My ten year old crt is displaying color fluctuations – from calibrated to redish and back again, every few minutes.
I went on line to decide which crt to buy as a replacement and was stunned to find very low end units offered, I can not find any suitable crt choices.
I need advice as to, are lcd monitors now up to the task for quality editing in Photoshop.
Your expert advice, gained from 1st hand experience will be appreciated.
I’ve read that the best way to shop for a new LCD is to test out each model 1st – even though I live on the border of Chicago (Evanston), I don’t think there is any outlet available where this can be done.
I’ve also read that LCD makers use differing conditions and benchmarks to rate their contrast ratios; that is another reason that I am hoping for real world, tried & proven, suggestions.
There are several very good brands available and, like everything else, you get what you pay for. I use a mid-range Eizo, which is excellent for my purposes. I bought it at this dealer <http://www.nativedigital.co.uk/shop/> , where you can get an idea of some of the models available. There is a lot of good information on that site.
Other forum members will chime in for NEC, Samsung and Dell.
Be aware that nowadays several models are wide gamut which can lead to difficulties if not properly calibrated and colour-managed.
There are web sites with comprehensive test results if you do a search.
I’ll throw my usual best bang for the buck to the Dell UltraSharps. Besides a great picture, they come standard with a three year warranty and next day replacement.
When I ran my CS4 test at work, I had a 24" Samsung. I was appalled at the range of brightness as your position changed. Looking up at it from sitting position at the bench, it looked right, until I stood up. High values were blown out, and not a black was to be seen anywhere.
No so with crt, so I have to strongly disagree with JJ here.
I have three monitors hooked up to my sytem. One is a 27-inch dell that ran $1000. The other two are 19-inch ViewSonic’s that ran me about $300 each. All of which have been very good. I also bought a 22-inch wide screen Westinghouse from Best Buy for $159 and it works well as well. I would look to spend around $300 for a good sized one. But, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.
1) All LCDs have a native resolution. If you don’t use this resolution you will suffer image quality problems. 2) Go for as large a one that you can afford and have space for. This will give you more room to have more of your image showing on it at 100% zoom so you have less scrolling and you won’t have to zoom out as far. 3) Get one with the highest contrast ratio as you can find. I don’t go for less then 2000:1, 5000:1 is even better. 4) Get one with a fast refresh rate. Basically the smaller the ms number the better. This means for fast changing things like video, animation, etc. the screen can keep up without a lot of ghosting. This is also important for Photoshop with its new graphics card acceleration technology. 5) If your going to have more than one monitor I would recommend that you get two exactly the same. This will be easier to calibrate. While there will be some small differences in the look of the image (most from manufacturing variences) when you calibrate them they will match much better. This is for two monitors. If you do three, then splurge on a good large main montior (that is what I did with the Dell 27") and get two matching modest ones for the other two. While the ViewSonic doesn’t match the Dell, the two ViewSonic match perfectly and since I only calibrate the Dell I have no issues. 6) If you going to be using CS4 or higher get a good video card. I recommend one with at least 512MB. This is what I call future proofing. I suspect that Photoshop will continue to grow to use more and more of the video card for things. Also, the higher resolution of most LCD screens means you need more memory for the higher resolution and color depths. A good 512MB card doesn’t cost much more than a good 256MB one. Plan for the future. Also go PCI Express if your motherboard can handle it, again that is future proofing.
I would like to thank you for your imput; having considered the information you offered, I decided to purchase The ColorEdge CE210W 21.1" Widescreen LCD Display from EIZO.
It has a 1000-1 contrast ratio and an 8ms response time.
My research indicates that Eizo is a reputable company and John’s recommendation reinforced my decision to go with them.
Anyone shopping for LCD monitors should do the research first. Faster and higher contrast ratio are better if you’re a gamer, but definitely not if you’re a photographer. The fastest, highest-contrast ratio LCD panels are TN type panels, which are meant for the consumer/gamer market and in general have poor uniformity of color, narrow viewing angle, and more prone to backlight problems. Since they are the cheaper consumer models, they have less consistent quality control. One batch of a specific Samsung model may use panels made in Malaysia, and the next batch with the identical model number may be made in China. Not that Malaysia or China produces better or worse, but a review of that model may not be based on the panel you’re buying. And the display model you look at in the shop may have a different panel than the one inside the box you bought.
VA and IPS panels cost more, have slower response time, but are used by pros and have better performance with color accuracy, grey tone neutrality and overall consistency across the panel.
Don’t be taken in by advertising hype about contrast ratios and so on. Same as the hype about camera megapixels. My cell phone camera is 5 megapixels. Does that make it as good as my 5mp Nikon? Same goes with contrast ratios. They’re meaningless.
