i1Display Pro. It makes the job really straightforward and accurate. I know I bang on about it, but calibration can be such a PITA (as Iliah has shown so well!) that anything that simplifies it is worth its weight in gold. I prefer to get on with image making rather than staying up late at night scratching my head wondering why the calibration keeps failing and/or my colour is weird.
I had the NEC EA244 in my home thinking it was the answer to my prayers (4k with Adobe RGB in a high quality package) but monotone areas were blotchy. NEC has fantastic phone support and they told me I had a defective one. Overall though it was not nearly as high quality as the PA272 I tried out. The PA272 is still the best monitor that I have tried for photo editing. But I missed retina / 4k for crisp text. Never found a solution in a single monitor, currently using a $400 4k Dell to tread water hoping NEC will go 4k in a PA 27″ monitor. Might just end up with two monitors.
That is hoping NEC will go 4k and wide gamut in a PA series 27″.
Correction:
I believe the 4K displays are sRGB so not wide gamut.
NEC EA244 is wide gamut, or at least, one of their EA 24″ series is both 4k and wide gamut. That’s the one I tried and had to return. The 4k Dell that I am currently using is sRGB and 4k, which is not really what I want. It’s a temporary solution I picked up thinking that NEC was just a matter of months from offering a 27″ PA series 4k wide gamut. Sigh.
I wonder why companies like NEC are so slow to give us a 24″ or 27″ 4k wide gamut monitor. Then there is the issue of the wide gamut standard that Apple has moved to in their new products (“P3″?). Commercial availability of monitors for photographers is a messy situation right now. BTW I’m not seeking 32”.
I do love having at least one of my monitors be natively sRGB so I can see what my photos will look like outside of my carefully color-controlled setup. And an advantage of using a non-4k monitor for editing might be speed, especially with Lightroom which is speed-challenged. So I’m still planning to have two monitors hooked up, a 2.5k monitor for photography editing and a 4k monitor for sharper text, which can be sRGB. Not optimal but workable.
Art
You seem very clear about what you want – a good thing.
DCi-P3 is a side issue IMHO and should make little or no difference in real world conditions.
Almost everyone in the imaging world uses AdobeRGB and they are unlikely to change just because Apple unaccountably decided to be different.
The Eizo I use can both emulate P3 and be calibrated to P3 targets – not that I foresee ever doing that.
You are right about 27″ 4K wide gamut being unavailable generally (Eizo included) – strange. Maybe they are trying to push that market segment into buying bigger monitors at bigger prices?
Art
When things go right it’s easy to be happy with a company or product. It’s when things go wrong that you get to sort the wheat from the chaff.
“….hoping NEC will go 4k in a PA 27? monitor”
You could always go the whole hog and get the PA 322UHD!
Betty, others!
Thanks ever so much for your helpful comments – great to have people like you around!
Best,
Susanna
This is a question about embedding color profiles for printing by a commercial printer, and how this relates to your specific monitor. It probably has a simple answer, but I’ve had a hard time finding it.
I’ve avoided buying my own printer because I’m interested in > 17” wide prints, and I can’t afford to buy a 24” printer, let alone have anywhere to put a monster like that. So, I’ve recently submitted a file to the commercial printer WhiteWall as a kind of test. WhiteWall says that if you don’t embed a specific color profile, it will assume sRGB. I have a DELL 2415, calibrated with i1Profiler, and it has a gamut slightly larger than sRGB. When I exported the file for printing out of Capture One Pro, it forced me to select a color profile to embed, so I selected the generic “sRGB Color Space Profile” thinking that could be close enough. I wound up with pretty accurate color in the print. However, I could have selected many other ICC profiles, including the specific ColorSync .icc profile that I’m using for my monitor and which was output from i1Profiler. What if I had embedded my specific monitor profile rather than the generic sRGB profile? Would this have given more accurate results than embedding the generic profile, or would it have been a big blunder? The reason that it looks possibly reasonable to me is that when I open the monitor’s ColorSync profile (a .icc profile), in ColorSync Utility, ColorSync Utility can actually display a LAB plot for it, just like it does with a generic sRGB profile. (It’s not obvious how to get to the window that will display the LAB plot — there’s a little bit of a trick to that.)
