monitor for editing

[ajohnw]

I am quite happy with the BENQ 27 inch monitor that I have been using for many years.

I tried gaming monitors for my photo editing and they just weren't my cup of tea.

I think BenQ hardware calibrated would the right place for the OP to look but most people also consider budget

It looks like Dell Premier Colour can still be hardware calibrated. Windows software, not sure about Mac
https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments...usermanual.pdf

BenQ appear to be ok with a range of colorimeters, Dell mention 3 particular ones.

My own experience below this is pick a monitor that states full coverage even factory calibrated and calibrate it. Dell in my case relates to using their PC's at work for many years and negligible failures. At home i have had other brands fail.

Other brands that may be worth looking at but I haven't is Asus and HP. Asus have long been suspected of manufacturing for HP. It's probably a fact. Just a personal view. I have had zero problems with Asus stuff in other areas.

Colorimeters. Price variations sometime just relate to the software supplied with them, This may matter when hardware calibration isn't being used, An answer was an application called DisplayCal. Maintained by a single individual who it seems burnt himself out during the worst periods of the global bug so he isn't working on it any more. Bad news for Linux users such as me as there doesn't seem to be any good alternatives. It was available for all p;platforms but due to changes in other areas wont compile any more. Sounds nerdy but precompiled packages were available for all. It offers the sort of facilities that might come with a high end spectrometer,

[Manfred M]

John - any computer screen can be calibrated and profiled. The issue is that the screen is limited by its gamut and if it cannot produce the colour, no amount of profiling will be able to show the colours it cannot produce. This is why I always suggest that people buy computer screens that state that they are at least 100% sRGB compliant; if they don't it is safe to assume that they cannot even reproduce that fairly limited colour space accurately.

Many of the low cost (and quality) screens use an old technology called TN (Twisted nematic). They can only display 6 bits of colour natively and get to 8 bit output using a process called "dithering", which is really just switching on and off the individual pixel rapidly that supposedly emulates other colours. The colours and brightness of the colours on these screens vary, based on the viewing angle, so unless the user is looking at the screen pretty well straight on, these issues will impact the colours that the user sees. We sometimes see these referred to as 18-bit (3 colour channels x 6 bits per channel).

When it comes to the next generation of screens, they employed a technology referred to as IPS in in-plane switching. These screens were generally a fair bit more expensive and could natively display 8-bit colours. Technology has moved on and there are newer variants of IPS that give deeper blacks. Often these are referred to as 24 bit (3 colour channels x 8 bits per channel).

In terms of the discussion on the type of calibration / profiling tool, the higher end screens store the colour profiles in memory that is built into the screen. These types generally require specific models of the calibration / profiling tools and often custom software to write this information to the screen memory. Other screens without this capability have to store and load the colour profile from a file stored on the computer and the user can notice during the startup process with the colour profile is loaded. This is the technology that supports Adobe RGB colour space.

I have the BenQ SW2700PT which is an IPS screen that stores the profile and calibration data on board, but it is about 7 years old and even though it claims to be 99% Adobe RGB, it does not handle the saturated colours, especially the greens and reds as well as my newer (18-month old) Lenovo Laptop that claims 100% Adobe RGB compliance. It required a modern colorimeter (DataColor Spyder5 or xRite i1) with BenQ supplied Palette Master Elements software to write the profile information the the screen RAM I could not use the less expensive (and now discontinued) xRite ColorMunki line of colorimeters.

I replaced a 27" Dell with the BenQ - that screen stated it had 98% Adobe RGB compliance and the difference between the two screens was quite noticeable.

The other issue with screens is the operating environment. We generally want at least a 1000:1 contrast ratio and that means we need to work in a dimmed workspace. If you want to understand why, take your cell phone outside on a bright day and look at how washed out the colours look. Look at it in less bright environment and the colours will pop a lot more.

[ajohnw]

Things move on Manfred. 10bit screens have been around for some time
https://www.benq.eu/en-uk/knowledge-...ifference.html

My current monitor that I have had for some time now



It uses an 8+2bit panel plus internal 14bit 3D LUT. If full 10bit panels are available I wont be in any hurry to upgrade.

Anyway we are both saying the same thing really. Options
1) Buy one that can be calibrated in hardware. Best option
2) Buy a monitor where coverage is stated, Factory calibrated is probably preferable if available. 2nd best and calibrate it.
3) Calibrate others. 3rd and may give relatively poor results compared with the above.

This site may be of use for looking at the panels that are used by various makers
https://www.displayspecifications.com/en

The revue site I mentioned used to dismantle them to find out who made the panel and hence it's full specification.