Monitors and picture reliability/ calibration

[Jansos]

I am mostly an Apple Mac type but am happy with PCs and Windows 10 also. If you were investing in a new monitor or even computer with inbuilt screen what would be your recommendation? I am particularly focused on trying to find a system that provides accurate and true to life picture rendition with as little fuss as possible. I would prefer to avoid having to use hoods and calibration devices if possible. Budget £200 - £600 approx. Any advice most welcome and thanks in advance!

Edited May 28, 2020 by Jansos
typo

[wiskerke]

I have found this to be a good overview and starting point in the past.

This is always a good resource too. However their selector doesn't seem to work anymore. At least not for me.

 

Hoods should not be necessary.

But a calibration device should be the first thing you buy once you have decided that images are going to leave your home. Like when you sell them.

From under or around 100 quid (depending on where you live: cheap in the US - expensive in the UK and us somewhere in the middle) it should be a no-brainer. This is a good overview, again from Frich.

 

wim

[Harry Harrison]

1 hour ago, Jansos said:

I would prefer to avoid having to use hoods and calibration devices

I imagine that you'll get some very informed and informative responses on this though high end Eizo monitors come in above your budget I think. BenQ have been producing monitors for the professional photographic market so are worth considering. I seriously think that you should budget for a calibration device though, whichever monitor you get. The X-Rite I1 Display Pro won't disappoint. I use a couple of Dell Ultrasharps which are pretty good if calibrated, probably very similar in quality to older non-Retina Imacs.

Edited May 28, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[MDM]

In that price range I would recommend a BenQ SW2700PT 27 Inch wide gamut monitor. I also happen to be selling mine at a reasonable price at the moment. If interested I will give you an email address for more details. I would also definitely recommend calibrating any monitor that is capable of being calibrated as not doing so means you would never know if you are getting accurate color rendition. It is not difficult. Did I also mention that I have an iIDisplayPro as Harry mentions for sale, also at a reasonable price? This is the best calibration device in the prosumer range. 

 

Don't worry I am not trying to push something on you but these items are what I would have recommended anyway and have done here several times in the past. I am only selling because I have started doing video and have bought some new kit with video in mind.

[Chuck Nacke]

I am currently using a DELL Ultrasharp and I HATE it.  For many years I had a NEC wide gamut

monitor that I loved and wish I had it back.  Also been using SPYDER's for calibration for years.

 

Looks like I got a really good deal on the NEC, open box special.  The last time I looked the NEC's

were expensive.

 

Chuck

[MDM]

 Image Science is an excellent up to date resource for anything to do with monitors and colour science in relation to photography. They are based in Australia unfortunately for those of us who do not live there.

 

Most pros who keep up with this stuff would say that Eizo is the best make of photography monitor nowadays but they are expensive as the quality is superb in every way. I am guessing Wim would agree with that. BenQ is the less expensive option - very good but not in the same ballpark as Eizo. 

 

Edited May 28, 2020 by MDM

[M.Chapman]

5 hours ago, Jansos said:

I am mostly an Apple Mac type but am happy with PCs and Windows 10 also. If you were investing in a new monitor or even computer with inbuilt screen what would be your recommendation? I am particularly focused on trying to find a system that provides accurate and true to life picture rendition with as little fuss as possible.

 

Getting accurate colour is not just about the monitor. The system driving it can be important too. I found out (to my cost) that Windows 7 (by default) uses a lower white point setting than ideal. Even if I'd hooked up a perfect monitor the colour would have been wrong. There may also be differences in gamma and black point default settings. I wouldn't spend all your money on the best monitor if that means you can't also buy a calibration device. If you have a calibration device you can also (optionally) consider including a correction for the colour temperature of your working environment. The X-Rite i1 Pro is very useful. Personally I don't correct for the viewing environment, but I'm not producing prints, and I do ensure the background of my monitor is neutral. 

 

Mark

Edited May 28, 2020 by M.Chapman

[Jansos]

Thanks everyone for your really helpful advice. It looks as if I will have to get my head around a calibration device afterall! 🙂

[wiskerke]

This one is just within your budget and it's the best you can get at a really good price.

 

wim

 

edit: via

Edited May 28, 2020 by wiskerke

[Phil]

ViewSonic has a line of "professional" monitors that promise "colour-accurate, true-to-life images with industry colour standards including sRGB, Adobe RGB, calibration and uniformity".