Hi All,
I have been using calibrated Dells with a new X-rite calibrator. Interestingly, I find the screen on my Surface Pro to be equally accurate. I now confidently use it when submitting photos to labs. Obviously, it’s a small screen, so not ideal, but it works when away from my desktop.
Hi Nisim!
What do you think about the monitor Dell UltraSharp U2715H 27” LED IPS?
Or better Dell UltraSharp U2717D?
I am waiting to hear back from Nasim about the discontinued Dell model he recommended that others have questioned above and is no longer widely available for the midrange level. Was this article written several years ago when the Dell model was new and just not updated recently, even though the article shows a current date?
Thanks
Mark
The short answer to your question is NEVER apply a monitor profile to an image file. The monitor profile determines how your monitor ‘translates’ colour from the image file to the screen. It is useless anywhere else and will skew colour in an unpredictable way if an image is tagged with it and output to somewhere else. Your monitor profile only relates to your monitor – nothing else.
If you are editing in ProphotoRGB/AdobeRGB you can convert your output (print) file to either AdobeRGB or sRGB depending on your printer’s requirements. AdobeRGB is preferred generally as it will reproduce a wider range of colours which can be printed – even if your monitor cannot display them. sRGB will also work OK (as you have found) but some colours will be lost/clipped – but without comparing two prints you will never know what’s missing!
Thanks Betty, that’s the answer I was looking for about the monitor profile. The frustrating thing about the commercial printers is that they don’t make it obvious what their “printer’s requirements” are. (WhiteWall does supply some printer proofing profiles though.)
So, you recommend exporting my files for print to AdobeRGB even if my monitor is closer to sRGB? Isn’t it possible that some area of the image actually looks bad (i.e. too saturated or off-color) translated into AdobeRGB but I can’t see that with my sRGB monitor? It seems to me that it might be safer if I’m exporting into the same space that I can actually see on my monitor. But maybe I’m wrong.
It would be nice to have my own printer so everything can be under my control, I could do small test prints, and I could get instant feedback on adjustments I make, etc — sort of like in the old analogue days.
I’m guessing that all of the commercial printers can print AdobeRGB on various media, but it’s hard to tell from their websites.
Anyway, I think an equivalent question is: if I edit a RAW file on my sRGB monitor, then export the file in AdobeRGB space, and then view that file with an AdobeRGB monitor, will the image always look as good or better, with no unexpected problems? I think this would be true if and only if I’m exporting to AdobeRGB space and sending the file to a commercial printer where they will undoubtedly print in AdobeRGB space.
Richard S
Sadly, many print companies still don’t understand, let alone implement, good colour management practice into their businesses. Many still operate on the ‘suck it and see’ principle tweaking output by trial and error until it ‘looks about right’ – whatever that is.
Others do implement colour management properly but are thwarted by customers who have ‘optimised’ an image on an uncalibrated monitor and send the resulting image (often with no profile or the wrong profile) for printing – and who then of course complain bitterly that the print looks nothing like what they saw on their monitor at home.
The moral of the story is that colour management is a wonderful tool for ensuring predictability and consistency but (like 10bit colour display) it only works if everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet.
“So, you recommend exporting my files for print to AdobeRGB even if my monitor is closer to sRGB?”
Yes. It is perfectly possible to edit a file in the huge ProphotoRGB colour space while viewing it on an sRGB monitor. The source image/profile is passed through what is known as the colour management module (CMM in a Mac) which creates a transform which converts colour data from the source device (the camera) through a device independent space (profile connection space based on XYZ and Lab) to the destination device (the monitor).
“Isn’t it possible that some area of the image actually looks bad (i.e. too saturated or off-color) translated into AdobeRGB but I can’t see that with my sRGB monitor?”
