Is the new iMac '27' Display as good as LCD '30?

[Studio 2000 SA]

Hi Everybody,

1st Post, couldn't find a clear answer anywhere.

I am a retoucher full time and have a Macbook Pro 13 and was about to upgrade my 23 inch display to the 30 for high quality retouching at home.
I already use a '30' at work and it is beautiful!

My question to you guys is, would it be as good to buy a "27" inch Imac instead these days?

I'm wondering because the price difference is only $100.00 and I could live without the extra 2 inches of screen if Im getting a full computer extra, if the quality is as accurate.

I know the imac has gloss screen and LED Display,
and the '30' Cinema has mat screen which is preferable and a different graphics card than the Macbook Pro 13 I would run it from.

So would the screen be as nice zoomed in and as accurate to print from is guess is the question to you professionals.

Thank you Very Much to anyone for helping with an opinion.

[Studio 2000 SA]

I forgot to add the display would be ICC Calibrated with the eye one Calibrator.

[Doug Nelson]

This is really a question for Andrew Rodney, but during his last RetouchPRO LIVE show he mentioned that iMacs have limited calibratability (is that a word?). He uses a 30" NEC Spectraview monitor.

I'll be rebroadcasting his show 7/14/10.

[Heretic]

glossy screen will drive you crazy unless you are in a strictly controlled environment, the reflections are a pain the backside. I currently use a NEC Multisync 3090WQXi LCD 30", eye one calibrated and have used the Eizo's also.

[andrewrodney]

Neither Apple display is anything special, the iMac’s can be difficult to calibrate in terms of setting luminance. They are too damn bright. The NEC 3090 is a substantially superior 30” display when calibrated using its supplied SpectraView II software.

[Nasturtium]

Originally Posted by Heretic

glossy screen will drive you crazy unless you are in a strictly controlled environment, the reflections are a pain the backside.

what he said. I turn down the brightness if I'm just surfing. Have to take a break every 45 min or risk a headache. Also everything looks great on a backlit LED. -so your edits risk looking bland every where else.

[kav]

The imacs actually use really nice panels, but the panel isn't everything. LG basically owns the IPS panel market. The ips dells and imacs have the same panels as the newer eizos and NECs, but the latter companies simply have better implementations. If I was buying an NEC I'd go with one of the new models rather than the current 30" which is going to be replaced by the PA series or whatever it is which has the newer 24 and 27. Whatever one you're looking at turn it to minimum brightness and see how it looks. I work at 80 cd/m2, but most won't dim down anywhere near that far when they're new. If it's too bright it'll often space the skin tone values in a weird manner, and it'll influence you toward corrections that'll look dull later as was mentioned. Make sure it doesn't partially clip white/black in photoshop and that you can reach a decent black level. I haven't looked at the LED displays but apple displays have often lacked uniformity, especially the imac. Glossy screens drive me insane.

[Studio 2000 SA]

OK thanks for the answers, it seems everyone is heading towards NEC (Eizo's probably too pricey for me). Which is very helpful advice. I'll look into one before I go buying a mac 30 and I'll definitely stay away from the iMac..

Although it's so tempting to get a whole extra computer for your buck. It's a shame they had to changed the gloss screens and Led and brightness. I suppose it was meant for a nice home desktop for emails movies etc, but the people that need to print accurately need to go with the proper LCD screens.
Hearing that they are not even capable of calibrating properly with an eye-one turns me off big time.
Also I totally agree that the glossy screens suck I have one on my laptop and it seems to always have marks and reflections on it, so I don't want anymore of that.

So thanks again to everyone for the advice.

[Studio 2000 SA]

Originally Posted by Doug Nelson

This is really a question for Andrew Rodney, but during his last RetouchPRO LIVE show he mentioned that iMacs have limited calibratability (is that a word?). He uses a 30" NEC Spectraview monitor.

I'll be rebroadcasting his show 7/14/10.

I'd like to watch this thanks

[meok]

If I remember correctly, Chris Tarantino mentioned that he uses an Imac as his main retouching machine.

[creativeretouch]

My 3 years old MacBook Pro (2GB of RAM, 2,2 GHz processor, 15 inch) is faster than 1 year old iMac ... I mean in the average time you will spend communicating with the computer, not the processor speed ... iMac is too sleepy for me ...

[Nasturtium]

Originally Posted by meok

If I remember correctly, Chris Tarantino mentioned that he uses an Imac as his main retouching machine.

afaik the 21.5 inch only comes in glossy (which is what I have), with the bigger screens you can get a matte version, I believe.

