Not all monitors are created equal
One of the things that keeps coming up on my workshops is that people spend $$$ on cameras, lenses, printers, etc and if they choose a monitor, they either skimp on it, or go for the biggest thing they can get. Hardly ever, does anyone consider that some monitors are worse than others for editing images and getting accurate colour.
Admittedly, there are accessories in the photographic medium which are tedious. We hate to have to spend money on them. Tripods, ball heads, clamps, are often the weakest link in the chain for most entry level photographers. Surely a £50 tripod will do. As we become more experienced in our technique, we start to appreciate that spending £400 on a tripod is worth it. We’ve experienced ‘creep’ in the cheap tripod, and it’s seldom steady too.
I think the same applies to monitors. Most of us will think of spending around £200 to £400 on a computer monitor and think it’s good enough. But there are around three different technologies out there and some of them are really unsuitable for image editing.
I don’t claim to be an expert in this region at all. But I find it strange that we will spend a lot of money making sure we capture high quality images only to view them on a sub standard screen.
How many people for instance, have LCD panels that change colour when you change the viewing angle? How many people have bought a glossy screen and think it makes their images look great. Consensus is out at the moment on whether glossy screens give an unrealistic impression of whether the images are rich enough. My own personal feeling is that anything glossy gives an overly enhanced impression of rich blacks where they may be none. I prefer to edit on a matt screen.
I’d be curious to find out what percentage of photographers out on the web have calibrated monitors too? How many people are judging others work on screens that are displaying the wrong colours. Or worse, can’t display them because if you try to calibrate the screens, the LCD technology won’t be working at it’s optimum luminance values?
Id’ be interested to hear from you – do you have your screen calibrated, and if so, what sort of screen is it? Glossy, matt? Is it a Macbook Pro matt screen (mine won’t calibrate)…..
hi Bruce, indeed the pictures on glossy look somehow more vivid and contrasty on my 13″ macbook pro, for processing i prefer the Asus 24″ screen (until i’ll get the 27″ iMac) but the most important and cruical i might say is the calibration. i use spyder 3 pro for this together with colorEyez Pro and i might say that the images look pretty much identical when the glossy macbook is next to matt assus.
i think a color calibration tool is the most important tool after a tripod…just an opion
cheers,
dorin
ps: i hope on thursday i’ll have an update from my boss, still interested in Aran!
Comment by dorin — 27 April, 2010 @ 8:16 pm
Hi Dorin,
Interesting to hear that the Glossy and Matt screens look similar when calibrated !
Yes, a spider is important. Mine thinks it can calibrate my macbook pro screen, but all my images look incorrect after the calibration, so I think some screens can’t be calibrated.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 27 April, 2010 @ 8:21 pm
i know it may sound silly but did you make sure the gamma is set to 1.8 and not 2.something as it take it by default? it drove me nuts in the beginning until i found about the gamma.
also when you set the monitor temperature let the software measure it using the spyder. try the colorEyez to se if you’re happy. for me it was a pretty big step in comparison to the spyder software
Comment by dorin — 27 April, 2010 @ 8:36 pm
Hi Bruce; sitting here with a calibrated 24″ iMac Glossy screen and also an MacBook Pro 17″ with Matte screen; both seem to be calibrated OK.
I did find that I needed the ColorEyes Display Pro software to work with my EyeOne to calibrate the iMac; and used the same on the MacBook
Phil
Comment by PhilC — 27 April, 2010 @ 8:41 pm
Hi Bruce. I work on an LG Flatron L225WTG monitor calibrated with an iOne Display device using Color Eyes Display Pro. I have found that the luminance of the screens is way too high and Display Pro allows me to drop the luminance to about 80 rather than 100-120. Even then it means brightening the file a bit before printing to get a print that is not too dark. There’s been a lot of talk about “prints too dark” and I think it is that the monitors are made more for gamers than photographers. I would LOVE to find a way to calibrate using “standard” values and get good results. I would be very interested in your impression of working on the new Eizo monitor after you get it established. Please provide a followup report. Thanks.
Comment by bmccammon — 27 April, 2010 @ 9:26 pm
Hi Dorin, Phil,
I used the Gretag Macbeth Eye One software on the macbook pro (it’s the old aluminium case 2.4GHZ model) with the correct gamma and native white point. It says the screen is calibrated, and then I open up some jpegs which I know should look good and everything is purple. Really purple.
I’m wondering – have you had anything printed from your systems? Could you in fact, be running two badly calibrated machines side by side? I guess it’s probably more fault on my side – but I couldn’t trust the calibration. It said it was OK, looked ok until I opened up some images from my other machine and the colours were really off.
I’m sure I’ve read elsewhere that the screen couldn’t be calibrated. Perhaps it’s just the age of model I have that is the problem.
