Monitor shopping; a slow descent into madness?

[jrw]

YES!

It often amazes me how much folks will spend on gear but won't put any money into a proper monitor so they can see their images.

[Anthony M]

YES!

It often amazes me how much folks will spend on gear but won't put any money into a proper monitor so they can see their images.

I've been staring at high end computer monitors since 1982 believe it or not. My first job out of college was working on a turnkey computer graphics system. My boss had no idea how it worked, but knew he needed to jump on the bandwagon. Up to that point he had a very well known boutique photo lab in San Francisco, and was moving into making slides for high tech.

Those things (Barco's) could literally give you a tan. From there I got him to start buying Macintosh's when it became apparent they were going to be a tool in the future. People used to laugh at me when I said that we would be doing color separations soon enough on these things. I remember the first color calibrated monitors we bought - Radius was "the" brand, soon followed by NEC. But when you were matching colors for printing - and Sony or Kraft says the color is "x", that color had better be "x" on the package, or tens of thousands of dollars (plus press downtime etc.) were on the line. I was the guy that got flown all over to do the press checks.

In a way, the color of your photography really doesn't matter if it's off on your monitor if you do nothing else with it. If you enjoy your photos that way, or in a slide-show on TV that's all you need. It's your reality, and not having to share makes it easy. Who cares if the grass is a little off, or a terra cotta pot is a little on the orange side?

Chances are, that's not the case. If you want to print, or if your photos pass through other hands for whatever reason, there's no excuse to not have a decent monitor. Out of the box they're pretty impressive these days, but they always need calibration. We are so spoiled to be able to get a "puck" that can calibrate a monitor and to continue to check room ambiance all day for $150. That's (honestly) nearly 100 times cheaper than what was similar in the world of CRT's used to cost. And (oddly) because of gaming, the cost of a decent graphics card is very cheap. They're capable of being able to drive Photoshop without breaking a sweat - I remember what it was like trying to scroll a 350 dpi file (or several) zoomed in back in the 90's.

It took a while for the flat panels to catch up, but they have. The only real limit is how much you want to spend, and size is usually the determining cost factor. There are a few types of more inexpensive IPS panels now that can still deliver amazing color accuracy and consistency for fantastic prices. There's not a lot of reason to have to spend top dollar these days, especially for photography. Many of the shortfalls of the IPS monitors has been overcome (viewing angles, uneven coverage), and with LED back-lighting as well as some new technology (PLS), things are looking pretty exciting. The main purpose for my setup is to reproduce fine art, from scan to monitor to printer. Some of the colors are actually fluorescent. I'm happy to say the worst I get is about 98% of my goal.

Sadly, a lot of people don't make the necessary investments, and then wonder why they're having problems (I see some doozy's). If I try to explain the problem, their monitor is so bad that they can't see the issue.

Prices continue to drop, and it's not so funny to see that what I spent a lot of money on just a few years ago is now about half that.

Anyway, Dell can be a very good brand, depending on where they've sourced their panels. But overall, they're always in the top contenders. The problem I've had with past Dell's is the AG coating, which has improved lately. Another excellent brand is Asus (I have one). BenQ used to make junk, and now they're at the top of the heap. NEC and Eizo are still the choice for designers and an insanely wide color gamut. Samsung makes some of the best panels on the planet, and they used to make the worst monitors. It looks like that's changing.

Also, just because a brand has one good 23" panel, it doesn't mean that their 27" panel is worth shooting. The electronics in each one is completely different. Many come out of the box terribly calibrated, and need to be adjusted. Some are nearly dead on out of the box. Some cannot ever be properly calibrated.

I haven't been checking for a long time, but I should probably see what's going on as I've been getting raves on the new Samsungs and BenQ's. One of the best sources for Monitor reviews is PRAD. Also, hardware Canucks were very good - and put things in terms for laymen. I'm sure they're still on top of things. Their testing was pretty good, but nowhere as thorough as PRAD.

BTW, the number one problem I see with people's monitors is that they're set far too bright. In fact, some monitors cannot be dialed down enough! This is what typically leads to the "why are my prints so dark?" question. Unfortunately, this isn't necessarily a good thing if you want to play video games or watch movies, which is really what most monitors are calibrated for. A toggle can be a good thing here.