If the image looks bad it needs editing but it’s true that conversion from a larger colour space to a smaller one involves losses – but it’s also true that in a colour managed workflow your AdobeRGB image’s appearance will be as true to the original as the conversion to the smaller sRGB space allows and will still look ‘right’. So yes, this gamut mapping is limited by the colours each device in the chain can represent. This has consequences in terms of organising your workflow. For example, when proofing, you should have a large size gamut on your device (monitor), otherwise, the gamut mapping may result in colours which are not correct in terms of the original data. Ideally, all devices would be able to represent all the colours we can see (and then we wouldn’t need profiles or colour management at all!) but matching device colour spaces as closely as possible makes sense.
“It would be nice to have my own printer so everything can be under my control, I could do small test prints, and I could get instant feedback on adjustments I make, etc ? sort of like in the old analogue days.”
‘Soft proofing’ tries to get around you having to do this as you are simulating the potential print’s appearance on the monitor using the printer profile. As most good RGB inkjets can reproduce a wider gamut than AdobeRGB, it makes sense to do this on a wide gamut monitor. Even then, the perfectionist may make more than one ‘hard’ proof print to get it exactly right.
Betty – Once again you’re providing valuable advice here. Thanks! Next time I have a print made by a commercial printer, I’ll export my sRGB edited image to AdobeRGB and see what comes back to me.
Every time Nasim posts about monitors or color management, comments come in an avalanche, and he could probably just go on vacation for a week. There must be a lot of anxiety and confusion about this out there. In part, I think it’s because the various parts of the photo industry all believe that this is just too complicated for the average puny human brain and must be glossed over. I have a math background, and damit, I hate gloss overs, and want to have everything well defined.
Richard S
“I’ll export my sRGB edited image to AdobeRGB and see what comes back to me.”
If possible, it’s best to choose your working colour space and bit depth at the outset. For most, ProphotoRGB or AdobeRGB and 16bit are good choices as they preserve the most data and allow maximum flexibility in editing. So my advice would be to work in 16 bits in one one of those spaces for as long as possible. Then ask your printer what his preference is. Most good inkjets can output AdobeRGB at 16bits – and that is ideal. If not, it is easy to drop down to 8bits and/or sRGB for ‘less sophisticated’ printing or for output to the web.
Remember, going from a larger to a smaller colour space loses data. Once lost, it cannot be recovered. So once you have converted your higher bit depth files to sRGB, the conversion back up to AdobeRGB will not bring back what has been lost.
Yes, everything is kept RAW or 16 bit TIFF AdobeRGB in the non-destructive Capture One editor, or if exported for further editing elsewhere, exported as 16 bit TIFF in AdobeRGB. (Unfortunately, I don’t think Capture One handles ProphotoRGB.) Scans I’ve done have always produced 16 bit TIFF AdobeRGB files. I know how roundoff errors can accumulate with successive numerical transformations. The only sRGB space involved is the monitor itself.
I think a great contender would have been the Benq SW2700PT
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1176775-REG/benq_sw2700pt_27_photographer_monitor_with.html
What’s your thoughts?
Nasim, I have the Dell 13 too with the high resolution. So what resolution have you picked to optimally work for you?
Top quality review.
A boon to us lesser mortals.
Thanks.
Betty I just want to say I love your comments and your superb understanding of all things photographic…..as I am currently looking for a new monitor this is all very helpful.
“According to Betty” is my new preamble……………………..I hope Nasim offers you a full time position!
Very nice article Nasim.
I also have the Dell 2713 – in fact, three of them. The LED back-lighting almost totally avoids the need to re-calibrate after the first time you do it. These units are amazingly stable and will go for many months without color or brightness shift. With traditional fluorescent backlit LCD units you are well advised to re-calibrate once a month, at least. Using “Spyder Elite” I obtain a color gamut significantly better than Adobe RGB, especially in the green but also a bit in the red. These Dells are also good value. It’s tough finding wide gamut monitors. 95% of the stuff out there is sRGB which is why the specs for them are never mentioned.
Best wishes,
JH
Articles like this are only confusing. I used to provide CM services for hire. Been awhile and thought I’d see what monitor’s people were leaning on these days. The article recommends discontinued displays – in the middle and from the Dell site, it’s not clear that they have released a suitable replacement. I currently have two Dells that have served my needs very well for print work. Was looking to see current good option. General info is decent, but display model info is outdated. Sad. Better to just offer the general info, rather than make it seem like the model info is current.
