CRT monitor?

lolage

lolage

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Ben
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I currently have a 22" samsung monitor however Ive been toying with the idea of dual screens for a while.

I heard that an old CRT monitor will be better for photo editing as it will show the colours properly or something like that. Is this true?
 
It will depend on the age and quality of the monitor. You will also have to suffer the geometric distortions that I personally find very annoying now I'm used to a flat screen...
 
I've been wondering about this too. I have a flat screen CRT (Mitsubishi Diamond Plus) which I have found excellent, but I think it is probably on its last legs. Not sure if you can even get CRT monitors....
 
Remember that even when CRT monitors were the only choice, you still had to pay several thousand to get a decent one for graphics machines. I remember paying may thousands for a calibrated Barco monitor for work once... Was very nice though ;)
 
Some of the older CRT screens had very good colour - I had the 19" Mitsubishi Diamond Pro which I loved and absolutely hated the colour from my first TFT screen which had a TN panel, so not surprised the colour was terrible!

Newer IPS screens seem to redress the balance and they do have MUCH more accurate colour than TN screens, but will cost a bit more, but well worth the extra if you do anything photographic.
 
Plenty of LCDs now have excellent colour representation, and they are just so much better for geometry. Just that as said the better panels are more expensive.

Problem I have is I find desktops at home too awkward now and would rather have a laptop, but these are very tricky to find anything other than a TN panel.

Oh, and then you have wide gamut panels to consider. These should be superior for colours than other panels and most (all?) CRT as they have much wider colour gamut than sRGB. However all computers and the entire web has been based on sRGB so far. The majority of cameras and printers default to sRGB. For normal computer use they are a bit odd as they are seemingly over saturated. They don't seem to be all that popular. I've considered them but think it's not worth it until wide gamut is the norm. I'm not convinced that will happen for many years yet.
 
deadkenny said:
Plenty of LCDs now have excellent colour representation, and they are just so much better for geometry. Just that as said the better panels are more expensive.

Problem I have is I find desktops at home too awkward now and would rather have a laptop, but these are very tricky to find anything other than a TN panel.

Oh, and then you have wide gamut panels to consider. These should be superior for colours than other panels and most (all?) CRT as they have much wider colour gamut than sRGB. However all computers and the entire web has been based on sRGB so far. The majority of cameras and printers default to sRGB. For normal computer use they are a bit odd as they are seemingly over saturated. They don't seem to be all that popular. I've considered them but think it's not worth it until wide gamut is the norm. I'm not convinced that will happen for many years yet.
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I'm wondering how apple manage to put an IPS screen in the ipad but not in any of their laptops.

I thought wide gamut is more useful for print proofing as print has a higher gamut than sRGB. I avoided wide gamut when getting a monitor as I have heard that reds and green can appear over saturated, and that running the screen in sRGB emulation mode is not as good as a native sRGB screen.
 
Yeah it would be better for print proofing, but then you are also seeing the photo on the screen as it was shot, in terms of colour (if you shot AdobeRGB), rather than an approximation as you get with all sRGB screens. However, given that the entire web is sRGB then that's how everyone else will see your photos, so if it's web stuff it's easier to just go sRGB all the way. I just find it frustrating that I'm not getting the best out of my photos. Until everyone has such monitors there's not much I can do about that though. Interesting that a lot of LCD TVs now are wide gamut though.
 
deadkenny said:
Yeah it would be better for print proofing, but then you are also seeing the photo on the screen as it was shot, in terms of colour (if you shot AdobeRGB), rather than an approximation as you get with all sRGB screens. However, given that the entire web is sRGB then that's how everyone else will see your photos, so if it's web stuff it's easier to just go sRGB all the way. I just find it frustrating that I'm not getting the best out of my photos. Until everyone has such monitors there's not much I can do about that though. Interesting that a lot of LCD TVs now are wide gamut though.
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I don't think I have ever shot in AdobeRGB - presumably there must be some advantage, perhaps if you use Adobe Software for image editing? I have never used any Adobe image editing Software so would not really know.
 
No need for Adobe software. You just get the AdobeRGB colour gamut (a standard wide gamut that just happens to be created by Adobe) in your photos instead of defaulting to sRGB. Though if you shoot RAW it doesn't really matter as all it does is tag the photo as that colour space and you can change it to whatever you like before processing as the full gamut data is in the RAW file regardless.

Most colour aware editing software will render the AdobeRGB colours by approximation on an sRGB monitor (interpolation possibly?). I find the photos are more natural when I shoot and edit in AdobeRGB, using Nikon Capture NX (which is my raw converter and editor). Photos should come out the same if you can get them printed right. However the downside is conversion to sRGB always results in some loss. I find black depth in particular is a problem. Where AdobeRGB will have shades of black, when converted the colour space is clipped and the result can be too dark.

Given I tend to stick photos on the web more than print I really could not bother and just shoot and edit sRGB. Only thing is by editing in AdobeRGB I feel that should I want a print at some point it will come out as I edited it and with the best depth of colours. For the web the same photo is a compromise but generally not far off.
 
Up to about 8 years ago I would have said that CRT monitors were still better than most LCD monitors ( except the very expensive ones ). Nowadays a good LCD ( and I mean good ) is just as good as one of the older CRT beasts. I had a 21'' monster and it was heavy and hot. Spend around £400 on a good 21" monitor form a good make then you will have good results. But please also include a good calibration device, if you don't already have one.

Before you rush out and spend a load of money on a Wide Gamut monitor , think what you are gong to use it for. If the images are for web, most repro, and general printing then it's probably not worth the extra expense. If however you are going to do high qualitywork with a printer that can handle the larger gamut then it may be worth while.
 
Chappers said:
I had a 21'' monster and it was heavy and hot.
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not to mention HUGE. after a few years working with LCD you forget how big and heavy CRT is :D we've just binned off the last of the CRTs on the macs up in design, its hard work shifting them..

if workspace real estate is a selling factor CRT is a big negative.

but id agree that with modern IPS panels youll not see any disadvantages.
 
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