What’s you budget? I’ve got the Dell and love it.
BTW, your assumption about one monitor being enough…I disagree. I added a 20" widescreen to run extra panels and Bridge.
I wish I had room for a third.
Bob
I agree w/bob about the need for a 2nd monitor no matter what the size of the 1st. keeping your main screen free of clutter (panels/palettes/whatever) is priceless! once you try it you’ll never go back. even in that 2nd monitor is a cheapo little 17" lcd, that’s enough to let you move everything that’s not your image OFF the main screen!
I wish I had room for a third.
now, that’s just crazy talk man! 🙂
You’re right, Dave. I should have said I wish I had room for FOUR! <g>
Bob
A word about the Dells – in the past I’ve disparaged the 19" UltraSharps because we have 3 of them here and I think they’re terrible because they look so pixelated. We just got a 20" UltraSharp 2007FP and it’s a very good monitor, the first LCD I’d consider using myself. I suspect this has to do with the actual size of the pixels
Rick Moore, AIA
www.bgkarchitects.com
Hard to believe.
I’ve installed several of the 19" models for friends or clients and they’re beautiful.
I don’t want to insult your intelligence, but are you sure you had them running at their native resolution?
Bob
You’re going through the exact same thing as me at the moment bterlaan. I looked at the Samsung and the Eizo which is more expensive all in VAT etc. My local Lab bought one so I suggested I might as well. He’s been in the business over 30 years. He told me don’t bother. It’s not gonna make any difference ‘cos it’s at his end it’s more important. (This could open a can of worms)
He suggested spending about £250/$500 max so I’ve looked at this: <
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=12789&a mp;category_id=364&manufacturer_id=0>
He said as long as you calibrate it and keep the default Adobe RGB colour settings, I’ll be fine. A friend of mine told me he was doing work for a photographer and noticed some clone marks. He pointed this out to him which annoyed him as he hadn’t noticed that on his monitor. A £1200/$2400 NEC top of the range with bells and whistles.
This was spotted on a £100 calibrated monitor, so go fiqure.
You may want to look at this thread I posted <
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc43e66/3> and see what difference a program can make, all from the same monitor.
Mark
BTW, I see Dave Milbut’s still here 😀
Absolutely, Bob – DVI connections, Cleartype, native resolution, updated drivers, etc.
FWIW, the users don’t notice it, just me.
Rick Moore, AIA
www.bgkarchitects.com
Bterlaan,
I’m very happy with my BenQ FP241W monitor. While photographing a monitor does not provide the best quality results due to moire patterns appearing in some situations, here is a page of images I took in an effort to give some idea about the color quality and uniformity on my monitor at various viewing angles: <
http://ambress.com/benq>
Regards,
Daryl
Well on Bob’s advice (and they were on sale) I got a Dell Ultrasharp 2007WFP and a 2407WFP (which I just installed about five minutes ago).
Thrilled! They are great. One thing about the 2407WFP Ultrasharp is that the LCD panel in it is identical to the ones used in Apple Cinema displays. Nice. Now a quick profile. It is stunning quality right out of the box.
Still waiting for the RAM for the new rig I built on the weekend. My computer retailer lent me 2GB of RAM until the real RAM shows up. Drool, drool.
I’m glad I didn’t steer you wrong.
But just a quick note…it’s the 20" widescreens that are the same as Apple’s. Apple, AFAIK, doesn’t sell a 24" model. They have a 23".
Bob
So that would make me 1-up on an Apple display.
Just have to give them a week to settle in. The 20" looks much better after a week.
Depending on the sort of work you do the Wacom Cinque is an awsome investment (ok so the price hurts but). I currently work with one of those and a secondary 17′ LCD (older samsung). Unless you really love 1 montior it can be much more cost effective for 2 smaller ones.
As for lack of room guys check out some of these setups…
<
http://130.94.74.217/multimon/gallery_browse.asp?date=desc&a mp;nummon=true&mon=desc>
BRETT
have a look at the new NEC 26" that sounds really interesting (to me at least) I currently have two 24inch Dell which I am sort of happy with, maybe only sort of because I know that there is better things out there. Such as the CG series EIZO and the NEC spectraView.
I have learnt to live with the Dells, and they calibrate very well and linear and my brightness is within range.
I use mine for photographic retouching, YMMV
Henrik
The NEC 26inch has a contrast ratio of 1:800, brightness of 400 and reaction time of 12 ms. 1920×1200
The Eizo 2441 has 1:3000, 450, 6 ms, 1920×1200
So would the NEC really be better? I don’t think so.
