Monitor Suggestions

[drvnbysound]

So I am about to sell my (2) Dell 17" monitors to a friend. They are about 5-6 yrs old, and I am looking to update. About a year ago I started to get into photography and purchased a DSLR, so I do some post processing with Photoshop, etc. I also do some video editing on occasion, and other standard PC use such as web browsing and using Office. I am looking for some suggestions and was curious to find out if anyone has done any moderate research into monitors lately?

Some of the main feature concerns I have are:

Do I want to go with a widescreen or stay with a 4:3 monitor? Note, that I dont do any movie watching or PC gaming, so I am not biased to widescreen for any particular reason other than its what all the video media is moving toward - actually already there. It's not like picture sizes are going to change... we all know the standards 3x5, 4x6, 5x7, 8x10 etc... Id ideally like to maximize the display area of the screen and not have to edit pictures with large "bars" on the sides of the images - effectively wasting space.

The other feature/concern is glossy vs. matte finish. I assume the standard matte finish for LCDs may be better on the eyes for long periods of time. (??) However, I am rarely at my home PC for more than 1-2 hours at a time. The glossy monitors seem to give a sharper image, but I may be completely wrong here.

Note that I am not looking to break the bank - I know there are $800+ monitors out there that are highly praised - they are above my budget. I am looking to spend roughly $400 on (2) sub-24" monitors.

Any comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[KentDub]

So I am about to sell my (2) Dell 17" monitors to a friend. They are about 5-6 yrs old, and I am looking to update. About a year ago I started to get into photography and purchased a DSLR, so I do some post processing with Photoshop, etc. I also do some video editing on occasion, and other standard PC use such as web browsing and using Office. I am looking for some suggestions and was curious to find out if anyone has done any moderate research into monitors lately?

Some of the main feature concerns I have are:

Do I want to go with a widescreen or stay with a 4:3 monitor? Note, that I dont do any movie watching or PC gaming, so I am not biased to widescreen for any particular reason other than its what all the video media is moving toward - actually already there. It's not like picture sizes are going to change... we all know the standards 3x5, 4x6, 5x7, 8x10 etc... Id ideally like to maximize the display area of the screen and not have to edit pictures with large "bars" on the sides of the images - effectively wasting space.

The other feature/concern is glossy vs. matte finish. I assume the standard matte finish for LCDs may be better on the eyes for long periods of time. (??) However, I am rarely at my home PC for more than 1-2 hours at a time. The glossy monitors seem to give a sharper image, but I may be completely wrong here.

Note that I am not looking to break the bank - I know there are $800+ monitors out there that are highly praised - they are above my budget. I am looking to spend roughly $400 on (2) sub-24" monitors.

Any comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

You said the magic keyword, "Photography".. That alone means you should be looking at different criteria for the monitor than most people. Mainly you should be looking into the color (gamut) quality and contrast ratio of the monitor rather than how bright it can go or how vivid it looks in the store.

Widescreen hands down. Lots of apps are starting to have side-bars, so basicly your left with a 4:3 "work area" with tool bars, etc. to the side. It also lets you have two apps side by side. Photoshop is a great example of an app that has huge benifits from widescren (layers window, info, histrogram, etc. all eat up that "wasted space" leaving you a great 4:3 work area). Widescreen monitors you are gaining the sides, not chopping off the top & bottom. Matte finish is what you're looking for - anything to reduce reflections *unless* you work in a very dark room with no direct light source hitting your monitor. I personally like Viewsonic, and I believe you can pickup two of their 24" widescreen monitors for about $400. Remember, 24" widescreen is much "smaller" than 24" at a 4:3 aspect ratio.

I recommend you take a look at a good photography community. As a dSLR owner myself, I know we stick our noses right up to the monitor/prints to check quality. I frequent these forums for photography: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/forums/ - they have extremely friendly people and an amazing set of tutorials, including how to calibrate your monitor for photo editing (This is for ANY monitor and will make a dramatic difference - don't skip this step!). They would be an ideal set of people to ask about a monitor for photography with the occasional video editing.

Hope this helps,
Kent

 

[drvnbysound]

Kent,

Thanks for your response. After posting this last night I did a little bit of searching around on Canon based photography forum (Photography On The Net). Unfortunately, to get a monitor that's actually suited for Photography (post processing), I am really looking at monitors that start in the $300 range, and most "professionals" use monitors that are in the $800+ range. The latter is certainly out of my budget, so I wont even bother to address that. I suppose the question now is, do I go for a single monitor that is highly regarded in the Photo Community (Dell - 2209WA) or stick to dual monitors that are closer to entry-level/budget monitors (Dell - ST2210). The latter is what I have now (budget monitors), so I know I wouldnt mind having the cheaper ones.