 

https://www.viewsonic.com/uk/products/lcd/professional-vp.php

 

[Betty LaRue]

On 28/05/2020 at 17:53, Jansos said:

Thanks everyone for your really helpful advice. It looks as if I will have to get my head around a calibration device afterall! 🙂

Jansos, I have been using an iMac (2 of them) for years. I did calibrate at first. Until I didn’t. I find if I watch the histogram and use a white, black or gray point I’m good.  Funny thing, my images seldom show much change when I do the white balance thing.  Even if the image doesn’t have a suitable color to click on, I’m still fine. I have used auto a bit only very recently, but often back out if I don’t like it.

It might have something to do with the Fuji camera’s stellar color rendition, I don’t know. 
I don’t overthink it, and seem to do just fine. 
That said, my iMac is a model before the high resolution one came out. I can’t attest to the latest.

You can look at my images to check out color and brightness. Some might be warmer or cooler, but that’s because I tweaked them on purpose to look that way.

It all depends on how much trouble you want to go to.

Betty

[Jansos]

2 hours ago, Betty LaRue said:

Jansos, I have been using an iMac (2 of them) for years. I did calibrate at first. Until I didn’t. I find if I watch the histogram and use a white, black or gray point I’m good.  Funny thing, my images seldom show much change when I do the white balance thing.  Even if the image doesn’t have a suitable color to click on, I’m still fine. I have used auto a bit only very recently, but often back out if I don’t like it.

It might have something to do with the Fuji camera’s stellar color rendition, I don’t know. 
I don’t overthink it, and seem to do just fine. 
That said, my iMac is a model before the high resolution one came out. I can’t attest to the latest.

You can look at my images to check out color and brightness. Some might be warmer or cooler, but that’s because I tweaked them on purpose to look that way.

It all depends on how much trouble you want to go to.

Betty

Thanks Betty. Really helpful - much appreciated. :-)

[Betty LaRue]

5 hours ago, Jansos said:

Thanks Betty. Really helpful - much appreciated. 🙂

Sometimes simple works just as well as complicated.  I probably wouldn’t suggest this to someone just now getting into photography who doesn’t know their way around an image. But after all, if you don’t know your way around after nearly 20,000 images uploaded, then you’re hopeless!  which is not the case.

[Harry Harrison]

Jansos, since you say that you are mainly an Apple Mac type then this article might be useful, it shows what might be wrong about an uncalibrated display and how to use a calibrator to improve it. The built-in screens of Apple Imacs are good quality screens, and as we've discovered in this thread, the modern Retina screens can show more colours than the earlier sRGB screens so are even better in that respect. Apple themselves say that "Calibrating your display isn’t usually necessary for a Mac in a typical home or office environment" but photography is different so you probably want a bit more control over what you see, and particularly if you intend to have a second monitor which you might hope will match your main one. Notice that this article also uses the I1 Display Pro colorimeter. In the UK you can get these for £178 at the moment and they go for very nearly that secondhand.

 

https://photographylife.com/how-to-calibrate-imac-and-imac-pro-displays

[MDM]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

Notice that this article also uses the I1 Display Pro colorimeter. In the UK you can get these for £178 at the moment and they go for very nearly that secondhand.

 

 

The very one I mentioned above that I had for sale for a very reasonable price. Fortunately I didn’t sell it as my new i1Display Pro Plus died a few days ago and is now on its way back to WEX. I just plugged it in to the computer, the light came on for a millisecond and then nothing.

. 

. 

[Harry Harrison]

4 minutes ago, MDM said:

I just plugged it in to the computer, the light came on for a millisecond and then nothing.

How frustrating, you do tend to expect electronic gadgets to just work these days. I understand that the 'Plus' is for new brighter screens, particularly with respect to video, something I know nothing about.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[MDM]

24 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

How frustrating, you do tend to expect electronic gadgets to just work these days. I understand that the 'Plus' is for new brighter screens, particularly with respect to video, something I know nothing about.

 

Yes I bought it to calibrate for the latest in video. I'm learning: HDR video, wide gamut video colour spaces, UHD TV - it's a whole new world and it's definitely coming or already here in limited form from the streaming companies such as Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV to name a few. Apple are focusing a lot of attention on high end video in fact. 

[Jansos]

On 16/06/2020 at 09:09, Harry Harrison said:

Jansos, since you say that you are mainly an Apple Mac type then this article might be useful, it shows what might be wrong about an uncalibrated display and how to use a calibrator to improve it. The built-in screens of Apple Imacs are good quality screens, and as we've discovered in this thread, the modern Retina screens can show more colours than the earlier sRGB screens so are even better in that respect. Apple themselves say that "Calibrating your display isn’t usually necessary for a Mac in a typical home or office environment" but photography is different so you probably want a bit more control over what you see, and particularly if you intend to have a second monitor which you might hope will match your main one. Notice that this article also uses the I1 Display Pro colorimeter. In the UK you can get these for £178 at the moment and they go for very nearly that secondhand.

