PC Monitors - IPS? Wide gamut?

andrewilley

andrewilley

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Andre Willey
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Hey photography experts,

I'm not a professional photographer, but do want to get the best results from the images I take with my Canon 7D. My current main PC monitor is dying so I'm looking for a replacement that will give me decent colour accuracy and shadow detail, etc - 1920x1200 24-inch ideally. I normally shoot RAW and edit in Photoshop (CS6). Not a massive budget to play with, £200-£350 at the outside.

I'm not too sure how much advantage wide colour gamut will give me in everyday use, and will it work with my DVI-D NVIDIA card or just newer connections such as DisplayPort? I think an IPS panel should be on my wishlist, from looking around the net so far anyway.

I've shortlisted three so far, and any comments (or other suggestions) would be appreciated.

Dell UltraSharp U2413 24 inch PremierColor LED Monitor - Black (1920x1200, 16:10, 60Hz, DVI, DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, USB 3.0)
I've also considered the regular Dell UltraSharp U2412M 24-Inch, which is cheaper but seems to get a lot of positive comments.

Asus PA248Q 24.1-inch Widescreen IPS Monitor (1920x1200, 6ms, VGA, DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort, Pivot, Adjustable Height, True Color)

Eizo Flexscan EV2436WFS-BK LCD Monitor

Many thanks for any insight you can offer.

Andre
 
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I have a Dell U2412M that has been fine, but the design is a couple of years old now and there *should* be better new designs around.
 
A lot of people seem to rate that Dell U2412. It seemed quite a bit lower spec on paper (especially in terms of colour gamut) but photographers seem to like it. Wasn't sure if the next model up, the U2413 with the wider gamut and more configuration options, was going to be worth the extra £150.

Andre
 
24" is too small, what's out there that's huge ;) I've had an HP 3065 for 7 years, it's bound to go pop soon Santa :banana:
 
I have the Asus, owned for almost 2 yrs, I'm not a tech person, but it works great.
 
I have an nec 2490 , that has been very good, but you need to price in a colorimeter in order to keep it in check if you want total accuracy. From the factory they are setup too bright and thus inaccurate I believe .
 
daugirdas said:
You really don't want a dell with "M" for graphics work with the exception of 2713HM. 6bit panels are Ok for office work, etc. Buy wide gamut too.
Click to expand...


There's nothing wrong with the U2412M. It's dithering (A-FRC) is really very good, and holds up well with 8bit panels. For the price there's not really much to beat it.

You're right though... the U2413 is a MUCH better choice if quality is what's needed.



Some warnings about wide gamut panels though.

They need to be used in a colour managed environment, or sRGB profiled images can appear over saturated.

Unless used in sRGB emulation mode, TV, Video and Games will appear over saturated.

In native (wide) gamut mode, web content will appear over saturated unless you use Firefox. See this thread.


Also... there's absolutely no point in paying for a nice screen and not calibrating it, so budget for a calibrator. I recommend the utterly excellent i1 Display Pro.


The other reason the Dell U2413 is my 24" choice is 2 fold: 1. it's a proper 16:10 screen, not a 16:9 money saving cop out, and 2. It can be hardware profiled (only with the i1 Display Pro and Dell software only).


Do you NEED wide gamut? It throws up a learning curve regarding colour management and workflow, so be prepared to make some changes to how you work. It becomes crucial to have a managed work flow, and it's just as crucial to make some changes to how you do other things... gaming, TV Video etc.. all must be done in sRGB emulation mode if you are to avoid over-saturated output. Also, unless you are prepared to use Firefox, you'll need sRGB emulation for web browsing too.

If all this seems a pain in the ass, then save some cash and get the U2412M, despite what some people.. probably who've never used it say... it's superb.

A great deal of b****x is spoken regarding wide gamut by those who don't know their arse from their elbow.. be careful.
 
even sRGB display needs to be calibrated and there automatically comes in colour management, which by itself is really simple and normally taken care of by the calibrator software. Once everything is setup modern OS and apps should just work (well, mostly).

