Monitor Recommendation For Viewing/Editing Photos

[Second Hand Pat]

Hi guys, looking for a monitor recommendation for viewing/editing photos. I have been doing it using my laptop screen but want something larger.
Pat

[rickztahone]

This is sooooo Matt's territory :).

Personally, I have been getting along fine with an Asus monitor with Spyder calibration

[Second Hand Pat]

This is sooooo Matt's territory :).

Personally, I have been getting along fine with an Asus monitor with Spyder calibration

Something like this Ricardo http://www.amazon.com/PA248Q-1920x1200-DisplayPort-Ergonomic-Back-lit/dp/B008DWH00K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445883380&sr=8-1&keywords=Asus+ProArt+PA248QJ+monitor.

[rickztahone]

Here's a cheaper one:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0058UUR6E/ref=psdc_1292115011_t3_B008DWH00K

However, the one you linked to seems to come with a custom calibration which may be much more appealing to a photographer that needs accurate colors. I will let Matt chime in here because I tend to go with the cheaper monitor and get the calibrator to help with the colors.

[Second Hand Pat]

What about this one http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KJGY3TO/ref=psdc_1292115011_t1_B009C3M7H0. :)

[rickztahone]

What about this one http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KJGY3TO/ref=psdc_1292115011_t1_B009C3M7H0. :)

well now, that is a whole other bracket now. In that price range I think you get a heck of a lot considering everything the Asus offers. My PC/Monitor have to be at least 4yrs old now, but the screen has never failed me once.

[Second Hand Pat]

What about this one http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KJGY3TO/ref=psdc_1292115011_t1_B009C3M7H0. :)

Not this one. Laptop will not support it.

[rickztahone]

Not this one. Laptop will not support it.

:(

That sure was a nice one.

[Second Hand Pat]

:(

That sure was a nice one.

So I guess I am bound to the limitations of my graphic card. The highest resolution is limited to 1920x1080 when I look at screen resolution. I guess I need to look at the graphic card/driver for its limitations??

[rickztahone]

So I guess I am bound to the limitations of my graphic card. The highest resolution is limited to 1920x1080 when I look at screen resolution. I guess I need to look at the graphic card/driver for its limitations??

I would assume so. In all honesty, I didn't even know you could hook a laptop to a monitor, lol. So getting advice from me in this aspect may not be the best choice for you haha.

Going solely on specs though, obviously that $400+ monitor is a very very nice one

[Second Hand Pat]

So my graphic card is a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M with 4049 MB of memory.

[Kal-El]

Without breaking the bank Dell UltraSharp monitor are awesome for viewing/editing photo.

[Discus-n00b]

What size files are you working with? Like pixel or inch wise?

I think you are on the right track of looking for a 1920x1200 monitor, or going on to 1440p. 1080 and a 16x9 ratio just isn't worth it now IMO. And 100% go for an IPS display it will give you better colors than a TN panel. TN panels are used for gamers as they have a higher refresh rate for faster response times, something not needed in a photo or video editing world. IPS panels are also good as they don't have to be directly in front of you to get the correct colors, a TN panel will distort and even disappear on the display the more you move off to the side of it.

If you can, opt for a matte finish on the screen. The glossy may look good, but it reflects everything. Late at night you'll find yourself opening a photo of the grand canyon to edit then realizing 30mins later you are just editing an image of your face reflecting into the screen.

sRGB is fine, Adobe RGB is supposedly better (as in just more physical color space) but its not worth the extra effort IMO. sRGB is the world default basically, it should be more than enough for what you are doing. If you shot/edited adobe RGB then uploaded it somewhere on the internet chances are it would convert it back to sRGB being the world default and it would do a bad job of it. So working straight through with sRGB should be fine and what you are used to. Don't get to hung up on this, if it doesn't list it, it's probably sRGB. If you print often and can print on a printer with Adobe RGB it might be worth it.

The reason I asked size of files earlier is the bigger your monitor the more photo you can show on it at once providing easier editing without re-sizing it or scrolling forever. This also is determined by how much space you have on your desk to place the monitor. IMO, bigger is better. I wouldn't go below 24 inches though. Another thing you might think about is the larger you go the more power you need to run it from a graphics card, so you might want to do some googling and make sure the laptop or whatever computer can push the resolution increase. Most cases it will be fine, but better safe than sorry.

That one you linked seems pretty good to me for what you want. I wouldn't get to caught up on brands either, a lot of times they all use the exact same panel and just put their own small little touches on it. I'm actually in the market for another monitor myself.

