Best monitors for Retouch

[shivstuff]

Hi! had been planning to opt for a new monitor for my regular retouching work! please suggest me the monitors for the same. it can be CRT/LCD's. the colors seen have to be accurate.

[Diego81]

http://www.lacie.com/products/range.htm?id=10016

http://www.eizo.com/products/graphics/index.asp

My choises are EIZO and LaCie are the best for graphics and image edition.

[Algarve Images]

A lot of the high end Lacie monitors are rebranded NEC 90 series/Spectraview models

http://www.necdisplay.com/Products/S...e-c23e8b085ed7

A bit more info here

The American Spectraviews include software and Calorimeter, the European ones include SV profiling software and a certificate
Gary...

[DJSoulglo]

We tested the Lacie's here and I found them very unpleasant to look at. My eyes got really tired from them. So I switched back to the Eizo.

[Markzebra]

Accurate color is more about calibration than anything else. This is much more important (and cheaper) than extremely expensive monitors. That's not to say that a good monitor won't improve things, but the main thing to look for in a monitor is a high Gamut (range of colors) and subtle tonal relationships. If you are recommending Eizo's then its importat to specify a high end Eizo not a low end one. Some Eizos I've used are actually WORSE than standard monitors because they just don't have the gamut.

The best monitor won't give you accurate color unless you use a good monitor calibrator

[Tareq]

Ok, i have a calibration device, so which monitor i should look at to to consider?

[Algarve Images]

Shivstuff,
for retouching you don't mention if you are purely using the web for display to clients or you are proofing accurate hardcopy for them if you are not using a camera or printer profiled to adobe 98 or do not wish to retouch in that colour space then WG would be overkill and a dedicated srgb monitor would be more suitable, remember that in viewing non colour managed applications such as explorer, the colours will look strange on a WG display...most WG monitors have srgb emulation, but how close this comes to true srgb is questionable, the thing is, your monitor should be the most expensive part of your kit, not relegated to the "oh i'm not sure i have the budget" department.
A high end monitor with a standard srgb gamut for example would be the NEC 2490WUXi

Markzebra is correct,
calibrated wide gamut is superb if your workflow is for example adobe 98 colour space and also you print to that profile as a lot of company's are now requiring this.


Hi Tareq,
i read somewhere that you might open a photographic studio at some stage in the future, if this is the case and if you use adobe 98 colour profile in camera then a wide gamut monitor encompassing this space would give you the advantage of seeing all those extra tones and also accurately proof for output...
The monitor i see at the top time and time again in various professional and forum reviews is the NEC LCD2690WUXi-2 which is upgradeable to spectraview II software in the states, it's hardware calibrated without the need for your computer graphics card and is UGRA certified... info here
The bees knees the range is the NEC 2690 Spectraview inc hood and puck, there are so many good reviews just google the manufacturers name... here's one to start
What ever you do with an image, for sure it's going to be seen by thousands of people all with different displays themselves mostly all run of the mill, uncalibrated, windows rgb in showing in explorer or you might get lucky and find someone with colour management turned on in Firefox all you can really do is make sure the image/design is accurate on your own monitor, when i go for a new/refurbished NEC i'll keep the srgb crt i already have for web reference, hope it helps,
Gary...

[Algarve Images]

Just realised after reading a thread in dpreview that the NEC 2690 unlike the 2490WUXi can only be calibrated in wide gamut argb mode and not srgb which is an emulated preset so viewing one's own photographs on a website with solely a wide gamut display would be to say the least ... interesting, hence the need for a dual set up

Thread is here...
Gary..

[Tareq]

Originally Posted by Algarve Images

Shivstuff,
for retouching you don't mention if you are purely using the web for display to clients or you are proofing accurate hardcopy for them if you are not using a camera or printer profiled to adobe 98 or do not wish to retouch in that colour space then WG would be overkill and a dedicated srgb monitor would be more suitable, remember that in viewing non colour managed applications such as explorer, the colours will look strange on a WG display...most WG monitors have srgb emulation, but how close this comes to true srgb is questionable, the thing is, your monitor should be the most expensive part of your kit, not relegated to the "oh i'm not sure i have the budget" department.
A high end monitor with a standard srgb gamut for example would be the NEC 2490WUXi

Markzebra is correct,
calibrated wide gamut is superb if your workflow is for example adobe 98 colour space and also you print to that profile as a lot of company's are now requiring this.


Hi Tareq,
i read somewhere that you might open a photographic studio at some stage in the future, if this is the case and if you use adobe 98 colour profile in camera then a wide gamut monitor encompassing this space would give you the advantage of seeing all those extra tones and also accurately proof for output...
The monitor i see at the top time and time again in various professional and forum reviews is the NEC LCD2690WUXi-2 which is upgradeable to spectraview II software in the states, it's hardware calibrated without the need for your computer graphics card and is UGRA certified... info here
The bees knees the range is the NEC 2690 Spectraview inc hood and puck, there are so many good reviews just google the manufacturers name... here's one to start
What ever you do with an image, for sure it's going to be seen by thousands of people all with different displays themselves mostly all run of the mill, uncalibrated, windows rgb in showing in explorer or you might get lucky and find someone with colour management turned on in Firefox all you can really do is make sure the image/design is accurate on your own monitor, when i go for a new/refurbished NEC i'll keep the srgb crt i already have for web reference, hope it helps,
Gary...

Thank you very much, Gary!

It is really not easy to decide, i want to look at NEC, Lacie, and Eizo monitors before i decide, for now i am going to buy Apple Cinema Display to work with my MBP, but i will buy another monitor for my PC or as additional monitor, so maybe NEC will be my choice according to your recommendation.

[DJSoulglo]

Get yourself a good calibrator. We here use the Eye-One for the monitors (since we also use them for the proofer) http://www.xrite.com/product_overview.aspx?ID=1014

it's easy and quite good.

Used the SpyderPro for years as well, that was nice as well.

[Tareq]

I am using Spyder3Studio for my MacBook Pro, all photos are amazing accurate colors, all my prints from my printer Epson 3800 or labs or another printers coming out perfect results, so i don't have problem with the calibration, now the question is, will some monitors behave or perform better than other even calibrating them all? for Example what will that NEC give me more than Lacie? what will be the Eizo advantages over Apple Cine displays? Will those difference be so critical for some works? I love watching the photos on my MBP, and i got blown away to watch the Photos on larger monitors of Apple Cinema, so vivid, clarity, sharpness and details, what more i should look at then?
That issue of color gamut is still can't understand, now if one monitor cover larger space of color gamut than another monitor, will that effect overall workflows, prints,...etc?