I didn’t see any apple monitors
I notice that you recommend a Dell U2413 in the medium price range of Monitor. When I checked on Amazon, there was a note saying that, although several still in stock, this unit has now been discontinued.
Do you have any info regarding a replacement Dell unit.
I am using U2412m and it is really good, recently I bring U2415 but it was disappointment, Looking for 27″ inch now .
Hi,
Considering a PA272W but is wide gamut of any help if I only publish on web (so sGRB exports only)? Should a NEC sGRB a better choice (simplicity, better price, and higher resolution all at the same time).
Any comment is appreciated.
Thank you so very much!
Richard
Richard
It’s not just the destination output (web) that matters. Photographically speaking, every image ends up converted to sRGB if it is to go on the web. sRGB is the default space for the web regardless of what happens earlier in the imaging chain.
So, if you only ever shoot JPEG, only ever work in the sRGB colour space and only ever output to the web (or screen at home) – and you are sure that is never going to change, then an sRGB monitor will do fine.
If however, you shoot RAW and edit in a larger colour space such as AdpbeRGB or ProphotoRGB, then a wide gamut monitor becomes more important as it is able to display more of the colours in these much larger files as you work. Also, it allows you to make better decisions as you edit them as fewer colours will be clipped. Having a wide gamut monitor is never a disadvantage and future proofs you in the event of you ever wishing to expand your photographic ‘repertoire’.
Hi Betty,
Thank you very much for the quick response!
I shoot and edit in lr with raw only (therefore prophoto in lr) until export, the last step where I used sGRB. Prophoto to sGRB conversion is hard clipping (colors and related properties inside target gamut are unchanged). Therefore on a wide gamut monitor, while information outside sGRB space may provide additional guidance in editing, it also increases the potential color shift during conversion. The benefit and the drawback could more or less cancel each other out.
Is my understanding correct?
Thank you again!
Richard
Richard
I don’t quite understand the point you are trying to make, but I hope this covers it.
Your strategy of shooting RAW and editing in a large colour space (ProphotRGB) and high bit depth (16bit) is a good one.
There are always losses/quantisation errors in converting from one space to another, but provided you work at 16 bits the shifts in hue or saturation are so minimal they are undetectable to the eye.
The greatest clipping or other losses occur when converting to a smaller colour space (e.g. sRGB) and/or lower bit depth (e.g. 8bit) – which is why it is best to stay in a large colour space at high bit depth for as long as possible.
If you convert down early or work in with a smaller colour space and lower bit depth from the outset, you not only clip your high gamut colours at the outset, but you also limit your ability to edit without inducing banding and posterisation.
Viewing any image on a calibrated wide gamut monitor using its assigned profile will give the most faithful representation possible of the data in the file regardless of the file’s colour profile or bit depth – within the constraints of the monitor’s colour gamut.
Hi Betty,
Sorry my previous email wasn’t clear, let me try again.
WorkFlow1 (with aGRB monitor) File Color Space Displayed Color Space
Raw Raw N/A
Light Room ProPhoto aRGB
Edited in Light Room Prophoto aRGB
Exported sGRB sRGB
WorkFlow2 (with sGRB monitor) File Color Space Displayed Color Space
Raw Raw N/A
Light Room ProPhoto sRGB
Edited in Light Room Prophoto sRGB
Exported sGRB sRGB
In workflow1, user sees colors outside sRGB space during editing, and those colors might help user arrive at a better edited photo.
During Export, the ‘better edited photo’ gets clipped down to sRGB space, and in principle the ‘exported’ will look different (slightly worse) from the ‘edited’.
In workflow2, user sees only colors within sRGB space during editing.
During Export, although the file gets clipped, user does not see the difference on monitor, and the ‘exported’ and the ‘edited’ look identical.
Therefore I asked, which case would yield a better exported (sRGB) picture.