EDIT: More responses came in before I posted. I'm reading 2560x1600 is max resolution for that card, so it should handle it. You might have to go into Nvidia control panel and tweak something though. What ports do you have on your laptop? VGA? HDMI? Displayport? All?

[Second Hand Pat]

Matt, without cropping the Nikon raw files are 4928x3264.

[brewmaster15]

Something like this Ricardo http://www.amazon.com/PA248Q-1920x1200-DisplayPort-Ergonomic-Back-lit/dp/B008DWH00K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445883380&sr=8-1&keywords=Asus+ProArt+PA248QJ+monitor.

This monitor is awesome in my humble and very Biased opinion.:) I've been using it a few years now.:o

al

[Second Hand Pat]

This monitor is awesome in my humble and very Biased opinion.:) I've been using it a few years now.:o

al

Very strongly leaning towards this monitor Al based on where I am, the current equipment (older laptop) I have and limited desk space. I can always upgrade when ready in the future. :)
Pat

[SMB2]

Here is a discussion on how to link your laptop to a monitor depending on connections available; Matt was working towards this:
http://www.howtogeek.com/194319/the-htg-guide-to-adding-an-extra-monitor-to-your-laptop/

Matt what about a docking station for Pat's laptop (if it only has USB ports)?

[Second Hand Pat]

Here is a discussion on how to link your laptop to a monitor depending on connections available; Matt was working towards this:
http://www.howtogeek.com/194319/the-htg-guide-to-adding-an-extra-monitor-to-your-laptop/

Matt what about a docking station for Pat's laptop (if it only has USB ports)?

Stan, this is a gaming laptop and I actually have a HDMI output so no worries on driving a monitor with this laptop. :)
Pat

[strawberryblonde]

Here's a cheaper one:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0058UUR6E/ref=psdc_1292115011_t3_B008DWH00K

However, the one you linked to seems to come with a custom calibration which may be much more appealing to a photographer that needs accurate colors. I will let Matt chime in here because I tend to go with the cheaper monitor and get the calibrator to help with the colors.

I use this one too and love it.

Pat, since you have an nvidia card in your laptop you can use that to calibrate the monitor. If you don't already have the nvidia software, you can download it from their site for free and then google to find a good tutorial on how to calibrate it.

I LOVE my nvidia card, but it's a beast of a thing because I do so much graphics work. My laptop has the same smaller card that yours has and it's still pretty darned good.

[Second Hand Pat]

I use this one too and love it.

Pat, since you have an nvidia card in your laptop you can use that to calibrate the monitor. If you don't already have the nvidia software, you can download it from their site for free and then google to find a good tutorial on how to calibrate it.

I LOVE my nvidia card, but it's a beast of a thing because I do so much graphics work. My laptop has the same smaller card that yours has and it's still pretty darned good.

That is great to know Toni :)

In case anyone is curious this is the laptop I have http://www.pcworld.com/article/223338/asus_G73SW.html. It is a couple years old now.

[Discus-n00b]

Yes sorry I didn't really finish the thought about hooking it to a monitor! For those out there curious or not knowing, you can take a small VGA, HDMI, or Display port cable and connect it from the laptop to the monitor and it will become a large screen for the laptop. You can hook a USB mouse and keyboard up to the laptop and the laptop doesn't even have to be opened apart from hitting the power button to turn it on. Like we were going through above, sometimes the computer's video card is not large enough to handle the resolution being sent to the other screen. I see this a lot in projection at work, as laptop's get smaller and thinner not only do they start losing connectivity through losing ports, but they lack the power needed to push through to a projector or large screen. Also, you increase your resolution and data able to be sent as you go from VGA < HDMI < Display Port. (HDMI does Audio as well).

When I started my search on that card's specs I figured you had that laptop Pat. Seemed to be the most popular combo.

I'm looking for a 34" 3440x1440 (though would love 4k) ultra wide IPS monitor myself. I need more editing and productivity space!!

[Blademan]

I recently bought a Lenovo all in one PC, 23 inch, 1 TB hard drive, this is a great PC for photo editing 8MB ram and much faster than any laptop

http://shopap.lenovo.com/hk/en/desktops/lenovo/c-series/c50-30/

[rickztahone]

I recently bought a Lenovo all in one PC, 23 inch, 1 TB hard drive, this is a great PC for photo editing 8MB ram and much faster than any laptop

http://shopap.lenovo.com/hk/en/desktops/lenovo/c-series/c50-30/

The processing power is on the low end I believe.

