Need great Photo editing monitor

[Razor2012]

I agree, if a person made a living off of pro graphics then yes.  But for a grand it was all I needed at the time.

[jcollett]

If you do not have loads of money, but still need a larger, color accurate monitor, you can do much worse than this gem.  Challenge is to get it while in stock.  Microcenter ususally sells out of this monitor within a few days of receiving shipment.  It is only $400!  I love my Auria. Just make sure to also buy a calibrator to for accurate colors.

http://www.microcenter.com/product/384780/EQ276W_27_IPS_LED_Monitor

The panel contained within this monitor can also be found in some Korean made monitors sold on eBay.  I haven't tried them but have heard more good things than bad.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=27+inch+ips&_sacat=0&_odkw=ips&_osacat=0&_from=R40

[cayenne]

Another very solid option is the HP ZR30w. 30" IPS with low latency (7ms) for IPS panels. I have used one now for more than 6 months and find it fantastic. Calibration via Spyder4 is excellent. Only limitation is Display Port and DVI only. If you use this for work, that is fine but it doesn't have HDMI (which keeps the latency low) so if you want to use it for watching movies via an external HDMI source then choose something else. 2560x1600 resolution, 1.07B colors.

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/382087-382087-64283-72270-3884471-4194577.html?dnr=1

Got mine from B&H. Great monitor for the price, not a high-end Eizo or NEC but for my photography work it does a great job.

Curious to hear your description of HDMI vs Displayport.

I thought that Displayport was the latest and greatest of the connection types...that it was HDMI on steroids so to speak.

Is it really true that you'd want HDMI over Displayport? I thought DP had the higher bandwidth, etc.

I found for my Dell U2711....on my MBP laptop...the only way I could get the full resolution was to use displayport....not HDMI.

I believe I found the same was true when hooking same monitor to a higher end lenovo laptop (different work) to it...had to use DP to get full resolution.

Thoughts?

C

[MaxPower]

I can only repeated it.

DELL 3011U

Have this and two last generation Eizo 21".

With Dell you get more bank for the buck

[JaxPhotographer]

Curious to hear your description of HDMI vs Displayport.

I thought that Displayport was the latest and greatest of the connection types...that it was HDMI on steroids so to speak.

Is it really true that you'd want HDMI over Displayport? I thought DP had the higher bandwidth, etc.

I found for my Dell U2711....on my MBP laptop...the only way I could get the full resolution was to use displayport....not HDMI.

I believe I found the same was true when hooking same monitor to a higher end lenovo laptop (different work) to it...had to use DP to get full resolution.

Thoughts?

You are correct with wanting DP for 2560x1600. I personally didn't care about HDMI on the monitor and actually preferred not having it so that the latency is better. I only mentioned it in case the OP had more uses for the monitor in mind than just photography/graphics work.

[Canon-F1]

i switched from DELL 2711 to a NEC 271.

my own experience, supported by many user reviews i read, is that DELL monitors have problems with light bleeding on the edges.

also take an image (long exposure) of a complete black image on a DELL monitor (in a dark room of course).
you will see how uneven the light is. and it gets WORSE when the monitor ages.

do the same with a NEC monitor.
my NEC shows an absolutely even black image.

that´s an problem with DELL monitors... and no profiling and calibrating can fix that.


DELL has a good price.. but NEC has the better quality for a still good price.

[LetTheRightLensIn]

another happy Dell U2711 owner. Great monitor for the price. the 30" is great for photo work but isn't my favorite to game on or web surf.

The NEC monitors people have mentioned (PA271W) are a little nicer (not that much) and cost a little bit more, maybe justified for some. I've never owned one but worked on them enough to know they work well enough.

The Eizo stuff is a step up from there and can be color corrected easily if you need that. The money for me just didn't line up for these monitors as a serious hobbyist. However, if I were a professional who needed this as a real everyday tool this would be the monitor to buy.

