£600 for editing monitor

Blasted

Blasted

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Right, I'm on the cusp of buying a better monitor for editing my pictures. I will be using it in a room with little glare from windows, I quite like the glossy finish and I have a budget of about £600.

So what's the favourite monitor at present?

Thanks
 
I just got the Dell U2713. Very nice monitor but semi matt which IMO is significantly better. It also comes with a 4 port USB3 hub (although two are round the back) and the usual display connections (i'm using it with displayport and Dual DVI), it really makes Windows 8 pop and is great for photo work as well.

Gloss is great for making films and games pop (which is why it's usually employed on cheaper laptops) but for proper editing work semi matt (lustre in the print world??) and matt are much better bets IMO.

Other options are the Samsung SA850, although it seems to be almost impossible to get now the 950 has come out and Asus do a good one as well. HP and Dell (the U2711) do CCFL 27" screens which display more gamut (the LED backlit ones only display sRGB) which are pretty good as well but are significantly larger (thicker) and heavier and produce a heck of a lot of heat.* All will be in your price range.

*We use HP 30" monitors at work an, the image is lovely however they are about 3 inches thick and are actually hot to the touch. In comparison the U2713 is cool and significantly thinner. The temperature difference was one of the main reasons I went for the LED backlit version.
 
Blasted said:
Thanks,

There is this one coming out in January which covers 99% of adobe rgb, which looks good, although its only 24 inch, which isn't to bad.

http://dell u2413
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The specs looks very impressive :thumbs:

I have u2711 and it is great once calibrated; 24" is not that much smaller
 
I use an AOC i2353 which I got from PC for about £150 (there's a 27" version for £199). Never had a problem with it, never had to calibrate it and my prints from Loxley always match the monitor.
 
For that price the 27" will only be an HD version... Pointless IMO.
 
daugirdas said:
The specs looks very impressive :thumbs:

I have u2711 and it is great once calibrated; 24" is not that much smaller
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It's not much smaller, no, but a 24" screen is usually 1920x1200 pixels whereas the U2711 is 2560x1440 pixels, so it's MUCH higher resolution, and that DOES matter. Toolbars and menus are much smaller in comparison and leaves you much more room to work. Besides.. it's not much taller than a 24" screen but it's considerably wider. Comparing them side by side... well.. there's no comparison.

The monitor is THE most important part of any digital darkroom and the ONLY component that has a direct influence of the quality of your images. Do not skimp on the monitor.

Another thing to consider is calibration. There's little point in an expensive monitor if it's not calibrated.


gman said:
I use an AOC i2353 which I got from PC for about £150 (there's a 27" version for £199). Never had a problem with it, never had to calibrate it and my prints from Loxley always match the monitor.
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I'm sorry.... but the 27" version will be 1920x1080, and at that size, the pixels will be huge. Also... you get what you pay for. It will be a cheap TN panel.. almost certainly a 6 bit panel, and if you're happy with it.. no offense but you've clearly never seen a decent screen once calibrated. If your prints from Loxley match your screen it's luck... nothing more.


Re: The Dell U2711. It has a very aggressive anti-glare coating which can "sparkle" when moving your head round and looking at highlights. It's not a deal breaker, but it's noticeable.

Shiny screens are generally not a good idea due to reflections. There's a very good reason all high end screens use an anti-glare coating. All High end stuff from Eizo and NEC use it.. why do you think that is?

Another SUPERB choice in your price range (JUST.... you may have to add a bit.. but worth it... check prices though as NEC stuff has just had a price increase) is the NEC PA271W. This has a beautiful LG IPS panel and does not suffer from the "sparkle" the Dell does.

I would recommend the NEC PA271W over the Dell U2711, but if the price hike recently has pushed it over the £750 mark I'd go for the Dell.

Incidentally... I'm recommending from experience... not guesswork and browsing web sites.
 
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Pookeyhead said:
If your prints from Loxley match your screen it's luck... nothing more.
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Of course it is, I'm an extremely lucky guy didn't you know?


Thought I'd look into this a bit more (excuse the pun) as it has interested me. Found this article which may be worth a read. I've not really got the time to delve into this properly but I always like to learn new things.
 
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That looks like a sensible article at first glance.
 
I'm wondering if anyone who knows about this stuff could offer some advice because the way I'm reading it is that it's not as simple as just going out and buying an expensive monitor if your graphics card doesn't support it properly?
 
gman said:
I'm wondering if anyone who knows about this stuff could offer some advice because the way I'm reading it is that it's not as simple as just going out and buying an expensive monitor if your graphics card doesn't support it properly?
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You need to ensure that your graphics card can support the resolution, that's about it
 
What about the bit?
 
gman said:
What about the bit?
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Why? All the editing apps are 8 bit datapath at the moment and anything you output (JPEG) will be 8 bit limited anyway.
 
So what's the point in having a 10-bit monitor?
 