Anyway, it’s not a great screen anyway. The colours change as I change angle.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 27 April, 2010 @ 9:28 pm
Hi bmccammon,
This is the nub exactly. A lot of LCD monitors can’t be calibrated – they work best at their own native white point and if we try to change them to work at a different brightness, we’re not using the monitor at it’s optimum settings (I think this is how it works – someone out there will have a clearer understanding than I do).
So basically, what I’m saying is – not all monitors are suitable for photo editiing. You need to research what you need before you buy.
I’ve just placed an order for an Eizo colour edge monitor. It’s been calibrated to work at the luminance values you need as a photographer, not as a games player.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 27 April, 2010 @ 9:31 pm
Hi Bruce,
for editing I just use my old good CRT Sony Trinitron 22″, calibrated with Spider Pro… It will take a while to have on the market good LCD monitors for a reasonable price, that can be accurately calibrated.
It appears, that now for less than 100 pounds now one can get a pro-class monitor for editing. It just takes space :)
Good luck on your trip!
Comment by Vladimir Donkov — 27 April, 2010 @ 9:40 pm
I’ve got an Eye One calibrator and a MacBookPro and it won’t calibrate. As you say – cyans tend to magenta. Can’t calibrate it happily at all.
I’ve got an Eizo Coloredge CE240W which when calibrated with the Eye One at low brightness is fantastic (it does suffer a little from viewing angle brightness shift but only very slightly) – When I calibrate it well, it prints like the screen (but when I prepare picture for the web on it, they come out looking far too bright for other people).
I have a 24″ Mac display for my second monitor and the Eizo is way, way better… (the mac is still good though, but visibly less gamut)
Comment by timparkin — 27 April, 2010 @ 9:56 pm
Hi Tim,
That’s exactly what I saw with my macbook pro – cyans tend to magenta. I gave up and use the built in OSX calibrator these days.
Which makes me think there are a lot of people calibrating monitors that won’t / can’t be calibrated.
From what I understand, it’s to do with the native luminance of the monitors. Turn them down and they don’t perform to their optimum.
Is your Eizo a wide gamut monitor? They’re not supposed to be good for working on web material and they suggest using a standard monitor for that. I think the wide gamut monitors have problems displaying sRGB colour space images (I’m a complete layman about all this).
Comment by Bruce Percy — 27 April, 2010 @ 10:01 pm
By the way, I bought a CG241 Colour Edge display today. It wasn’t cheap. But I feel it’s an investment. I’ve had to put up with an old Cinema display for a while and I’ve been aware that some of the more saturated colours aren’t visible on my monitor – often leading to surprises at the printing stages. As much as gamut and profile proofing helps, having something that is closer to a bigger gamut space must help.
Like everything, there never seems to be a simple answer. A wide gamut screen for editing photos, an sRGB gamut screen for working on web photos…..
Just as well I’m going on holiday. :-)
Comment by Bruce Percy — 27 April, 2010 @ 10:05 pm
Hi Bruce, for any serious colour work, I use an Eizo CG222W and calibrate it with an i1 Pro and Eizo Color Navigator. I recently discovered that an i1 Display 2 is not up to the task of calibrating a wide gamut monitor.
I first found out why I needed an Eizo CG when I started softproofing. There was about a one stop difference from one side of the screen to the other.
Comment by jeffg53 — 28 April, 2010 @ 1:00 am
Hi Jeff,
Wow – 1 stop of a difference? I’ll have to check out the calibrator you mention. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, it’s the same price (or perhaps more) than the actual monitor :-0
Comment by Bruce Percy — 28 April, 2010 @ 7:11 am
Hi Bruce,
Yes could be that both are badly calibrated; but printing to my Epson R2880 seems to come out fine. It could be that to me it all looks OK, but in fact it is all out – problem is how to prove this one way or the other. No one has said my images are out colour-wise
Phil
Comment by PhilC — 28 April, 2010 @ 10:36 am
I have a Iiyama B2403WS 24″ LCD. Viewing angles suffer more vertically than horizontally. I’ve calibrated it with a Spyder2Express. I’m reasonably happy with it, I’ve made the odd bad profile, but have found running calibration again works fine.
I find my unibody macbook 13″ is too bright and glossy for photographic work. I do all editing on the PC instead.
For the enthusiastic amateur on a budget I can recommend the Iiyama and the Spyder. But I imagine like many things, it’s not until you can do a side by side comparison that the difference in quality between one monitor and another really becomes apparent…unless it’s really bad of course.
Apple’s MB profile is very cool by default, I much prefer the warmer look after calibration.
