Does monitors really matter????

[Scourh]

I've heard alot about LCD's not being proper for digial photography, so I started using a Mac, CTR, now this one seems to be heading to the trash since it's not working properly, I connected my brothers OLD monitor a ViewSonic E655, but I'm not sure, it looks too opaque, and he will need it soon, I'm about to buy a new one, is there any "best monitor" for digital photography? What are the professionals using? I mean What are you guys using?
Thanxs alot.

[Peter_AUS]

Professionals use 22" CRT monitors with small dot pitch and good resolution sizes.

Look at Mitsubishi, Phillips, Sony screens as my personal choices.

Monitors do matter.

[Arctirus]

LCDs have come along way recently in the areas of photo editing and gaming where they had been previously lacking. I use a 21" Viewsonic G220fB CRT but There are very good LCDs out there as well like the Dell 2001FP LCD is a great monitor.

[Michael Fanelli]

I've heard alot about LCD's not being proper for digial photography, so I started using a Mac, CTR, now this one seems to be heading to the trash since it's not working properly, I connected my brothers OLD monitor a ViewSonic E655, but I'm not sure, it looks too opaque, and he will need it soon, I'm about to buy a new one, is there any "best monitor" for digital photography? What are the professionals using? I mean What are you guys using?
Thanxs alot.

CRTs still leave LCD monitors in the dust. I am not sure what you mean when you say the VS monitor was "too opaque." If no light is getting through you'd see nothing!

Go to a big box store and look at various CRT monitors. Choose the one that looks best to YOU! I have a 15 year old NEC that I love but others hate it. Leave the more expensive LCD stuff for the non-photographic crowd.

[Lionheart]

I've heard alot about LCD's not being proper for digial photography, so I started using a Mac, CTR, now this one seems to be heading to the trash since it's not working properly, I connected my brothers OLD monitor a ViewSonic E655, but I'm not sure, it looks too opaque, and he will need it soon, I'm about to buy a new one, is there any "best monitor" for digital photography? What are the professionals using? I mean What are you guys using?
Thanxs alot.

Monitors do matter. But don't poopoo the LCD's yet. A cheap crt will still be better than the average lcd monitor but the lcd's have come a long way. I do ALL my editing on a Princeton 20 inch lcd, and have retired my venerable 17 inch trinitron crt a year ago. My new panasonic laptop is also very accurate. I look back at my old laptop and the lcds we have at the office and what a difference in lcd's in just the past year! Most of the lcds at the office are 5+years old, some were purchased less than 2 years ago.
IF cost is an issue, and you've got the desk space, get a crt monitor. If cost is not a problem and you want to free up some desk space, go for a nice expensive (really expensive) 20+inch lcd. Desk space is the reason I splurged on an LCD monitor. I just didn't want 75% of my desk taken up by a behemoth 22 inch crt, when a 20 inch lcd would give me the same screen size and only take up a fraction of the space.

[Norfindel]

mmm... but the new flat monitors use active matrix instead of liquid crystal displays, they are far better in terms of brightness and speed (of course, the latter one doesn't matters for viewing pictures anyways)... They cost a lot, but are supposed to be perfectly plane.
One thing to note on flat monitors, is that they have an "native resolution", they can't adapt well to other resolutions. The CRTs have no problem to do that.

[peted56]

Personally I use a Sun 21" CRT monitor that has at least 100hz refresh at high settings, this makes it particularly sharp.

Whatever the monitor you have you should make the best attempt you can to calibrate it even if you are not using it professionally. Once I got mine reasonably calibrated I found that I needed very little adjustments on photos for them to look "natural", before that I always wanted to brighten them up before they seemed "natural".

And remember that size does matter, you cannot look at a picture properly on a small screen.

Cheers.

Pete D

[Steph_B]

I do most of my editing on my laptop screen. It's extremely sharp and you can't beat a LCD for geometry (great for architecture photo.). However, I just acquired a 21'' Sony GDM -5410 (oem for Sun) with .24'' dot pitch (I plan to be a bit more serious about color accuracy). Can't wait to get it. And it was cheap too (about $220).

If you have an ATI video card, you can connect two screens. I guess a good combination would be to have a HUGE CRT with fine dot pitch + a smaller LCD. However, each time you switch from one display to another, you will probably have to load the right screen profiles.

This is my personal take on this matter. Hope this helps. I would like to hear from anyone with different ideas...

Cheers,

Steph.

[peted56]

I have the 5410 and it is extremely sharp and runs at 1600x1024 at 100hz and 1600x1200 at 75hz, gotta be happy with that.

[Raffi]

I use 2 21" CRT Sun/Sony GDM-5410 and they have a color problem in the red area. I have tried to calibrate them and they still show a RED bias when the screen is on and it is only black background. The black looks like a red tint. I have a Samsung that is very accurate in color yet its a 17" so..I am soon looking to fix this problem(have no idea where to begin) or replace these 2 monitors and purchase 2 new ones, as I got these used and they were considered GRADE A

So I have 2 huge monitors that are very nice except of very little use since they have a color problem...Anyone know how this is corrected or repairable?

I have used the Spyder2Pro to correct, but the black is still red, and I did the calibration to the Samsung, and I see no Red ..rather solid clean accurate color.


Thanks for any input!!

[JSPhoto]

I have two dirt cheap 17" monitors that seem to do very well when editing and the prints look just fine after they have been edited. It all depends on what you want and can afford. Personally, my $$ go towards new lenses and so on, because without quality gear, what monitor you have won't matter anyway.
I know guys who go out and buy all kinds of software, computers and monitors, yet no matter how hard they try they can't get photos to look right. I keep telling them it's the gear taking the photos..... but will they listen? NO!

JS

[JSPhoto]

I use 2 21" CRT Sun/Sony GDM-5410 and they have a color problem in the red area. I have tried to calibrate them and they still show a RED bias when the screen is on and it is only black background. The black looks like a red tint. I have a Samsung that is very accurate in color yet its a 17" so..I am soon looking to fix this problem(have no idea where to begin) or replace these 2 monitors and purchase 2 new ones, as I got these used and they were considered GRADE A

So I have 2 huge monitors that are very nice except of very little use since they have a color problem...Anyone know how this is corrected or repairable?

I have used the Spyder2Pro to correct, but the black is still red, and I did the calibration to the Samsung, and I see no Red ..rather solid clean accurate color.


Thanks for any input!!

Sounds like a gun problem. You coukd have them serviced but it might be cheaper to replace them.

JS

[pip22]

I have two dirt cheap 17" monitors that seem to do very well when editing and the prints look just fine after they have been edited. It all depends on what you want and can afford. Personally, my $$ go towards new lenses and so on, because without quality gear, what monitor you have won't matter anyway.
I know guys who go out and buy all kinds of software, computers and monitors, yet no matter how hard they try they can't get photos to look right. I keep telling them it's the gear taking the photos..... but will they listen? NO!

JS

That's not necessarily true. We all know how difficult it can be to produce a natural-looking inkjet photo with colours that approximately match what's on the screen. The best-quality DSLR money can buy won't make that any easier. You're giving those guys bad advice in my view. You should be stressing the importance of setting up colour-management on their PC and using printer profiles etc, not rubbishing their camera gear.