By ‘hard clip’, I meant relative colorimetric rendering intent instead of perceptual intent. Therefore the Export process does not try to compensate for the clipped out colors except replacing them with nearest in-gamut, reproducible colors. Otherwise, I would imagine workflow1 yields a better exported sRGB picture.
Thank you again very much for your time and kind help. Sorry if the workflow1/2 tables go awry on the message board.
Richard
WorkFlow1 (with aGRB monitor) / File Color Space / Displayed Color Space
Raw / Raw / N/A
Light Room / ProPhoto / aRGB
Edited in Light Room / Prophoto / aRGB
Exported / sGRB / sRGB
WorkFlow2 (with sGRB monitor) / File Color Space / Displayed Color Space
Raw / Raw / N/A
Light Room / ProPhoto / sRGB
Edited in Light Room / Prophoto / sRGB
Exported / sGRB / sRGB
If I understand you correctly, you are kind of on the right path but not quite. You seem to have made it more complicated than it is and you seem to be thinking that the monitor is in some way affecting the result. It is not.
You are working with a RAW file in both workflows.
Lightroom does not have options for different working spaces – the default is ProphotoRGB. No choice there.
So your RAW file is always edited in that space and displayed through the monitor profile in a smaller colour space (sRGB or AdobeRGB).
If the monitor is wide gamut, the image is mapped into the AdobeRGB colour space. If it’s an sRGB monitor the colours are mapped to that smaller colour space – so you will see a wider range of colours on the wide gamut monitor. Remember though that pathway you are looking at is RAW>ProphotoRGB>MonitorRGB so you are in effect just looking at the same file ProphotoRGB file through different ‘windows’. The file itself has not changed, it’s just been translated differently by each monitor which is just doing its best to do the best job it is capable of. However, when you convert that file to sRGB for export, you end up with just one sRGB file. The big difference lies in what you do to the file before you convert down for export.
The point of working in a large colour space is that you preserve as much data as possible for as long as possible as this allows large edits to be made with great flexibility and without noticeable losses.
If you start with a small sRGB file or convert down early, you throw away data so when you try to do the same large edits you incur heavy clipping, colour shifts, banding etc. To put it crudely, working in a large space with large file is elegant and minimally destructive. If you convert down early you are butchering the file at the outset and any losses to the depleted data during editing become very obvious very quickly. That’s why best practice says don’t carry out heavy edits to JPEGs – they have already been pushed into a small colour space (sRGB) and had lots of data removed (only 8bits per channel left from the camera’s 12 or 14 bits).
So, at the end of the day, you can have an sRGB output file resulting from a damaging workflow or one resulting from a minimally destructive workflow.
The monitor plays no part in the process – it just tries to show you the results of your work within its own limitations. Neither monitor is showeing you the absolute truth – because in can’t.
Relative and Perceptual rendering intents are just different ‘flavours’ of the same basic thing and only really apply in printing when converting RGB file data to the CMYK colour space of the printer when they control how out of gamut colour are handled. As far as I know working colour space profiles and monitor profiles do not support rendering intents or rather, they all assume Relative rendering intent.
I may be wrong – I don’t claim to know everything!
Hope that helps.
Hi Betty,
The two workflows in my last email were meant to be tables. I change them to text lines below.
1) with aGRB monitor
WorkFlow: Raw -> Imported to LR -> Edited to LR -> Exported
File Color Space: Raw -> ProPhoto_0 -> ProPhoto_1 -> sRGB_1
Display Color Space: N/A -> aRGB -> aRGB -> sRGB
2) with sGRB monitor
WorkFlow: Raw -> Imported to LR -> Edited to LR -> Exported
File Color Space: Raw -> ProPhoto_0 -> ProPhoto_2 -> sRGB_2
Display Color Space: N/A -> sRGB -> sRGB -> sRGB
“_0”, “_1”, “_2” denote different files, not different color spaces.
Started from the same imported Prophoto_0 file, the edited files ‘Prophoto_1’ and ‘Prophoto_2’ are mostly likely different because user sees Prophoto_0 differently on two monitors, resulting in different editing.