Good question ;) Bragging rights as far as I can tell (although I'm sure someone will come along and point out why it is important).

It may give you a wider gamut too, but if you have everything calibrated to sRGB (and I think there are only specialist reasons to do this as 99% of what you and I come across is sRGB) I don't think it buys you anything.
 
Could you export to 16-bit TIFF files for print? This is starting to interest me as I may also be considering an upgrade soon but it makes me wonder if getting all this extra quality may not be as simple as just buying the monitor?

EDIT: I think there's also the issue of the cable that connects your monitor to the graphics card having to be either dual DVI or Display Port for true 10-bit? So I'm guessing it could be important to have a graphics card that supports this also?
 
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Yes, you will need an appropriate graphics card (which normally puts you up in the pro-graphics cards like the Nvidia Quadro).

The question is whether your outpout medium has 10 bits depth. It's all well and good having a 10 bit image, but I don't think paper prints (and certainly most peoples PCs) are capable of 10 bit resolution. So whilst it might look great on your monitor, it will still be compressed once rendered to an image.

Personally, I use the extra bit depth of raw files to enable me to post process and get the mapping I like from 12/14 bit down to the 8 bits.
 
I'm going to wait until after Christmas before I have another look around, however all the "bit" stuff has got me thinking.

We recently had a talk from a printing paper and ink company and the guy there said to use adobe RGB and go for a monitor with a higher ARGB coverage. he also suggested EIZO monitors, but its all cost.
 
Was reading up some more and it appears that true 10-bit is quite rare with many of them using some tech trickery?

The output side of it is interesting, another aspect I believe is the response time of 10-bit and above monitors which I've read are much slower. Perhaps not a problem, unless you stick the odd game on! lol
 
The only 10 bit graphics cards are really NVidia Quadro cards, and only then if they're connected via display port and have a OS that can support 10 bit.

Don't worry about it.

What IS important is the bit depth of the panel... to display a true 16.7 million colours you need a monitor with a 8 bit panel, and these tend to be the most expensive ones.

Some very high end stuff like my Eizo CG303 can display 10 bit, but that only matters of the screen has hardware profiling of a 10 bit or higher LUT (look up table).

Basically, your entire system is more than likely 8 bit output, and unless you are spending over £2000 you're unlikely to get hardware level calibration anyway... so basically don't worry about 10 bit.

For your £600 I'd just plump for a Dell U2710 and grab yourself a Spyder 4 Pro or i1Display Pro calibrator.

That will be utterly excellent, despite not being hardware profiled.


Studi0488 said:
Nice

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dell...kc=305&l=en&oc=U2913WM&s=dhs&sbc=dell-u2913wm
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Only 1080 vertical res... for that price.. = fail!
 
What would you recommend at say a £300 budget for a 27"?
 
gman said:
What would you recommend at say a £300 budget for a 27"?
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I wouldn't.. it will probably be crap, and very unlikely to be the 2560x1440 resolution a 27" should be. More than likely it will be a 1920x1080 screen, and at that size the pixel pitch will be enormous. It will also be a TN panel, which means it's a 6 bit panel with poor colours, and awful viewing angles.

For £300 I'd actually stretch that to around £360 and get a 24" Dell U2410. It's a proper 16:10 (1920x1200) IPS screen, and it's superb.


Do not, ever, cut corners with your monitor. You stare at it for hours and hours at a time, and it's the ONLY part of your computer that will directly affect the quality of your output. In a digital darkroom the screen is more important than your computer itself. It amazes me that people spend great deals of cash on their computer, but treat the screen as an afterthought. Bad practice... it's THE most vital part.


You will also need to calibrate your screen or you may as well just use any old piece of crap... so budget for a calibrator... Around £100 for the Spyder 4. Cheaper if you buy used off Ebay.

No.. decent screens and calibration is not cheap.. but if you value quality of output, comfortable working conditions and the ability to colour grade, and edit with confidence that it's RIGHT... then you've no choice really.
 
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gman said:
What would you recommend at say a £300 budget for a 27"?
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add another £50 and that will get you dell u2711 from ebay then a bit more for a calibrator (you will certainly need one). u2713hm is actually not bad either, true 8 bit sRGB, so should really suffice in practice for now.
 
Interesting stuff cheers, time to start shopping! lol
 
Thanks again. I agree on the importance of the monitor. Whats the point of having a decent camera and glass which is capable of taking very nice pictures, only to view it through a poor monitor.

Im edging towards the dell as it seems to within my budget.
 
Thanks for all this. About an hour ago, the tv went off and all the sockets went down. My 8 year old daughter came downstairs and said "Daddy, there was a big flash from the monitor and the computer went off!"

So, guess what I'm in the market for a monitor and quick! :D
 
Blasted said:
I'm edging towards the dell as it seems to within my budget.
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So am I. I was hoping for around the £250 mark, however after reading the info on here I'm thinking it will make sense to go for the Dell U2410.
 
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