The NEC PA do have the 14bit 3D internal LUT so they can be calibrated to a perfect sRGB though and the tone response curve can also be internally calibrated for that mode and wide gamut modes so you don't give up any shades, it's all done 14bit internally.

[Patrick]

Another +1 for the Dell Ultrasharp series - I've a 24" 1920 x 1200 Ultrasharp and it's the best monitor I've ever used.

[Razor2012]

I have to admit the Retina screen on my Macbook Pro 15" is incredible.

[stewy]

When it comes to Dell, one should understand that their monitors and their computers (PCs) are two very different things. I don't like dell computers. I use to have one in college, and I use them at work. I'm not a fan. However, I do own a Dell Ultrasharp monitor. I got the 2407 WFP (wide gamut) monitor some years ago when I, after doing lots of web development, realized that colors actually mattered. Since then I picked up photography. I still use this monitor today and its very good.

If you are serious about your colors, then a Dell Ultrasharp IPS display will give you great results. My only gripe with my monitor is at the very end of the dark spectrum. If you are working with details in the very dark shadows, and this work is super important (or you just demand the best), then you'll want to get a better monitor. Anything else and this monitor is great.

I plan to get a new monitor, probably by the end of next year. At that time I'll get a NEC or Eizo. The only reason why I don't upgrade now is because the photography that I'm currently doing is for myself. That won't stay the same come the end of next year.

Of course, I use a tool (xRite) to calibrate my monitor, plus calibrate my camera for Lightroom and Photoshop, etc.

[cocopop05]

I would definitely consider the HP Dreamcolor LP2480zx.  It may only be 1920x1200 but offers a colour pallette of over 1 billion colours and has calibration cabilities to allow your display to accurately be in the colour space you require.  It can also be calibrated to match hard copy output.  Check out reviews via Google, it has received top reviews and is way cheaper than Eizo displays.

[LetTheRightLensIn]

And for fun I did a test on  my  new  mac book pro Retina
not bad as you can se, I lowered however the  Candella value to 130.

The resolution on those is so awesome. I can't wait until NEC comes out with some 6k 24-27" displays (well maybe I can a bit since I don't think I could afford one now  but....).

I wonder how it does on sRGB gamut matching, saturation and primary luminosity curves though. I've seen plenty a regular old monitor these days test fine enough for a basic color test like that and then not do so well on those other points. How does it plot using say ColorimetreHCFR?

[LetTheRightLensIn]

www.prad.de tends to have the highest quality monitor reviews, the guy doing is a lot more knowledgeable than most of the guys at the other testing sites

[LetTheRightLensIn]

Not that someone using the monitor purely for photography necessarily needs a perfect sRGB emulation mode if they intend to use only color-managed programs and browsers and just keep it in wide gamut mode, but if you also want to use sRGB mode for IE or Chrome browsing or for TV or games or to view sRGB images with least banding, etc. here are some measurements showing how the internal adjustments let a NEC PA get sRGB down very well:

perfect saturation tracking curves and hue curves along saturation curves:

perfect primary luminance tracking curves:

perfect alignment and coverage of sRGB max saturation gamut slice:

the primary numerical values, perfect as also shown on the chart above:

excellent TRC tracking on brightest few values:

excellent color-temp tracking until below 10% (the probe doesn't read well there down below 15% anyway):

and the above in numerical form:

a pretty solid automatic instant self-calibration to gamma 2.2 (for movies and tv):

this one shows how the actual sRGB TRC looks (it is NOT a straight line at gamma 2.2) so sRGB images viewed in non-managed programs such as IE and Chrome make things look correct and not with overly-darkened shadows and altered highlight curve:

the very darkest few tones are a touch too dark but most monitor's do not get this perfect either:

[NotABunny]

This: http://www.necdisplay.com/p/desktop-monitors/pa271w-bk-sv

If you are getting the NEC, get the SpectraView because their software does *hardware* calibration, as in 10-bit color calibration in the hardware of the display. Anything else will do only 8-bit as a OS color profile.

I have the NEC 2690WUXi2.