Factors in Selecting a New Monitor

Discussions
1

With LR/PS seeming to be more demanding these days, I made the decision to switch from my five year old Dell laptop to my first ever Mac…the Studio. I have been using a 24 inch Dell which works fine but I would like a bit more real estate with either a 27" or a bit larger.

My tech knowledge is basic. But I am looking for some advice on what specs should I be looking for in a new monitor. I do print and do calibrate my current monitor.

TIA

Pat

2

Pat, there are lots of decent monitors out there, but I have had excellent results with NEC.

My NEC 27" monitor has many thousands of hours of use and remains ‘color-accurate’. I have also had excellent help from their tech support for their calibration software SpectraView. My colorimeter is NEC, as well. I bought it from B&H.

NEC Displays Product Page

Current NEC replacement for my monitor

As I said, NEC has been good to me and I do not hesitate to recommend their monitors. I hope this helps.

Edit to Add:

  • Look for monitors that will resolve at least 98% or better of Adobe RGB.
  • Check the specs, or reviews that give the calibrated Delta-E value. This value relates to color accuracy. It should be less than 2, and hopefully much less than that. (my NEC Delta-E is <1).
  • The lower the monitor Black Point, the better.
  • Matte Screen
    -P
3

I likewise have a NEC, but I believe they are no longer made. Here is a year old link posted by Andrew Rodney, one of the original Color Management gurus, about where you might still find one: https://photopxl.com/forums/topic/monitor-recommendation/. Here is a link from Luminous Landscape with a great discusson of “which monitor to buy”, also with several responses by Andrew Rodney. Listen to anything he says, he is a color management God! https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=144261.0

4

I forgot to mention, in the past I upgraded from a crappy 27 inch monitor to the NEC 30 inch monitor and discovered that I can’t see the whole monitor…it’s too large for my visual field to take in. I pushed it as far away as I could on my limited desk space, which helped a little bit, but then things were out of focus because of the added distance and I had to get new computer glasses. This is a long winded was of saying for me, and possibly others, 27 inch is the sweet spot for monitor size.

5

I agree. 27" works nicely for me and has plenty of real estate for Photo Shop panels and the working image in the workspace.

Sort of off topic: If you don’t have one, consider purchasing a graphics pen tablet. The pen makes masking/painting/selecting soooo much easier than using a mouse. Mine is from Wacom and is 4x5" (active area) size. Connects via USB. Newer models also connect with Bluetooth. Not inexpensive, but the ROI is tremendous.
-P

6

Tony and Preston: Thanks guys for sharing this great information. …it really helps.

I have been learning about the scaling issue with Macs and monitors that aren’t Apple monitors. See this if by chance you are not familiar with the topic

Like any issue there seems to be those that say its not a big deal and others not quite sharing that opinion.

I am moving from a 24" 1080p screen so moving to a 27" screen with 1440p shouldn’t be much of a concern.

Thanks again! and very open to any other thoughts and suggestions.

8

If you are doing color work and are going to be critical about your color rendering then you may want to get a wide gamut monitor. NEC used to sell some good ones like their Spectraview line but nowadays it seems that BenQ has filled that niche with some offerings. I have one of their 27" monitors and am very happy with it - the closest current match in their lineup seems to be the SW272U 27". If you use their Palette Master Element calibration software (which works with various spectrophotometers and colorimeters) AND turn off color management in your operating system so as to let the monitor manage the calibration-based-adjustment (via a “lookup table” ie “LUT” that is loaded into the monitor), you get a super nice result (which btw is also how those old NEC Spectraview monitors worked, using NEC’s calibration software…). This is definitely a more expensive monitor than the standard computer monitors, but it also renders and significantly wider color gamut, coming very close to being able to render the entire Adobe RGB 1998 color space.

As someone who back in the day spent significant time working in a pre-press color darkroom, I very much appreciate having a monitor that can very closely match up to the colors that I’m able to get in my prints.