The other thing that I forgot to mention is that I do a decent amount of PC work - building / repairing for friends and family. This was part of the purpose for dual monitors. On a day-to-day basis I generally use an extended desktop across both monitors. However, when I need to work on another PC, I simply connect it directly to the secondary monitor, and I can dual compute with both machines. I suppose I could scrap this ability and go with a KVM on the single monitor.... I am the jack-of-all-trades but king-of-none with hobbies. At this point I am simply speaking out loud trying to figure out how to make up my mind

 

[pete_c]

I recently purchased a 24" Asus monitor. This Asus monitor replaced a similiar sized HP widescreen monitor. The monitor it replaced lasted a bit under a year. The older 17" HP monitor is still functioning fine after about 6 years. Personally like having the working footprint of two monitors for my photography "stuff". The older still functioning 17" HP monitor has a matte finish and the newer Asus has a glossy finish. The Asus monitor is utilizing the HDMI input and has VGA and DVI. It actually came with cables. Its not a high priced monitor and relatively inexpensive but decent quality. I liked the older HP monitor stand so much that I removed the Asus monitor stand and replaced it with the HP stand. (it tilts 90 degrees). The Asus monitor stand was a bit flimsy. I don't watch movies nor do any gaming. I did purchase a dual head video card though before I installed the second monitor and switched over to using this video card instead of the internal motherboard video card.

I was never really good relating to modifications of colors in a picture from many years ago; so typically don't compare print color quality to monitor color quality. In the 1970's though did have a darkroom and would use primitive techniques of utilizing dodging tools / indian ink to modify / adjust photos. I did try my hand at Cibachrome processing in the early 80's and never was too happy with the results. Remember having an Canon EF in the 70's (it weighed about a pound).

I am amazed these days what can be done with a photograph and do depend on the my monitor footprint in tweaking of photos. I have one room (bathroom) in the house plastered with old black and white family photos; mostly scanned and a bit modified from the original paper sources.

I have another workstation setup with an HP 17" matte monitor (about 5 years old) that I just use for video editing. Here I wish I had a wide screen setup as the 4:3 doesn't provide me with a lot of workspace. This one is setup for DV / analogue capture using a Canopus / Winnov raptor firewire card. (older ADVC-100 box with a newer computer). The original setup was for converting my DV family video to DVD's; not really used a lot these days.

This past winter drove down to FL - first time driving to FL in about 15 years as typically I fly there. Attached are a couple of color snapshots. One used just moonlight over the water as a source of light. Kind of a work in progress cuz I tried this same picture with the sun rising and a variety of different angles and lighting now for about 20 years. The second picture was done one very cold morning midpoint between the midwest and FL.

 

[drvnbysound]

Pete,

Thanks for sharing. I was actually looking at some Asus monitors as well - mainly because they are highly regarded on Newegg, which is where I order practically ALL of my PC parts. The only issue I have with purchasing them is that Newegg only offers a "Replacement" warranty on the monitors, so if I am not happy with the picture quality upon receiving them I would be stuck with them, and the (2) models that are well rated arent sold in any of my local stores. Unfortunately, both of them have quite a few reviews about lack of color reproduction related to photography, but they are praised for video and gaming purposes, neither of which I will do much of.

 

[pete_c]

I did purchase the Asus from Newegg. Personally I have problems with colors so I best guess a lot of the time. Years ago when I purchased an LCD for my daughters desktop I had an issue with some dead pixels. I did purchase the monitor at the time from Newegg and requested a return of monies from them. They stated the above mentioned "replacement" warranty. I then took the issue up with Amex and they issued a credit and Newegg never sent me an RMA.

Two years ago purchased an all in one media tank from them. It failed in about 6 months. Newegg wouldn't replace it under warranty (year). I ended up posting messages on their "review" of products section for said product. The mediatank company ended up writing to me and replacing my mediatank with newer version of product and requested that I write "nice" comments relating to their media tank product on the Newegg review section.

 

[Dave X10]

Do I want to go with a widescreen or stay with a 4:3 monitor?

I wasn't aware that they still manufacture the old 4:3 monitors.

 

[mustangcoupe]

About a year ago I started to get into photography and purchased a DSLR, so I do some post processing with Photoshop, etc.

Do you calibrate your monitor? how does the print out match the screen color? Otherwise as Pete said it's a guessing game as to changing of colors, tints ect....

 

[drvnbysound]

Do you calibrate your monitor? how does the print out match the screen color? Otherwise as Pete said it's a guessing game as to changing of colors, tints ect....

Therein lies the rub.... I havent color calibrated my current monitors at all - and I have yet to print anything large. My wife has sent maybe 15 'family' pictures to Sams in like 4x6 size. I dont think any of that really qualifies for proper post processing, etc. That said, I am not sure how much any of that is going to change in the future, I may or may not get more involved with Photography - which is what leaves me on the fence wheter to purchase a single higher quality monitor, or stick with 2 of a lesser quality. The majority of my pictures are simply posted online for sharing - Picasa, Facebook, etc. Argh!! Decisions!!!

