What is a good computer screen?

[cgbeige]

why buy an external screen that small? Get a 21" at least - any graphics card will drive it fine.

If you're doing 3D graphics, try and avoid wide-gamut screens. I have an NEC 3490 WUXi and another WUXi2 Spectraview, which are expensive but very good and they're sRGB.

[OutOfInspiration]

mjah just think if the extra screen is lager then my smaller 17" laptop screen it will be less comfortable.
and maybe with and smaller screen I can compensate the costs...

looked at those WUXi screens, they look nice but they are indeed quiet expensive... 1.200 euro for a screen is a little too much for a student :)

[meleseDESIGN]

I use a 28" HANNS-G LCD at home and it never failed, i´ve got it now since one year.
He supports FullHD, HDMI and offers many adjustments for colors aso. I bought it for around 300,- EUR (400,- USD) with a 2 years warranty.

1.200,- EUR, you really don´t need to spend that much for a good LCD.

;)

[Jettatore]

It depends on your requirements. There are a few levels of monitors.

You have low budget stuff. It works, but it's not always pretty. Colors are not accurate, contrast is not accurate and the screens aren't consistant, meaning you can put the same image at the top of your monitor and then again on the bottom and it may show different colors/contrasts, viewing angles seriously effect the display.

Then you have the prosumer stuff, which includes Dell monitors and Mac monitors and many others. They have better color depictions, better contrast, better viewing angles, better consistency and all of the nice new bells and whistles. They are not however, perfectly accurate, but like the budget monitors they do the basic part of the job but they do it much better.

Then you have high end monitors like the range of professional NEC models and the Eizo brand and so on. These monitors have on board, hardware color calibration tools. You can physically change the way the monitor works, tuning it's contrast and colors through hardware and not just a software make-over. Most monitors have some control for calibrating color/contrast, etc. but these units offer full hardware control. These monitors are very expensive.

You can also buy (some of the high end monitors come with them) color calibration camera's that read your display and help you fine tune your color environment effectively and accurately.

When making work for high end print, you really want a perfectly accurate monitor in a professional environment. So that what is on your screen is exactly what you get.

When your making things for video, the internet, and games, etc., you have no control over what the end result will look like because it will be displayed on someone else's monitor/screen, etc. and you are not in control at that point. The best you can do is give them the most accurate image that you can produce and hope they have a nice, well calibrated display to view it on. The sloppier you and your equipment are in creating accurate images, the more wild and unpredictable the end result likely will be.

You can get really nice budget monitors, you can get very good mid-range monitors that are comparable to the higher ends, or you can pick up a high end display that is as close to perfect as you can get and will give you full calibration control. With all that said, if you can tell us which category you feel you fall into, and what your specific needs/budget is, and if you have any specific size preference/requirements, it would make things a lot easier for us to help you.

[OutOfInspiration]

meleseDesign: thats a nice price for a screen, and that kinda the amount of money I want to spend, will check that product out thanks.

Jettatore:
Thanks for that information, really helpfull. Like I said I don't want to spend too much money on it. I want to make professional stuff but do not think that I need 100% exact colors (I do not do a lot of printing designs anymore) and I think that prosumer stuff will be more interesting for me.

I remember know working on a Dell screen which was not bad. I liked the resolution.
I thought that Mac monitors were also quiet expensive?

But I don't know how well you can trust Dell stuff...They 've disapointed allready several times with their laptops...

And buying stuff from Mac...you pay almost 30% of the price just for the design :/

[meleseDESIGN]

When making work for high end print, you really want a perfectly accurate monitor in a professional environment. So that what is on your screen is exactly what you get.

Like i said allready in an other thread, you don´t need a high end display to create professionell Artwork. What do you actually mean by saying high end print? I know a lot print&design studios here who you can call professionells, they are in that business allready over 25 yearsand they don´t use displays with hardware color calibration tools.

Working with customers nowadays mostly you get feedback via email.
Most of your customers don´t have a display with hardware color calibration tools neighter, so theys don´t care about what the colors on screen are looking, they care about how it looks on paper. That for you do allways a pre-print project and you show that to your customers. After that pre-stuff phase your customers give you a green and the final project goes to the print machine.

Most customers aren´t that stuffy about the colors.
If your Display shows green it will be green on paper.
I would start to worry about a display what shows green on screen but on paper it will show up blue.

So don´t get confused by people who will tell you that you need a display with hardware color calibration tools, because you don´t need it! To be a Pro it doesn´t depend on the hardware you´re using, it depends on the feedback of your customers!

;)

[Jettatore]

IRT: Melese

I don't personally have a great need for accuracy at the moment on my own home machines, and I use fairly crap monitors for my own purposes. But for example I have several close friends who require much more, they include professional photographers and photo retouching artists and graphic designers with clients like Playboy, Vogue, GQ and so on. Some of them are freelance artists working on their own equipment, some are employed at studios and one co-owns his own studio. I've spent a considerable amount of time learning from them, visiting their studios and their production processes and so on.

Basically what your suggesting is to "know your own imperfect hardware" and basically work blindfolded from there, manually self-correcting for the end result. This is fine for many purposes, but it would create bottlenecks and extra un-necessary, wasteful test printing\re-rendering in certain industries that require perfection. It would for example, piss off your art director if he said your shade of green is a bit off and you explained that it's just a crap monitor and that it will look fine later... You see what I mean.