The exported ‘sRGB_1’ looks different from ‘Prophoto_1’ on the aRGB monitor due to hard clipping.
The exported ‘sRGB_2’ looks identical to ‘Prophoto_2’ on the sRGB monitor although clipping was also carried out.
My question was – which exported image is better, ‘sRGB1’ or ‘sRGB_2’?
Just trying to arrive at a correct understanding, and thank you very much for your kind replies.
Richard
The two workflows in my last email were meant to be tables. I change them to text lines below.
1) with aGRB monitor
WorkFlow: Raw -> Imported to LR -> Edited to LR -> Exported
File Color Space: Raw -> ProPhoto_0 -> ProPhoto_1 -> sRGB_1
Display Color Space: N/A -> aRGB -> aRGB -> sRGB
2) with sGRB monitor
WorkFlow: Raw -> Imported to LR -> Edited to LR -> Exported
File Color Space: Raw -> ProPhoto_0 -> ProPhoto_2 -> sRGB_2
Display Color Space: N/A -> sRGB -> sRGB -> sRGB
“_0”, “_1”, “_2” denote different files, not different color spaces.
Started from the same imported Prophoto_0 file, the edited files ‘Prophoto_1’ and ‘Prophoto_2’ are mostly likely different because user sees Prophoto_0 differently on two monitors, resulting in different editing.
The exported ‘sRGB_1’ looks different from ‘Prophoto_1’ on the aRGB monitor due to hard clipping.
The exported ‘sRGB_2’ looks identical to ‘Prophoto_2’ on the sRGB monitor although clipping was also carried out.
My question was – which exported image is better, ‘sRGB1’ or ‘sRGB_2’?
Just trying to arrive at a correct understanding.
Richard
Hi Betty,
The two workflows in my last email were meant to be tables. I change them to text lines below.
1) with aGRB monitor
WorkFlow: Raw -> Imported to LR -> Edited to LR -> Exported
File Color Space: Raw -> ProPhoto_0 -> ProPhoto_1 -> sRGB_1
Display Color Space: N/A -> aRGB -> aRGB -> sRGB
2) with sGRB monitor
WorkFlow: Raw -> Imported to LR -> Edited to LR -> Exported
File Color Space: Raw -> ProPhoto_0 -> ProPhoto_2 -> sRGB_2
Display Color Space: N/A -> sRGB -> sRGB -> sRGB
“_0”, “_1”, “_2” denote different files, not different color spaces.
Started from the same imported Prophoto_0 file, the edited files ‘Prophoto_1’ and ‘Prophoto_2’ are mostly likely different because user sees Prophoto_0 differently on two monitors, resulting in different editing.
The exported ‘sRGB_1’ looks different from ‘Prophoto_1’ on the aRGB monitor due to hard clipping.
The exported ‘sRGB_2’ looks identical to ‘Prophoto_2’ on the sRGB monitor although clipping was also carried out.
My question was – which exported image is better, ‘sRGB1’ or ‘sRGB_2’?
Just trying to arrive at a correct understanding, and thank you very much for your kind replies.
Richard
The two workflows in my last email were meant to be tables. I change them to text lines below.
1) with aGRB monitor
WorkFlow: Raw -> Imported to LR -> Edited to LR -> Exported
File Color Space: Raw -> ProPhoto_0 -> ProPhoto_1 -> sRGB_1
Display Color Space: N/A -> aRGB -> aRGB -> sRGB
2) with sGRB monitor
WorkFlow: Raw -> Imported to LR -> Edited to LR -> Exported
File Color Space: Raw -> ProPhoto_0 -> ProPhoto_2 -> sRGB_2
Display Color Space: N/A -> sRGB -> sRGB -> sRGB
“_0”, “_1”, “_2” denote different files, not different color spaces.
Started from the same imported Prophoto_0 file, the edited files ‘Prophoto_1’ and ‘Prophoto_2’ are mostly likely different because user sees Prophoto_0 differently on two monitors, resulting in different editing.
The exported ‘sRGB_1’ looks different from ‘Prophoto_1’ on the aRGB monitor due to hard clipping.