I got an NEC MultiSync 2490WUXi to replace my beloved CRT panel, which died like the OP’s one. The 2490WUXi is an IPS panel with "only" 800:1 contrast ratio and "huge" 6ms response time. But when I compare photo images to my son’s computer with an equivalent graphics card and a new, fast 3000:1 ratio, 2ms Samsung, the difference is night and day, or more accurately, like having film over your eyes and having clear vision. Even after using a color calibrator, his fast, high-ratio panel looks oversaturated and lacks detail. My NEC almost makes me not miss my CRT, it’s that nice an image.
An excellent resource for LCD information and reviews is here:
I can second the recommendation for the 2490WUXI. I gave away my Sony Artisan and now use one exclusively. One thing to consider though. Most all of my output now goes to the WEB and the 2490WUXI uses an sRGB gamut (another reason that I switched from the Artisan). I think if you are mostly printing your output with a color controlled workflow working in either Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB, you might want to consider one of NEC’s wide gamut monitors (their 26" or 30"). In any case, I HIGHLY recommend the Spectraview II software. It is hands above other methods that twist video card look-up tables.
The CRT vs LCD debate is academic anyway since good, professional level CRTs haven’t been produced in 3-5 years. Once in a great while you can find a deal on a lightly used Artisan or upper tier NEC. Even more rare as time goes on is some entity coming up with a newly discovered cache of NOS (new old stock) monitors found sitting in a corner of a warehouse somewhere.
Another place to look is large corporate cleanout of crt’s for lcd’s. I got my Mitsubishi that way. Two of us bought about 4 or 5 22" monitors for $5 ea, then proceeded to R&R them and kept two of the best, gave the rest away.
The red gun on mine is almost at 100%, so I don’t know how long it will be. OTOH, the brightness is close to 100c. 85 to 95 is recommended by the spyder system.
I still proof things that go to press on a CRT (my wife’s). I’m thinking about buying her a new flat panel so I can latch onto it and just fire it up at proofing time.
What is the point of having a monitor that displays brighter colors than a printer can print? I turned my monitor down 20% and still get brighter colors on it than I can print.
RE:It’s not proprly calibrated, either the monitor (usual suspect), >wrong profile for the printer/paper combo, or both. It also depends on what printer you actually use.
You are buying a monitor that has a very high brightness range than you have to turn the monitor down 28% so the colors match your print outs. Isn’t it a waste of money?
Now if your clients are very high end and have electronic displays on their wall it a different matter. Roy
What are your editing needs? Do you work with saturated color, monochrome, or more neutral colors? These influence the choice of color gamut range. What is your primary working space? If sRGB, almost any monitor has the color gamut you need. If you edit in CMYK or Adobe RGB, you should consider a wider gamut display.
A good way to test gamut is to find a profile for the displays you are considering. Many manufacturers publish these profiles. Then compare the gamut of the display profile to the working space and/or print profiles you use. The ColorThink tool from Chromix.com is a good way to do this, but you can also prepare a test chart called the Granger Rainbow (Google it) and then assign your working space or print profile to it. Then softproof this image in your monitor profile with the gamut warning feature turned on. You will see what colors your monitor cannot show and the results will be revealing as to what to choose.
Contrast ratio does not equal color gamut. Choosing high contrast ratio means you get a very dark black compared to the lightest white the monitor can display. Beyond 600 to one, these numbers become meaningless for most purposes.
Do you edit video? If so, you want a fast response time.
Viewing angle and uniformity across the display vary widely among manufacturers. To evaluate uniformity, display a 50% gray bitmap fullscreen and look at it from the center. Any noticeable color shifts are a problem. Viewing angle can be checked with a test image you are familiar with and then move your viewing position to see how the image changes. The image should have a full range of tonality, hopefully with highlights and shadows in the same part of the image. Reposition the image so the highlights and shadows are at the top, bottom, left, and right of the display and move your viewing position to see how they vary.
Price. Well we all know that. But there are big changes in monitor technology coming along in the next 2-3 years to allow display of 10 bits per channel which will make today’s displays obsolete for color-critical work. I would not spend a lot of bucks on a display today, because in two years you might want to upgrade.
Looks like my Mitsu is going south, so off I go to find a replacement.
Any discussion/critique of LaCie? They are within walking distance of where I work, and I can get one from will call at their site. That also means they are within throttling distance should I find trouble!
They have three series: 3, 5 and 7, with increasing prices accordingly. Their tech help suggests that the series is graded according to tolerance considerations, with the 7 series aimed at pre-press and such.
I have seen a few LaCie Monitors and they seem OK but I didn’t look too closely at them…..If they’re only arounfd the corner I would take an image on SD/CD/Usbpen and view it on the LaCie ( make sure it’s calibrated first ).