I have read some specs in more detail and wondered…. They advertise that the monitor adjusts the picture all by itself. It sharpens,, it adapts the brightness and contrast as well as colours. Are those still the right displays for photo retouching? If the screens correct almost everything that is wrong with a photo, how do I know what corrections to make with Photoshop?
About one or two monitors: isn’t it annoying to have to switch your view from one screen to another when working on a picture? It was my idea originally to have two screens (I have two old 19 tubes) but I think I like to have the palettes nearby, nevertheless. I’ll try it with my two oldies of course, before I spend a lot of money, but I wanted to orient myself.
But how do you go about when you work with colours? A colour from a palette on the old screen may have a different colour on the screen you actually work on. Adjustment will be OK, I think, because that can be done by moving the scales and you see the result in the picture. LOTS of questions, sorry! And thank you for your tips.
And no, no Dell for me because of very bad experiences some years ago. By myself an by a colleague of mine. Dell is absolutely impossible here in Germany and I don’t want to have anything to do with them.
Thank you for any further comments.
I’m looking at the Samsung 215TW 21" widescreen. – Same panel type as Dell and Apple.
isn’t it annoying to have to switch your view from one screen to another when working on a picture?
nope. not at all. 🙂
Dave, thanks, and what about the colours?
Have the Swatches/Color Picker on the main panel they aren’t very big and disappear after use.
Bterlaan,
I think it may vary from one person to the next as to how annoying or not it might be to switch your view between monitors. Dave obviously found it no problem at all. In general, I’d agree and yet also still find that I really do prefer everything in front of me on one screen. In my case, I’ve got a 19" CRT alongside a 24" LCD that I use as my primary monitor, and both are color calibrated, so there’s no issue at all in that regard. Rather than so much working in PS across two monitors, I find I favor working with multiple apps across two monitors…PS on one and whatever else on the other, be it a browser, Bridge, etc. The 24" monitor is large enough to satisfy most of my needs in terms of viewable image space in conjunction wit palettes and yet, if a time arises when that isn’t true, I can always slide the palettes over to the CRT. I’m still undecided as to which is more color-accurate, the CRT or LCD, but I’m guessing the CRT based upon my years of history with it. So, while you’d think I might favor the CRT for the image display, I think it still comes down to how I just enjoy all the usable space of the LCD.
Regards,
Daryl
Thank you all for your helpful comments. I’ll try two screens for a while with my two old CRTs and when I’ ready buy a nice new 24 TFT. By then I’ll see if I’ll use it as the only monitor or in a dual screen system.
But my original quest, looking for experiences with 24 TFT, has not really been answered, apart form Daryl with his Benq. Thanks!
Pictured alongside my CRT, my LCD doesn’t really look so big but I sure enjoy the space it affords me without averting my view to another monitor. While it’s not worth a lot, here’s a pic of my desktop as I have it arranged for using both monitors: <
http://www.ambress.com/pc/ps_desk.jpg>
Regards.
Daru;
the new 24" eizo monitor should be better than any other i think ….but it won’t be inexpensive ….
steve
On Tue, 26 Jun 2007 01:48:14 -0700, wrote:
Thank you all for your helpful comments. I’ll try two screens for a while with my two old CRTs and when I’ ready buy a nice new 24 TFT. By then I’ll see if I’ll use it as the only monitor or in a dual screen system.
But my original quest, looking for experiences with 24 TFT, has not really been answered, apart form Daryl with his Benq. Thanks!
Thank you Daryl, very impressive! And neat, too. My desk is always cluttered with iother stuff ;-( I read some reviews gets very good marks, so I’ll put it on my list of candidates. But reading that "… an Auto Luminence setting adjusts the brightness depending on the brightness of the image",
I return to my earlier question: When the display corrects my pictures, will I be able to retouch them correctly? How will I know if a picture should be made brighter when my display adjusts itself to it? Or would this be a question of relativeness?
Avoid displays that have auto luminence features that you cant disable. It defeats the purpose of having a proper calibrated monitor in the first place. As you guessed if the brightness of the monitor varies then you can rely on it for colour judgments. They make great general displays but not where colour work is involved.
Also consider the control layout, we’ve got 4 or 5 displays in the office which have the input select buttons is right next to the auto adjust, bump the wrong one and all that work on colour correcting your monitor just went out the window….
BRETT
