Monitor Advice: Is 100% AdobeRGB Worth it

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Hi

I am looking to get a new monitor to use as an external monitor for my MacBook when working at the desk. I have decided on 27 inch as the size I would ideally like. I have been looking at the BenQ SW2700 as a dedicated photo monitor. Although its pretty pricey I was wondering if it is worth it over getting something cheaper, and does anyone have any recommendations as alternative monitors worth considering.

I currently send my pictures off to be printed and the thinking behind the adobeRGB screen is a bit of future proofing incase I wanted to start printing at home etc. Although I would be keen to what others recommend.

Thanks in advance
 
Certainly easier on the eyes, using a larger screen that is. Or even better as a 2 screen set up. I've had Benq ones recommended to me as being as good as Eizo but a fraction of the price but not felt the need to replace my Apple 27" monitor just yet. Just make sure its calibrated and I'm sure you'll be fine.
 
•


The colour space known as Adobe RGB is out of date
when it comes to monitors… though it still applies to
photo colour printing.

Nowadays, the newer monitors are capable to handle
and render Prophoto RGB with ease but the technology
to render it else than on screen is not yet there.
 
Kodiak Qc said:
The colour space known as Adobe RGB is out of date when it comes to monitors… though it still applies to photo colour printing.

Nowadays, the newer monitors are capable to handle and render Prophoto RGB with ease but the technology to render it else than on screen is not yet there.
Click to expand...
Link? Even high-end monitors from Eizo seem to top out at around 80% of rec.2020 (the colour space that is being used as the standard around which wide-gamut televisions and cinemography is being based). For comparison, AdobeRGB covers about 50% of visible colours, rec 2020 75% and ProPhoto is somewhere around 90%. (Trivia: 13% of the ProPhoto space are imaginary colours)
 
aRGB or wider is highly recommended as we are about to finally see the wider adoption of these formats. sRGB is thankfully on its final legs.

The difference of colours sRGB vs prophotoRGB can display is staggering. eg. sRGB basically can't show RED colour, only a very far approximation.
 
Kodiak Qc said:
•


The colour space known as Adobe RGB is out of date
when it comes to monitors… though it still applies to
photo colour printing.

Nowadays, the newer monitors are capable to handle
and render Prophoto RGB with ease but the technology
to render it else than on screen is not yet there.
Click to expand...

ProPhotoRGB has primaries outside of the physical spectrum. You would need imaginary colours or negative light to create a monitor that showed it.
 
Last edited:
LongLensPhotography said:
aRGB or wider is highly recommended as we are about to finally see the wider adoption of these formats. sRGB is thankfully on its final legs.

The difference of colours sRGB vs prophotoRGB can display is staggering. eg. sRGB basically can't show RED colour, only a very far approximation.
Click to expand...

sRGB has a red wavelength primary and can definitely show red.
 
st599 said:
sRGB has a red wavelength primary and can definitely show red.
Click to expand...

This is very misleading. It is possible to define 256 0 0 red as anything you like, and sRGB definition happens to be not very red at all - more slate reddish - brown/orange.

sk66 said:
I don't really see the point of anything wider than sRGB... maybe if you are editing photos for your own printing with a more capable printer (and profiling/etc).
Click to expand...

Try poppy fields, red sports cars and deep red dresses for example. There are examples with blue and green too.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
Try poppy fields, red sports cars and deep red dresses for example. There are examples with blue and green too.
Click to expand...
I understand the potential benefits... but jpegs/sRGB are still the standard for the web. The printer I own uses the sRGB color space (I haven't calibrated for it). The lab I use wants jpegs in sRGB, etc etc. And my current monitor (retina) calibrates to only 98% of sRGB and everything works fine... I'm pretty sure this is red, it looks like it to me...
 
sk66 said:
I understand the potential benefits... but jpegs/sRGB are still the standard for the web. The printer I own uses the sRGB color space (I haven't calibrated for it). The lab I use wants jpegs in sRGB, etc etc. And my current monitor (retina) calibrates to only 98% of sRGB and everything works fine... I'm pretty sure this is red, it looks like it to me...
Click to expand...

I hear you. But things are about to change very quickly and a lot of people will be left behind.

For example 1) Apple already brought out new iPhone camera image format to replace JPEG and it stores wider colour gamut.
2) In 1-2 years all premium TVs will have rec 2020 and the support for it is on the way.

So its long overdue the old hag sRGB is dead.
 
What changes are in the pipeline to replace the small CMYK/RGB color spaces for printing? Or is it going to be where digital display is the only option that is not seriously compromised? I can see these changes causing a lot of color management headaches for a lot of people...
 