[Heretic]

the rumor was Apple went to glossy screens to keep professionals from buying the cheaper imac for their production work instead of buying the more expensive towers, just internet chatter I read, no facts to back it up. No to sure about the bigger sizes coming in matte screen, the site says "edge to edge glass". Macbook Pro comes with "glossy or antiglare".

[Pictus]

I do not have a MAC, but maybe using ColorEyes Display Pro it is possible to limit the monitor brightness for MAC, they have a tryout for 10 days...

[Studio 2000 SA]

Originally Posted by Heretic

the rumor was Apple went to glossy screens to keep professionals from buying the cheaper imac for their production work instead of buying the more expensive towers, just internet chatter I read, no facts to back it up. No to sure about the bigger sizes coming in matte screen, the site says "edge to edge glass". Macbook Pro comes with "glossy or antiglare".

Yeah i agree. They wouldn't try and make the imac as accurate even if they could fit all that into the small area if they could. Because they would have to drop price on the Pro screens.
It's fair enough the imac is for a different market

[Nasturtium]

Originally Posted by Heretic

the rumor was Apple went to glossy screens to keep professionals from buying the cheaper imac for their production work instead of buying the more expensive towers, ...[snip]

That's pretty much what the guy at the Apple store said to me

"matte" may not be the right technical term, maybe anti-glare is a better description

[kav]

Their towers have really gone downhill too. Similar configurations have climbed in price drastically year after year. Look at the baseline 2008 mac pro compared to the 2009 one. They claimed it was a price drop 2800 to 2500, but all they did was take the $2300 custom downgrade configuration, and raise the price $200, with half the ram slots. It makes me sad. I could really use a replacement for my old G5, but their current tower options are just depressing. They set it up so that if you really want to max out an imac in power, it pretty much catches up with the baseline mac pro, only with half the i/o ability.

[Studio 2000 SA]

Originally Posted by kav

Their towers have really gone downhill too. Similar configurations have climbed in price drastically year after year. Look at the baseline 2008 mac pro compared to the 2009 one. They claimed it was a price drop 2800 to 2500, but all they did was take the $2300 custom downgrade configuration, and raise the price $200, with half the ram slots. It makes me sad. I could really use a replacement for my old G5, but their current tower options are just depressing. They set it up so that if you really want to max out an imac in power, it pretty much catches up with the baseline mac pro, only with half the i/o ability.

Yeah i see what you mean we were looking at the same thing the G5 started having parts fail and we couldn't put snow leopard in the G5 processor so I started looking for 2nd hand intel towers because the new ones seemed too pricey for the upgrade at the time. Anyway, we ended up finding an 2X '06' Mac Pro's and a Mac Mini for $2500.00 an Grays online. Jamed some Ram ijn there and theyve all been going strong for a year so far. A new one would be nice but this is a great compramise till you can justify buying a new one.

Also I just bought one of these pC Hoods I work under down lights so I hope it helps. Dp any of you use these?
http://www.photodon.com/mm5/merchant..._Code=112-AC30

[Carolyn D]

This is my first post here. I have been a devoted Mac user for the past 10 years. In 2005 I bought a G5 Power PC and used and NEC CRT Monitor for my design work, which sometimes was was a pretty heavy load. The motherboard on the G5 power PC died last week. I loved my CRT monitor when it was new but it too is declining and is losing its range of color. So I figured it was time to start over. I purchased a 27" IMac today. I am writing because I am having serious reservations about this machine. I had wanted a 24" machine but the choice was only the 27" or the 21". I priced out the Mac pro and it is just too much $ for me now. The Mini doesn't have enough power. The specs for the Imac seemed right. I felt the monitor was doing something to my eyes in the store but i figured I would get used to it. Now I feel too constrained with the all in one monitor/computer set up and the inability to really make adjustments on this monitor. It is just too bright.

I have spent many , many hours doing tight textile design work and now photo retouching for my job in a library. I need to depend on my machine heavily and need it to work for me. Color matching to print is really important. I haven't even gotten into setting up the printer to the system yet. On a librarian's salary, $2000 for this set up is steep. I was happy to spend it because I initially loved the away this computer looks, it is elegant and beautiful, and I know the OS in and out. But now I am not so sure whether it would be smart to keep it, because of the eye strain issue. Already after being on the machine for a few hours, I am starting to feel a noticeable pressure like feeling in my eyes. I downloaded shades but I really don't want to rely on some third party thing like that to make this more bearable. Shades really distorts the color. Why does Apple insist on making this so bright? They should offer better ways to control this!!! This monitor is hurting my eyes!

As I mentioned , I am a Mac person, although I have learned Windows in the past year. I don't love windows the way i love Mac. However, I think it might be an option that will work better for me in giving me what I need. I wonder if I would be smarter to go to a windows system that will give me more choices for a powerful computer, and choice of monitor where I can adjust the settings more. The Mac Pro is out of my budget. I never thought I would say this but I think I can get more of what I need from a Windows set up. Any thoughts would be very greatly appreciated.