Have a look a NEC’s too and the Holy Grail….the EIZO’s ( although the 30" price has just gone up £800 in the UK :O )
A good sales rep would let you see an image…If you can get to a store that has NEC and LaCie monitors that would be good for comparisons. Calumet in London let me see a NEC and Eizo and compare the two…I preferred the Eizo…..I couldn’t help myself :O 🙂
The leg work will pay off in the end. Also, if possible look at the viewing angle on the screen with a flat colour with. On some monitors you can see a slight horizontal colour shift when viewing the screen head on…That will drive you nuts if you see it…I hated my Dell2407 for that reason.
….and also look at the black levels..you want a nice deep velvety black.
Too bad I’m not in Chicago. Calumet would be a great place to view.
I doubt an Ezio is even available to see unless I lean on a couple of photo buddies who might happen to have one. And, of course, no back to back comparisons.
The black level and separation is a constant in my book of specs for all monitors.
A cursory examination of both brands tends to not support that claim, Ho. Perhaps the panel technology is similar, but the direction seems to depart from NEC.
Of course, NEC could be an OEM for LaCie and design for their requirements.
I used to think Eizo was the Holy Grail for LCD monitors, and perhaps they were a few years ago. They certainly started the market for high-end LCDs. But I tried out LOTS of monitors to replace my CRT, and I found the Eizos to be very sluggish, which is one of the downsides of IPS panels.
I need excellent color reproduction for print work AND fast response for video editing. Guess what? No such animal yet. The best I found was an NEC MultiSync 2490WUXi, which has superb color and is faster than any other IPS panel I tried in the price range. Keyword: TRIED. Read every review you can, but with LCDs there is such a variation in quality between different brands that it has to be up to your personal taste as to which monitor to choose.
That said, Dell just released some new relatively less expensive IPS monitors which are getting a lot of really high ratings in the reviews.
And a friend of mine who is a former pro photographer and art gallery manager, who now publishes a slick glossy culture magazine, swears by her cheap Samsung monitors (meant for gamers) which, when calibrated, she claims match print colors amazingly well. When she showed me, I had to admit she was right.
Those cheap, gamer Samsung are horrible for editing, because the viewing angle is so narrow, and the glossy panel too reflective. When I set up a test bed for the Intel x58 mobo and i7 processor, I had a big Samsung monitor and hated it.
Not much I can add here, but will throw in that I’m still very pleased with the performance I’ve seen from my BenQ FP241W, purchased in ’06. The main "problem" with it was similar to the Dell UltraSharp 2407 I tried, in that calibration with my OptixXR at the time would always yield very high luminance values. In other words, both models ran very bright and the calibration steps didn’t really seem to tune them down toward the levels better suited for photo editing and color matching. After reading that a white luminance in the neighborhood of 110 nits was recommended, I started calibrating my LCD by first adjusting brightness, contrast, and RGB controls until said luminance value was obtained, then I’d run through the calibration software in normal fashion, skipping the steps where brightness and contrast were measured/adjusted. That was all using Monaco EasyColor 2.6, and I’m now using a Spyder3 Elite where I vaguely recall seeing similarly high luminances reported when I first ran through a calibration with it. I think I later learned I could specify both a target luminance and color temperature, and got results more akin to what I’d obtained with my more brute force method with EasyColor.
I suppose my main point here is that it seems many LCDs tend to be very bright and the cheaper ones may not provide sufficient controls to tune luminance down to the levels needed. Even my BenQ was teetering on the edge…I think it’s brightness control hits a point where it transitions from true digital control of the brightness, to some kind of software interpolated control. It’s been a while since I read that, but the transition point was somewhere around 18-20 on the brightness scale, so I never go below that.
All in all, I’m happy with what I’ve got, and both my aging Iiyama 450 CRT and the BenQ LCD are calibrated to nearly identical points. They seem to display images pretty much the same, although the LCD remains a bit more contrasty while the CRT may still have slightly more true colors, yet not so different as to concern me.
As for viewing angle, that’s one thing I’ve always found interesting to see folks commenting about. To me, viewing angles of an LCD are only an issue when wanting to watch a movie or be able to read what is displayed on screen from some off-angle position. However, as I’d never edit photos from anything but a near-center viewing position relative to the monitor, the LCD viewing angle strikes me as largely irrelevant. Height adjustment may be the only real concern, but I try to also position the monito where I’m viewing pretty close to a vertical center also, or slightly above center.
Hmmmm…I understand what you’re saying, which leaves me to thinking perhaps I’ve just been fortunate to have never had such a problem and thus been unaware of how pronounced it might can be. At the very least, your comment reflects a concern about the vertical viewing angle rather than horizontal which does make more sense to me. Perhaps that is what everyone has been referring to when I’ve seen such comments before. I may have just assumed they were talking of the horizontal viewing angle.