 

https://photographylife.com/how-to-calibrate-imac-and-imac-pro-displays

Harry, Thanks very much. The 1Display Pro looks like the way to go and not too pricey. Do you know how compatible it is with an iMac (late 2013) running Mojave, 10.14.6? My worry with new hardware and software purchases is that you suddenly discover that the software is not backwards compatible. My version of Lightroom prevents me from upgrading to the new Mac OS. Thanks.

[MDM]

15 minutes ago, Jansos said:

Harry, Thanks very much. The 1Display Pro looks like the way to go and not too pricey. Do you know how compatible it is with an iMac (late 2013) running Mojave, 10.14.6? My worry with new hardware and software purchases is that you suddenly discover that the software is not backwards compatible. My version of Lightroom prevents me from upgrading to the new Mac OS. Thanks.

It will work on 10.13.x on so no problem on Mojave. Full details:https://www.xrite.com/categories/calibration-profiling/i1display-pro. 

Edited June 17, 2020 by MDM

[Harry Harrison]

16 minutes ago, Jansos said:

Do you know how compatible it is with an iMac (late 2013) running Mojave, 10.14.6?

Hi Jansos, no personal experience but the X-Rite software is called IProfiler and v. 1.8.2 definitely states that it is compatible with Mojave:

 

https://www.xrite.com/service-support/downloads/i/i1profiler-i1publish_v1_8_2

 

The article mentions DisplayCal which is 'donationware' and you won't have a problem with that either:

 

https://displaycal.net/#requirements

 

I've read quite a few reviews and articles regarding monitor calibration and it is always the I1Display Pro that gets recommended, its high secondhand resale price on ebay is probably a testament to that also. It doesn't affect you but Dell also sell it for their Ultrasharp monitors and it is the only one that works with their own calibration software, the "Dell Ultrasharp Color Calibration Solution"!

Edited June 17, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[Jansos]

18 hours ago, MDM said:

It will work on 10.13.x on so no problem on Mojave. Full details:https://www.xrite.com/categories/calibration-profiling/i1display-pro. 

Thx MDM 👍

[Jansos]

18 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

Hi Jansos, no personal experience but the X-Rite software is called IProfiler and v. 1.8.2 definitely states that it is compatible with Mojave:

 

https://www.xrite.com/service-support/downloads/i/i1profiler-i1publish_v1_8_2

 

The article mentions DisplayCal which is 'donationware' and you won't have a problem with that either:

 

https://displaycal.net/#requirements

 

I've read quite a few reviews and articles regarding monitor calibration and it is always the I1Display Pro that gets recommended, its high secondhand resale price on ebay is probably a testament to that also. It doesn't affect you but Dell also sell it for their Ultrasharp monitors and it is the only one that works with their own calibration software, the "Dell Ultrasharp Color Calibration Solution"!

Very helpful - much appreciated! 🙏

[MDM]

On 16/06/2020 at 10:44, MDM said:

The very one I mentioned above that I had for sale for a very reasonable price. Fortunately I didn’t sell it as my new i1Display Pro Plus died a few days ago and is now on its way back to WEX. I just plugged it in to the computer, the light came on for a millisecond and then nothing.

 

 

Just got an email from good ole WEX saying they are sending me a new replacement for the faulty i1Display Pro Plus which is great as they could have stuck to their policy of sending items back to the manufacturer if the fault develops more than 30 days after purchase. So I will once again be making my i1Display Pro available for sale at a very reasonable price shortly 😎

 

[Harry Harrison]

23 minutes ago, MDM said:

So I will once again be making my i1Display Pro available for sale at a very reasonable price shortly 😎

Go for it Jansos!

[dlmphotog]

Nit pick for sure...

 

But words mean things. calibration/profiling

 

Monitor calibration (adjusting the internal LUT table or other internal adjustments) can only be done on high end monitors with their proprietary software.

 

Monitor profiling can be done with off the shelf software/hardware and makes a color corrected profile for a monitor that other color aware software can use to display corrected colors. Best practice is to profile the entire imaging process from capture to print so there are no surprises. I use a colorchecker passport to profile my camera sensor then I use NEC Spectraview to profile my monitor and you could profile your printer or get a color profile from a commercial printer.