[Discus-n00b]

Its not bad actually. Photo editing doesn't need as much CPU boost as say video editing. It really factors in when you start having multiple applications open at once. Depends on which processor it has. The i5 is nothing to shake a stick at. i5's are still very widely used especially by gamers, they are much cheaper than their high end brother the i7 and will do everything they need them to do. i7 is like a professional and enthusiast chip, the i5 is like what your average home user would use, and the i3 is a budget friendly chip that is starting to age since it is strictly dual core. The 4th generation Intel chips are some of the most popular, still viable chips on the market today, easily some of the best that are still viable IMO. They are only 2 generations removed and quite honestly JUST barely 2 as the 6th just launched months ago. Spawned some of the most popular architecture and the so called "Devil's Canyon" chips which are what I would term as "Savage" in the computing world, they earn their name sake. Speed wise the i7 devil's canyon that came out of 4th generation can compete with my brand new i7 from the 6th generation in many cases.

8gb RAM is still plenty no matter what PC you are using. I'm running 16gb, though I want to eventually put in 32. 8 is a good standard still unless you are going for a real high end platform where you will be doing a lot of multitasking and hardcore video editing. As a market we are slowly moving to the more is better mindset where you will see 16 become a standard but the RAM market is NOT out pacing or even keeping up with the CPU market anymore like it used to. The RAM market is lagging quite terribly in new innovation and implementation. It's a shame because you start to see it become a bottleneck as some of the new processors actually perform better with faster RAM....but companies producing the fast RAM can't get the technology out fast enough to support the new processors.

The only thing I don't like about those all in ones as a unit (there are many things I dislike as a traditional desktop user) is the storage. You have to use external drives to go above 2TB which can fill up fast with large digital files. Then you have to start splitting out your USB ports to plug in externals and bottleneck the read/write speeds. It's just a pet peeve as I love tons of storage space. Just put in a new 2TB hard drive myself in my box for storage.

Going back to monitors, I've seen the one I'd love to have. Problem is it's upwards of a grand right now. Hoping it drops by Christmas or just after. Might just have to settle for another option of the same size and lose a few features. And for the record, SO glad I switched back to Nvidia. Was rocking AMD for a while because that's all I had, glad to finally be rid of it and be back on the green side.

[rickztahone]

Its not bad actually. Photo editing doesn't need as much CPU boost as say video editing. It really factors in when you start having multiple applications open at once. Depends on which processor it has. The i5 is nothing to shake a stick at. i5's are still very widely used especially by gamers, they are much cheaper than their high end brother the i7 and will do everything they need them to do. i7 is like a professional and enthusiast chip, the i5 is like what your average home user would use, and the i3 is a budget friendly chip that is starting to age since it is strictly dual core. The 4th generation Intel chips are some of the most popular, still viable chips on the market today, easily some of the best that are still viable IMO. They are only 2 generations removed and quite honestly JUST barely 2 as the 6th just launched months ago. Spawned some of the most popular architecture and the so called "Devil's Canyon" chips which are what I would term as "Savage" in the computing world, they earn their name sake. Speed wise the i7 devil's canyon that came out of 4th generation can compete with my brand new i7 from the 6th generation in many cases.

8gb RAM is still plenty no matter what PC you are using. I'm running 16gb, though I want to eventually put in 32. 8 is a good standard still unless you are going for a real high end platform where you will be doing a lot of multitasking and hardcore video editing. As a market we are slowly moving to the more is better mindset where you will see 16 become a standard but the RAM market is NOT out pacing or even keeping up with the CPU market anymore like it used to. The RAM market is lagging quite terribly in new innovation and implementation. It's a shame because you start to see it become a bottleneck as some of the new processors actually perform better with faster RAM....but companies producing the fast RAM can't get the technology out fast enough to support the new processors.

The only thing I don't like about those all in ones as a unit (there are many things I dislike as a traditional desktop user) is the storage. You have to use external drives to go above 2TB which can fill up fast with large digital files. Then you have to start splitting out your USB ports to plug in externals and bottleneck the read/write speeds. It's just a pet peeve as I love tons of storage space. Just put in a new 2TB hard drive myself in my box for storage.

Going back to monitors, I've seen the one I'd love to have. Problem is it's upwards of a grand right now. Hoping it drops by Christmas or just after. Might just have to settle for another option of the same size and lose a few features. And for the record, SO glad I switched back to Nvidia. Was rocking AMD for a while because that's all I had, glad to finally be rid of it and be back on the green side.

the one I was looking at had an i3