[Jettatore]

Jettatore:
Thanks for that information, really helpfull. Like I said I don't want to spend too much money on it. I want to make professional stuff but do not think that I need 100% exact colors (I do not do a lot of printing designs anymore) and I think that prosumer stuff will be more interesting for me.


OK, perfect. Now you won't be able to buy from this store, but check the site out anyways as the direct user reviews and ratings are invaluable. They carry everything from super budget, prosumer and some high end monitors to look through. And as far as the United States is concerned they have very competitive pricing. It should help you get some ideas, as to a correct pricing relationship between models and also help you filter out what is junk and what isn't. Then you simply have to find stores by you to actually buy the thing.

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=20&name=LCD-Monitors

Over on the left you can sort by various things like size or brand or you can simply click "see all" near the upper right of the main area and then sort them as you please. Another option you have, and you can use the same link for initial shopping assistance, is to consider a 1080p HDTV if your laptop is capable of supporting the connection to the device. You can find good deals on decent HDTV's and at 1920x1080 resolution it's fairly workable. Just a thought.

[cgbeige]

the WUXi is expensive for your needs but it's cheap compared to the other screens that offer it's quality and colour control. I have two of them sitting next to each other and the colour is locked to match since the calibration is done in hardware. But it's cheaper here - I paid $1100 Canadian (not even 800 Euros). It's not for you but I have to defend this screen - it's fantastic.

[meleseDESIGN]

You don´t need a display with hardware color calibration tools to create perfect shade.
Adjusting a shade is that simple and it works allmost the same in all desptop puplishing apps, doesn´t matter if it´s Quark, InDesign or even Photoshop.

The Color space is allways the same in every application, doesn´t matter if you use RGB, CMYK, PMS, HSV, they are identical in every software. As a Pro you will oriented yourself on the Color space in the application and not on the display. The display gives you only the visual feedback of the colors you are using.

;)

[Jettatore]

You don´t need a display with hardware color calibration tools to create perfect shade.
Adjusting a shade is that simple and it works allmost the same in all desptop puplishing apps, doesn´t matter if it´s Quark, InDesign or even Photoshop.

The Color space is allways the same in every application, doesn´t matter if you use RGB, CMYK, PMS, HSV, they are identical in every software. As a Pro you will oriented yourself on the Color space in the application and not on the display. The display gives you only the visual feedback of the colors you are using.

;)

Yeah I knew what you meant when you first wrote it. And that is an even better description right there of what you meant. Regardless, it's not an ideal solution. And for studios/artists with high end clients, it is not a very substantial expense\concern to just get better hardware in the first place. Otherwise yes, you can self correct on the fly or right before the printing phase and it works if your on a budget.

[meleseDESIGN]

Yes, it´s nice to see the result of the used colors 1:1 on the fly. But any display with
hardware color calibration tools wont help you to adjust the correct colors in your app for the areas with problems, you still have to manage this manually. It might help to make faster decissions on which areas need or don´t need further attention.

Maybe i´m just customary with the way of pre-prints and make decission when looking at them...

;)

[cgbeige]

You don´t need a display with hardware color calibration tools to create perfect shade.
Adjusting a shade is that simple and it works allmost the same in all desptop puplishing apps, doesn´t matter if it´s Quark, InDesign or even Photoshop.

The Color space is allways the same in every application, doesn´t matter if you use RGB, CMYK, PMS, HSV, they are identical in every software. As a Pro you will oriented yourself on the Color space in the application and not on the display. The display gives you only the visual feedback of the colors you are using.

;)

I've been a pro retoucher and designer for 16 years - I know what I'm talking about. The whole reason I got two screens that do in-hardware calibration is so I can do colour-sensitive print work and drag an image to the other screen and get EXACTLY the same result. The stuff I do is extremely subtle and sensitive to slight shifts so I can't second guess the monitor.

If you don't have good hardware that is accurate, sending something to a printer or lightjet with an embedded profile means nothing. Look at the colours and black in these photos I retouched:

http://www.thesanchezbrothers.com/download/Descent.jpg

http://www.thesanchezbrothers.com/download/The-Hurried-Child.jpg

That's sensitive and expensive to produce. You don't skimp on quality if you have serious clients.

[meleseDESIGN]

I allways used the embeded profil of the application.
Just do a pdf via Adobe Distiller and send it to the print factory, that´s how I do it since years now and I never had any probems with my customers just because I don´t used hardware calibration monitors. I think if you work by your own and you know your stuff then you don´t need this kind of expansive hardware.

But like Jettatore said, in a big company it might be helpfull and worth the money.


;)

[cgbeige]

like I said, a colour profile isn't going to mean anything if you're looking at something that's not properly calibrated. Imagine you send a letter to someone and you write down the address properly but the mailman takes it and shifts all the letters and numbers up by one because you were seeing it wrong. It's not going to get where you want now.

When I say the monitor "does sRGB," I mean that it displays the gamut of sRGB (not faked like the Dells and others that can't calibrate in this emulated sRGB mode), but it still needs to be calibrated for any of that to matter. The NEC WUXi Spectraview comes with an x-rite i1 calibrator and adjusts your monitor internally to get the best calibration. Most calibration is just a compensation by the profile to make up for how wacked out your monitor's colour is - not here. $1200 isn't that much money when you get an i1 hardware calibrator ($250), predictable, long-term results and in-monitor calibration. Anyway, it's out of the OP's budget but he's going to have a hard time finding a monitor that's sRGB, since they are almost all wide-gamut, which is a huge problem for apps like Maya and Nuke.

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