P.S. I am very familiar with 2x12HM series and I know they are not quite at the level of Dell's proper 8-bit panels.
 
daugirdas said:
even sRGB display needs to be calibrated and there automatically comes in colour management, which by itself is really simple and normally taken care of by the calibrator software. Once everything is setup modern OS and apps should just work (well, mostly).
Click to expand...


I'm sorry, but this is exactly what I'm talking about.... thinking that calibrating a screen is all you need to do, and then all your apps and OSes will just sort it out for you. If you have a wide gamut screen... they often won't. As discussed in that other thread I linked to, there's only one single browser on the entire market that can colour manage properly... just one. Plus... with a sRGB monitor, you will not have any of these issues, as all browsers and OSes have to do is tag everything with sRGB and that's it.. however, when working with a wide gamut panel(s) then you have an issue, as tagging with sRGB is simply not enough any more. This gets' worse if you have a wide gamut panel that's NOT calibrated, as even Firefox or Photoshop will not be able to colour manage anything, as there's isn't a suitable .ICM profile on the system to describe the necessary colorspace, so again.. oversaturated.

Even if you are calibrated, AND your using firefox, correct colour management of web images assumes the images you're viewing are correctly tagged or embedded with sRGB. Those that are not will still not be colour managed correctly (if you think about it, they can't be). Ideally, the only way to ensure 100% that all web content views correctly on a wide gamut panel is to use a sRGB emulation mode, and not all wide gamut panels allow a sRGB emulation mode that can be profiled.

Many well regarded pieces of software will not play nice with a wide gamut screen and will not properly colour manage. You can NOT just assume that all your programmes will work. It's a minefield.


Calibrating your screen is NOT colour management... it's just part of it. If you don't know what you're doing... stick with a sRGB screen.

This market wide push to sell wide gamut screens to the masses is ridiculous. It causes more issues than it solves.
 
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Scaremongering that is. Most things work pretty seamlessly on OS X. Safari and FF are perfect and Chrome is almost there. I can hardly think of a couple old specialised application that misbehave, and it really doesn't matter there.

Of course if you are not calibrating, you shouldn't be buying one. Even then these things usually come with factory profiles on CD to get you vaguely in the ballpark. And there is always sRGB emulation mode in the monitor settings. Whats not to like?

I am not sure if you heard about 4K rec 2020 standard (wide gamut :) ). It is here and sRGB is going right down the landfill sooner than you buy your new uHDTV. sRGB is a companion to analogue VGA cable and both should be long dead.
 
daugirdas said:
Scaremongering that is. Most things work pretty seamlessly on OS X. Safari and FF are perfect and Chrome is almost there. I can hardly think of a couple old specialised application that misbehave, and it really doesn't matter there.

Of course if you are not calibrating, you shouldn't be buying one. Even then these things usually come with factory profiles on CD to get you vaguely in the ballpark. And there is always sRGB emulation mode in the monitor settings. Whats not to like?

I am not sure if you heard about 4K rec 2020 standard (wide gamut :) ). It is here and sRGB is going right down the landfill sooner than you buy your new uHDTV. sRGB is a companion to analogue VGA cable and both should be long dead.
Click to expand...

You're right - Rec.2020 Wide Colour Gamut is standardised and is what broadcasters are aiming at (along with higher frame rates, higher displayed dynamic range, better audio etc.)

BUT DigitalEurope (part of the EU) standardised the UHDTV logo to be 4kp50, HD (709) Colour Gamut and stereo audio.
 
I read and read and searched and searched and then came to the conclusion Dell 2713HM were for me!