Comment by vorlich — 28 April, 2010 @ 12:55 pm
I use a 24 inch iMac and I calibrate my screen every week with a color munki, and I create a custom profile for each paper that I use on my printer (which, by the way, is blessedly NOT an Epson!) so that my prints match exactly what I see on the screen. I am not in the least troubled by the glossy screen, in fact I rather like it. I only wish the range of the brightness adjustment provided by Apple were considerably wider. I’m sure that many readers would find fault with my preferences, but hey, I’m a Yank, what can I possible know, huh?
http://www.genelowinger.com
Comment by fiddlergene — 28 April, 2010 @ 2:17 pm
Hi Bruce,
I work in the Visual Effects Industry and monitor calibration is an absolute must. Generally speaking, in our industry we do not use LCD monitors as they do not represent colours correctly and the viewing angle is a problem. We use CRTs as these are still the best for colour displays. At home I have a cheaper Dell which is calibrated but will always check my photos at work before I get them printed for a more accurate representation. One other thing I find is that LCD monitors are overly sharp in comparison to my prints and I find that CRTs again, are a better representation of this. The only reliable LCD monitors seem to be overly expensive so for now, I will stick to the old skool method and embrace LCD technology when it comes down in price.
Thanks
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Comment by ajmetzelaar — 29 April, 2010 @ 1:17 pm
What I find really fascinating about all this is just how different each one of you has their system set up!
If we all lived in the same street, it would be cool to get everyone together to compare the calibrated screens. I just wonder…. would any of them match?
I doubt it… :-)
I’ve been using an old Apple cinema display for 6 years. It’s going pink around the edges, but I’ve had trouble parting with it, because it doesn’t change colour when I tilt my head, but mostly, because *I’m used to it*. I think that’s the main thing. I feel I’m able to translate what I feel my monitor is telling me. I’ve got used to it’s limitations perhaps.
I think so long as we’re getting out on print what we want, then the system we have is working. It’s a big subject and I don’t pretend to know enough about it. So I’m just so fascinated to hear that everyone has a different system, calibrated in different ways :-)
Comment by Bruce Percy — 30 April, 2010 @ 12:56 am
Just over a year ago, I invested in a high quality monitor, in my case a Quato (just to be different). I’d been using a 2nd generation Apple Cinema Display since 2001.
The difference was, and remains, astounding, to the point that I ended up re-evaluation vast sections of my photo archive, discovering that the old monitor (which was not exactly low end itself) had been misleading me.
Easily the best equipment investment I’ve ever made.
Comment by David Mantripp — 4 May, 2010 @ 7:57 am
Hey David, Long time no hear – lovely to hear from you! (Have you been to see Daniel Bergman in Iceland since the Volcano blew?).
I got my Eizo and have now been looking for a calibrator. I was going to get a Colourmunki but the info on the web suggests that the X-Rite 1i Pro or Basic as it is now called is the way forward. So I’ll be going that way.
I tend to find it’s the end of the spectrum colours that cause me the most issues – the ones that can’t be seen on a normal gamut display.
I’m away at the moment, so I’ve got no experience so far of how the monitor is going to work out. I’m a little wary that it’s going to upset my workflow for some time, but I hope it’s not too painful!
It’s funny, but profiling – getting the colours right – is a bit like sound acoustic treatment for a home recording studio. Most people don’t do it and the results vary. It’s costly, but if we care about what we’re doing, it has to be done.
Good to hear from you.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 4 May, 2010 @ 8:41 am
Hi Bruce,
No, this year’s travel budget is maxxed out by Costa Rica and Svalbard.
Volcanoes ? Seen one, seen ‘em all :-) (and Costa Rica’s got more per square mile than Iceland, as far as I can see)
As I mentioned on the other thread, the dark horse of colorimeters appears to be the Datacolor Spyder 3. Earlier Spyders were so-so, but this one is pretty good – and far from the most expensive.
I’m using it with my Quato monitor, which I believe has an Eizo panel. Or maybe a NEC. Whatever. I use the ColorMunki for printer calibration, for it isn’t supported by my (hardware) screen calibration software.
David
Comment by David Mantripp — 4 May, 2010 @ 3:09 pm
Hi Bruce,
Going back to your problems with profiling your Mac laptop screen, I had the same problems with my Sony – it was like there was a purple filter over all the photos.
Is your screen a glossy screen? Mine is. I wonder if it’s to do with the anti-glare coating on the screen – highlights reflected in the screen often show up in a purple colour, I wonder if it’s related. I’m no physics major!
Comment by Niall Connaughton — 14 May, 2010 @ 5:40 pm
Hi Niall,
It’s a matte screen that I have. I think there’s more to monitors than just glossy / matte. I know for instance, that some of the latest Apple screens are far too bright. They cannot be calibrated down to the luminance levels we need. Also, some LCD screens do not display all the available colours unless it has been set to the native white point. I’m no expert, but it seems that we can seriously handicap some displays by calibrating them…. it’s a difficult subject and one that I’m find out – there seems to be a lot of misinformation out there too.
Comment by Bruce Percy — 15 May, 2010 @ 12:27 pm