 

[pete_c]

Mostly I just use Adobe for pixel smearing touchups. Works really nicely. On the Asus there is a menu initially for monitor temperature settings; then the video card I use gets a bit granular allowing the saving of profiles for color matching. Day before yesterday did a quick search of some older photos to update a wan connected picture frame. A few of the pictures I lightened a bit but that was all I did.

For printing pics at home still utilize a very old but decent Alps 5000. Expensive ribbons and still available today. Nice though cuz you can put a matt finish or glossy finish on a photo - just takes about 10 minutes or so to print. Easier these days just to have the photos printed.

As hard as I try I can never get the two monitors to match really well; just close.

 

[KentDub]

As hard as I try I can never get the two monitors to match really well; just close.

You need a hardware calibration device, and then they will be dead-on matching (assuming almost equal ware and tare). This is the whole point of calibration, it does far (FAR) more than simple color temperature, brightness, contrast and saturation settings - it creates a "map" for colors which cannot be manually entered in.

Going for a single mid-end monitor vs two low-end monitors is really up to you. I used to be a huge fan of dual monitors, but now that widescreens are out I haven't looked back (especially with high-resolution screens meeting or exceeding 1080p). For photography color calibration is essential. You can fake it by doing it yourself, but the results in reality won't be close. I always expressed that I had an extremely good eye and could calibrate monitors extremely well. Then I finally got myself a hardware calibrator (I got the X-Rite Color Munki Photo) -- because I wanted to match my prints to my screen (this particular calibrator calibrates both screens and printers --- not all do). When I did the screen calibration I was blown away on how far off my (imo) great to-the-eye calibration was!

But does calibration really matter that much...? Absolutely yes - honestly, you need to talk to people who have hardware calibrators and get their experience and opinions on the subject. It really is a night-and-day difference. My monitor matches my television matches my prints - perfectly. What about the cost? A calibrator is a tool - it will outlive multiple monitors. The one I purchased can be used on printers, monitors, televisions and projectors. A ISF calibration for your TV can run you $400.. For less than that you can buy the calibrator! Another option is to find a buddy to already owns a calibrator and ask to borrow it for a weekend. A hardware calibrator on a low-end monitor is better than a high-end monitor that isn't calibrated - hands down.


Other thoughts beside my expressed desire to edumacate people on the importance of calibration....
-ASUS is a respectable brand, no worries there
-When comparing contrast ratios, compare NATIVE only (anything > 2500:1 is a dynamic contrast ratio and completely worthless).
-If it's in your price range, the local-dimming LED backlit monitors are starting to greatly enhance the contrast ratio of computer monitors -- still not nearly as good as a CRT or Plasma, but a LOT better than traditional LCD
-Make sure you get a high resolution monitor (ideally 1920x1200 or 1920x1080), sometimes the smaller monitors won't hit this high -- this is why a lot of us who want high resolution screens have to go 24" or bigger
-Response time (B2W and G2G) - lower is better; however this specification is more aimed for video gaming and watching videos
-Refresh rate - 60Hz is standard, and probably enough. The people who want ultra-high refresh rates (120Hz+) are gamers and people who want to use the new 3D technology from movies
-Brightness - 300cd/m2 is plenty bright, don't obsess over this. Your hardware calibrator will dim your screen if you get an ultra-bright (accuracy over vibrance).
-Contract - Ideally >= 1000:1, the higher the better; always

Hope this helps,
Kent

 

[pete_c]

I like the 24" wide screen plus the 17" LCD footprint because I refuse to purchase reading glasses and continue to utilize highest resolution on both of these. I guess now I'm compensating for my declining vision.

I do have a third LCD in my home office mounted on one wall close to the ceiling not currently connected to PC (but can be) for watching news, etc. The installation of said LCD was an endeavor in itself with connectivity / power / mounting bracket.

 

[drvnbysound]

Just wanted to update... I ended up going with the (2) cheaper 22" Dell monitors, rather than a single 22" of a higher quality. I mainly decided to do this due to the fact that I am working on someone else's PC fairly often and its nice to have both PC's up and running on each monitor during these times. I also figured that hopefully in coming months I will be building a CCTV and shortly later a SageTV machine. These will both be going into my utility room, where I will need a monitor. When that time comes, I will likely move one of the monitors into that location. It will be nice to have a 22" Full HD monitor in the "server room" if you will Once I really get serious about photography editing, printing, etc. I will likely evaluate this again, and go with a better monitor when that time comes. However, for now I am EXTREMELY happy with the picture quality of the monitors I got - Im sure they could be color calibrated and be even better, but as is, out of the box on default settings they look amazingly better than my 17" 1280x1024 monitors.

 

[pete_c]

One of places that I worked at was a Dell shop and all servers, desktops, laptops and monitors were Dell. Never really had any issues with Dell. The other place was an HP shop and had the same HP equipment with no real problems. The "consumer" grade HP LCD monitors QA though is not what it used to be.