I'm far from Pro but I like getting the best out of what I've got so I started with wanted 2 monitors then I realised the 2713h were just a tad to pro for me and wouldn't need what they offered so went with the HM And I'm more than happy with 1 2713hm can't wait to be able to use 2 when I get the new base unit!
Anyhow the image quality has massively improved there's so much space to work on so if your considering the 2413 my advice would be go for the 27 even if it's just for the extra space
 
daugirdas said:
Scaremongering that is. Most things work pretty seamlessly on OS X. Safari and FF are perfect and Chrome is almost there. I can hardly think of a couple old specialised application that misbehave, and it really doesn't matter there.

Of course if you are not calibrating, you shouldn't be buying one. Even then these things usually come with factory profiles on CD to get you vaguely in the ballpark. And there is always sRGB emulation mode in the monitor settings. Whats not to like?

I am not sure if you heard about 4K rec 2020 standard (wide gamut :) ). It is here and sRGB is going right down the landfill sooner than you buy your new uHDTV. sRGB is a companion to analogue VGA cable and both should be long dead.
Click to expand...

Yeah.. and that will be next week no doubt... I mean.. the wide scale adoption of the current standard happened so fast :)

Until it does, everything I've said is valid: Wide Gamut screens will almost certainly make a mess of a great deal of content unless you use sRGB emulation, or software that is capable of colour managing well.

I'm afraid it's not scaremongering, and I've already said that sRGB emulation is really the way to go with TV sources and a great many websites. Almost all wide gamut screens will have some kind of sRGB emulation. Whether it's any good or not is a different matter, Whether people can be arsed switching to it is another matter.

When the much discussed 4K standard becomes widespread, then yes, TV sources will becomes less of an issue. Seeing as it was only agreed upon in late 2012, or early 2013.. can't remember... we've probably got a fair old wait yet if the last time around is anything to go by.

FF is perfect, yes... which was the point I was making in the other thread. Safari isn't I'm afraid, nor is Chrome. Only FF will fully colour manage. If you've been informed otherwise, you've been misinformed. I've tested all major browsers here with untagged images on a wide gamut screen, and only FF will correctly display them.

bbg404 said:
I read and read and searched and searched and then came to the conclusion Dell 2713HM were for me!

I'm far from Pro but I like getting the best out of what I've got so I started with wanted 2 monitors then I realised the 2713h were just a tad to pro for me and wouldn't need what they offered so went with the HM And I'm more than happy with 1 2713hm can't wait to be able to use 2 when I get the new base unit!
Anyhow the image quality has massively improved there's so much space to work on so if your considering the 2413 my advice would be go for the 27 even if it's just for the extra space
Click to expand...

Get the i1 Display pro with it... as that's the only way to hardware profile it.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Yeah.. and that will be next week no doubt... I mean.. the wide scale adoption of the current standard happened so fast :)

Until it does, everything I've said is valid: Wide Gamut screens will almost certainly make a mess of a great deal of content unless you use sRGB emulation, or software that is capable of colour managing well.

I'm afraid it's not scaremongering, and I've already said that sRGB emulation is really the way to go with TV sources and a great many websites. Almost all wide gamut screens will have some kind of sRGB emulation. Whether it's any good or not is a different matter, Whether people can be arsed switching to it is another matter.

When the much discussed 4K standard becomes widespread, then yes, TV sources will becomes less of an issue. Seeing as it was only agreed upon in late 2012, or early 2013.. can't remember... we've probably got a fair old wait yet if the last time around is anything to go by.

FF is perfect, yes... which was the point I was making in the other thread. Safari isn't I'm afraid, nor is Chrome. Only FF will fully colour manage. If you've been informed otherwise, you've been misinformed. I've tested all major browsers here with untagged images on a wide gamut screen, and only FF will correctly display them.



Get the i1 Display pro with it... as that's the only way to hardware profile it.
Click to expand...

the HM still cant be Hardware profiled
 
I'm not sure anyone mentioned the HM version though did they?

[edit]... just noticed that he did list the HM, yes...

Only the H version can be hardware profiled.
 
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