The exported ‘sRGB_2’ looks identical to ‘Prophoto_2’ on the sRGB monitor although clipping was also carried out.
My question was – which exported image is better, ‘sRGB1’ or ‘sRGB_2’?
Just trying to arrive at a correct understanding.
Richard
Richard
“My question was ? which exported image is better, ‘sRGB1’ or ‘sRGB_2’?”
The bottom line is, I’m afraid, they are THE SAME – assuming they were equally carefully edited.
The only difference is that on a wide gamut monitor (AdobeRGB) as you edit, you are seeing a wider range of colour than on the sRGB monitor. So yes, while you are editing the RAW file (in the ProphotoRGB colour space) you can do so with greater accuracy and the image displayed on your wide gamut monitor has the potential to look better than the same file displayed on the sRGB monitor. However once you convert both versions to sRGB you are putting them in the same ‘container’ so whichever colours are out of gamut relative to that colour space will be clipped and lost.
Again, that’s why sRGB is a ‘lowest common denominator’ colour space. It’s used on the web because there is no choice. Even though colour managed web browsers can nowadays recognise higher quality image files (assuming they have an embedded profile) they scrunch them down to sRGB regardless.
The real advantage of wide gamut monitor comes into play in a print workflow where seeing a wider range of colour is very valuable. Here the AdobeRGB colour gamut you are seeing on the monitor is going to an AdobeRGB printer which CAN PRINT that wider gamut and so achieve a much better result – a print with a wider colour range, more saturated colours and smoother, more subtle gradation. Even here though, some clipping can occur as professional inkjets can print some colours which fall outside the AdobeRGB colour space – but as technology improves, more and more of these will be printable too.
That incidentally, is why it is a good idea to archive images in their original RAW state. Once converted to something else, data lost is lost forever.
Thanks for a good question!
Correction:
‘Even though colour managed web browsers can nowadays recognise higher quality image files (assuming they have an embedded profile) they scrunch them down to sRGB regardless.’
Not so fast, not quite true, things are improving.
Nowadays, properly tagged images are often read correctly (managed browser) and converted to the monitor profile; this is as it should be for correct display.
Some properly tagged images are not read correctly (unmanaged browser) and sent straight to the monitor profile; this results in a mess.
Most of the problems arise with untagged images.
Some untagged images are assumed to be sRGB, are assigned an sRGB profile and then converted to the monitor profile; this works OK (if the untagged image actually is sRGB).
Some untagged images are not read correctly and sent straight to the monitor profile; this too, results in a mess.
It’s all browser dependent. If all browsers were colour managed, all this complication and problems would disappear, but for the time being sRGB is still the safest option.
Betty,
Thank you for your patience and knowledge.
Regards,
Richard
You are welcome.
..and apologies for having taken over this thread.
I seem to have written an article on colour management.
When I look back ten years, you have no idea how funny that is.
Nasim, which is better, the Dell U2415H or HP Z24n, both being 1920×1200?
I know that the Dell is highly rated and was deemed the best 24-inch monitor and the Z27n was deemed best 27-inch monitor by thewirecutter.com but I don’t find reviews on the HP Z24n. You seem to have liked a certain HP DreamColor monitor years ago so can you help me make a choice given my two options?
Regards
Why oh why do photographers go to comparison sites to choose a graphics monitor?
These sites are set up to cater to the lowest common denominator – ‘the best buy for most people’. Best for what? Best for gaming , work, video and web browsing. Not photographic editing. And not knowing or caring that ‘most people’ are not photographers, they bang on about screen brightness and spuriously high refresh rates forgetting entirely the poor quality control, lack of screen uniformity and difficulty in calibration of so many of these devices.
The “expert reviewers’ are usually pimply adolescent members of an ‘awesome computer team’ who after packing in a solid 35 hours of ‘research’, feel qualified to pronounce on a subject they know little or nothing about. There are no details of what this ‘research’ has entailed other than having trawled through a number of other websites to discover vital information about how thin the bezel is and what the pixel response times are.