LongLensPhotography said:
I hear you. But things are about to change very quickly and a lot of people will be left behind.

For example 1) Apple already brought out new iPhone camera image format to replace JPEG and it stores wider colour gamut.
2) In 1-2 years all premium TVs will have rec 2020 and the support for it is on the way.

So its long overdue the old hag sRGB is dead.
Click to expand...


Rec2020 is a future proof container format - it's almost impossible to create an actual monitor for it without using very narrow bandwidth lasers, and you wouldn't want to as you get metamerism issues.
 
sk66 said:
What changes are in the pipeline to replace the small CMYK/RGB color spaces for printing? Or is it going to be where digital display is the only option that is not seriously compromised? I can see these changes causing a lot of color management headaches for a lot of people...
Click to expand...

The colour spaces are very small only for C-type "prints" that in my opinion are frankly a waste of time. All different inkjet papers tend to have a specific but also much wider colour gamut, that can easily exceed sRGB across part or the whole range of the spectrum. This is where calibration comes in. Many people on here have been doing this for years already.

st599 said:
Rec2020 is a future proof container format - it's almost impossible to create an actual monitor for it without using very narrow bandwidth lasers, and you wouldn't want to as you get metamerism issues.
Click to expand...

100% rec2020 won't happen overnight, but we will start seeing better and better implementations far exceeding sRGB and likely aRGB. That is a good thing in a way that technology won't be limited by another horrible arbitrary format like sRGB.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
The colour spaces are very small only for C-type "prints" that in my opinion are frankly a waste of time. All different inkjet papers tend to have a specific but also much wider colour gamut, that can easily exceed sRGB across part or the whole range of the spectrum. This is where calibration comes in. Many people on here have been doing this for years already.
Click to expand...
Calibration only ensures that the colors you can see are accurate... it does nothing for the colors you cannot see. That's the advantage of sRGB currently (IMO). The Noritsu printers my lab uses do exceed sRGB a bit (not a lot), so if I edit and submit an image in sRGB on my calibrated sRGB monitor, the printer will be able to reproduce everything as I saw it.
If we start having monitors capable of much wider gamuts than can be reproduced, then there is a huge chance that what you see is not what will be output. Of course, that's where proper softproofing comes in... but I imagine that will be a problem for many and without a lot of benefit. It's not like images in sRGB are inadequate somehow. The "visible spectrum" is kind of misleading I think... most people have a hard time distinguishing between colors w/in the spectrum to anywhere near that level.
 
sk66 said:
Calibration only ensures that the colors you can see are accurate... it does nothing for the colors you cannot see. That's the advantage of sRGB currently (IMO). The Noritsu printers my lab uses do exceed sRGB a bit (not a lot), so if I edit and submit an image in sRGB on my calibrated sRGB monitor, the printer will be able to reproduce everything as I saw it.
If we start having monitors capable of much wider gamuts than can be reproduced, then there is a huge chance that what you see is not what will be output. Of course, that's where proper softproofing comes in... but I imagine that will be a problem for many and without a lot of benefit. It's not like images in sRGB are inadequate somehow. The "visible spectrum" is kind of misleading I think... most people have a hard time distinguishing between colors w/in the spectrum to anywhere near that level.
Click to expand...

This article shows in great detail why sRGB is inadequate and that it doesn't properly display many commonplace colours. https://webkit.org/blog-files/color-gamut/

I have long moved away from anything Noritsu or Fuji industrial printers produce. Canon and Epson inkjets are millenia ahead.
 
I have two of these set up and I will be quite honest they are fantastic screens, not glossy but a matt finish and the colours are really nice with not one dead pixel and great screen uniformity. Comes with a 3 year guarantee and a factory calibration chart for each one.

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/p...ell-up2716d-monitor?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

didn't buy them from Dell though, way too expensive, got mine from Laptops Direct.
 
LongLensPhotography said:
The colour spaces are very small only for C-type "prints" that in my opinion are frankly a waste of time. All different inkjet papers tend to have a specific but also much wider colour gamut, that can easily exceed sRGB across part or the whole range of the spectrum. This is where calibration comes in. Many people on here have been doing this for years already.



100% rec2020 won't happen overnight, but we will start seeing better and better implementations far exceeding sRGB and likely aRGB. That is a good thing in a way that technology won't be limited by another horrible arbitrary format like sRGB.
Click to expand...
Viewer Metamerism is not an implementation issue. To get a wider colour gamut, you need narrower bandwidth primaries. If you use narrower primaries, you get worse Metamerism (where colours look different to different viewers).

Personally, I think more screens will aim for the larger dynamic range of BT.2100 and a smaller gamut like aRGB, P3 or desaturated BT.2020/2100 primaries.
 
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