[Studio 2000 SA]

Originally Posted by Carolyn D

This is my first post here. I have been a devoted Mac user for the past 10 years. In 2005 I bought a G5 Power PC and used and NEC CRT Monitor for my design work, which sometimes was was a pretty heavy load. The motherboard on the G5 power PC died last week. I loved my CRT monitor when it was new but it too is declining and is losing its range of color. So I figured it was time to start over. I purchased a 27" IMac today. I am writing because I am having serious reservations about this machine. I had wanted a 24" machine but the choice was only the 27" or the 21". I priced out the Mac pro and it is just too much $ for me now. The Mini doesn't have enough power. The specs for the Imac seemed right. I felt the monitor was doing something to my eyes in the store but i figured I would get used to it. Now I feel too constrained with the all in one monitor/computer set up and the inability to really make adjustments on this monitor. It is just too bright.

I have spent many , many hours doing tight textile design work and now photo retouching for my job in a library. I need to depend on my machine heavily and need it to work for me. Color matching to print is really important. I haven't even gotten into setting up the printer to the system yet. On a librarian's salary, $2000 for this set up is steep. I was happy to spend it because I initially loved the away this computer looks, it is elegant and beautiful, and I know the OS in and out. But now I am not so sure whether it would be smart to keep it, because of the eye strain issue. Already after being on the machine for a few hours, I am starting to feel a noticeable pressure like feeling in my eyes. I downloaded shades but I really don't want to rely on some third party thing like that to make this more bearable. Shades really distorts the color. Why does Apple insist on making this so bright? They should offer better ways to control this!!! This monitor is hurting my eyes!

As I mentioned , I am a Mac person, although I have learned Windows in the past year. I don't love windows the way i love Mac. However, I think it might be an option that will work better for me in giving me what I need. I wonder if I would be smarter to go to a windows system that will give me more choices for a powerful computer, and choice of monitor where I can adjust the settings more. The Mac Pro is out of my budget. I never thought I would say this but I think I can get more of what I need from a Windows set up. Any thoughts would be very greatly appreciated.

Well you're in a similar boat to me, you want a Mac, but couldn't afford the MacPro. To be honest I would rather (and Have) bought a second hand macpro and a new screen, rather than a PC. Mainly because I dont want to learn the photoshop shortcuts and new OS etc.

It is a shame they have done this to the imac but it's just different technology in the imac to fit it all into to such a confined space, and it's ok for a home desktop. It is not going to print accurate colours, to do that you need a ICC Calibrator for your screen, a MacPro and a ICC Calibrated Printer.

In saying that the imac is still a great machine and you should be able to do something close to the printed image once you get used to the screen looking so intense, and you will find your images looking a bit duller in other screens and on paper.

Maybe it is not so like you think in my opion.

[Studio 2000 SA]

No it was made very clear the imac screens have inferior colour accuracy and also drive you crazy staring at reflections. I bought the anti glare 30 lcd and have not looked back since. I love it

[CelticKC]

Hi Andrew. I'm kind of in the same boat as the questioner. I do retouching for a university and we have a limited budget for equipment upgrades. I am currently working on an Apple Cinema 23 (that is nearing the end of it's life span...It's been serviceable and I calibrate with an I1) with a G5 Dual Core tower.

We'll be replacing some time this year with iMacs as a cost saving measure. I have petitioned for a better display and have just begun research. If I had no choice on the iMac could I still get a third-party monitor and expect good result with the iMac's graphics card ? I know the new iMacs are fast but maybe I would be better off keeping my current G5 (NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT) and add a better display? Do you have any recommendations for a high-quality display that is under a grand? My supervisor submitted a budget figure based on the Apple 27" ($900).

I use an Apple Cinema LED with the glass screen at home (with a Macbook) and find the reflection issue challenging. I would not get another one. At my job I retouch, color-correct and convert images for any number of end uses, from offset to publications (ads) to billboards and other large format output solutions as well as for use on the web. I need a practical, cost-effective solution that I can present to the folks who make the final purchasing decisions.

Thanks in advance! Kevin

[andrewrodney]

The P221W with the puck and software is well under a grand.

[CelticKC]

Would I be able to use it as my primary display with an iMac (if I don't have a choice, which I may not) and would that make any sense? And an I assume the Eye1 would work as well for calibrating the NEC? Is there a comparable NEC that is a little bigger than 22" but still in the $800-1,000 range? Don't need the software or puck since I have the Eye1.

Thanks for the recommendation and the info!