I am not saying that all these monitors are unsuitable, but I am saying that if you are looking for a graphics monitor get advice from a reputable specialist supplier of monitors suitable for graphics work. You are a lot more likely to get a monitor that both fits your budget and is fit for purpose.
Re my post the Dell U2415H is recommended by Nasim in the low budget category above so I need say no more, finding other sites that back up his recommendation is great.
Not knocking your choice, just the choice of back up.
Hello, I’ve post here before in another thread where i got a lot of help. This forum is awesome and to tell the truth i haven’t found any other with such in depth knowledge from people. So i would be glad if i could get some help one more time. I got some suggestions for a new monitor before but i delayed to buy one and things have changed since then (it’s been almost one year).
I work as an illustrator and concept artist in the game industry/also a hobbyist photographer. Some times my work may be printed but i have no idea in what devices. Most of the work will exist online and on devices but some may get printed for card games.
So, what i believe i need is:
– The best sRGB performance i can get out there (preferably out of the box) – But if there is a monitor which is not good in sRGB performance out of the box and can be greatest with calibrating than another that is better out of the box, please mention it to me. Thank you.
– Good uniformity
– Minimal backlit bleed and ips glow
– Good black depths
– Good color performance in general in case there are other parameters i do not know
Now, preferably, i don’t want to buy a monitor which is lower than 25 inches and below 2k resolution. This is because i want some space (achieved by a good relation of inches and resolution) to put some panels the way i want and have a comfortable workspace with maybe multiple images side by side as references and floating panels.
I don’t have a problem if i pay extra for a monitor that is wide gamut, without using it’s 10 bit potential. I just want to make sure that i will have the best srgb performance with the characteristics i mentioned. Also i don’t care if it is 4k or 2k. If it is 4k i plan o use it with 150% scaling on windows.
I would very much like to start using a wide gamut but i think it’s a field i don’t really need to get into right now, even though it’s very interesting. I have
nvidia gtx 780 now.
My budget can be up to 800 but i want to hear if there is a perfect fit for me beyond that budget. For example i have seen eizo ev3237, looks awesome but there are no reviews for it. If there are is a perfect fit don’t hesitate to suggest, i want to have it in mind also.
Some monitors i like and consider but i’m not sure if they have the characteristics i want:
– Dell UltraSharp U2515H (i consider it great value for money until now – 300$)
– Dell U2518D (Love how it looks, not sure about what i read for performance )
– Dell-P2715Q (A recommendation from a previous thread- seems great- i don’t like this bezel though but anyway it is good… xD)
– Dell U2718Q (Love how it looks, not sure about performance and this new HDR thing)
– Eizo EV2736WFS3
(I know this is very close to what i ask, however it’s old and i’m not sure if buying a new genre one is better. For example if it has the same performance with ev2780 i would definitely want to go with that. This lines i think are both considered for office work by eizo)
-EV2780 + EV2750(150$ cheaper)
Of course i want quality over looks, but in case i will get an overall same performance with something more beautiful on my desk, i would prefer that. Eizo also has this feature with eco-view which may be good for eye care but i don’t know if it has something to do with image quality and calibration routine.
I also pan to buy a suggested calibration device except if you suggest some other method of calibration.
I would appreciate any help you can give. I can trust opinions here better than everywhere else. Thank you very much
Excellent comments on monitors, very helpful. I have a slightly different dilemma, I need both a new computer and a monitor. I travel a lot and would like a portable computer I can edit photos on while away. I will consider either the Eizo or Nec for the monitor. So would like the laptop to work well with them. I have always used Apple in the past but can’t quite follow what is being said about them.
Thanks,
Tom
Tom
Yes, it is possible to connect an external display (and even multiple displays) to a Macbook/Pro in a number of ways – extended desktop, mirrored mode and closed display mode.
The exact configurations possible depend on the age of the Mac, the OS version and whether you use a USB or wireless keyboard. These factors will also determine which adapter you will need. It’s a bit of a minefield until you decide on your Mac. If you are looking at a new Mac laptop you will be fine as the new Macbook Pro will support up to four 4K displays but get some advice from both Apple and Eizo/NEC to be sure you get the right connectors before plunging in.