Both. I’m not experienced enough to value higher resolution compared to wider gamut. So I’m asking for other people’s opinion and advice.
[quote=“houz, post:8, topic:2633”]
If you know all the details about the monitors just tell what brand and model it is.[/quote]
I have several candidates but honestly I don’t think the rest of the technical details are relevant for the discussion. I’m asking for other people’s opinion about resolution vs. gamut.
I don’t think so. But if you find this silly you don’t have to participate.
Based on your intended use I also suggest going for resolution over colour gamut, as long as the colour coverage and quality is good within the sRGB range.
Photography is also merely a hobby for me but I happen to have a wider range gamut monitor. (I didn’t even realise until I started looking into photography-related setup.) However, I run it in its sRGB mode rather than full gamut to avoid having to worry about colour profiles, etc., when all I usually want to do is to process for home viewing and online sharing.
I gather that the extra saturation afforded by AdobeRGB, for example, is only generally relevant when you have colours that need to be very saturated.
Interesting topic.
I’m not an expert, but I’ve order a 4k and a QHD 27" Monitor from Dell this year for the office. For me QHD and 27" is fine, because especially older programs have no troubles in scaling. On 4K the images look sharper thats true, but:
At what resolution are you exporting?
I guess on 4K most of the websides need a upscale, otherwise everthing looks thiny. Eg. if I export images from darktable to fb they get downscaled to something like 2 048px × 1 283px.
What about RAW-processing speed on a 4K monitor? Does this matter for programms like darktable or RawTherapee?
I would tend to a monitor that covers Adobe RGB and put the resolution on the second place.
For sharing I normally export at 2Kx2K max (depending on the longer side). I like the 4:3 and 5:4 proportion but sometimes I go wider. For my own viewing I would use a higher resolution in order to take full advantage of the monitor. But yeah, I see what you mean about scaling. Thanks.
Interesting question, I guess it would, as there is more data to send to the display adapter. But I’m going to have a new high-spec computer so I hope this won’t be a problem. Thanks for sharing your opinion.
[quote=“pk5dark, post:11, topic:2633, full:true”]
What about RAW-processing speed on a 4K monitor? Does this matter for programms like darktable or RawTherapee?[/quote]
My experience on the 13 inch macbook pro is that processing speed is significantly affected. This is plausible to me, since there is basically a larger number of pixels to rendered by the processing pipeline in order to display the result. For editing I often switch to a lower resolution.
IMHO, a high resolution is nice for viewing images, but there is very few benefit in terms of processing.
Unless you plan on buying and using a device to profile and calibrate your display the issue is moot. You may also be surprised to find the actual level of colorspace coverage once you do. I would rather have strong colorspace coverage (and stability) over a higher pixel count.
I can always zoom into my images.
I cannot magically create a wider color representation.
So I would err on the side of a wider gamut first…
Look in the Dell monitor forums for user insights if you’re thinking about a Dell, because some end users are sophisticated and experienced. Dell makes fine monitors (I now own one myself) but that doesn’t mean that their 4K monitors are good for all photographers (they’re not). I assume there are good discussion forums for other makes too where you can read user reviews and issues.
Thanks for the opinions and references. I’ll do some more readings before deciding.
If someone is interested, the main candidates that I consider are:
4K sRGB: Viewsonic VP2780-4K - not so popular, but reviewed very favorably here for example, and fares well compared to higher spec-ed monitors.
More options: Dell P2715Q (quite cheap) and NEC EA275uhd-bk (quite expensive, compared here to the Viewsonic and others)
QHD sRGB: NEC EA275WMi - more calibration flexibility than the Viewsonic, at the expense of lower resolution
@assaft, hi, did you get a monitor, and how is it please?
I’m now looking for one for Ubuntu, but not finding it easy.
There’s a Dell with 2560x1440 res which looked ok but then plenty people have reported colour variations across the screen.
There was another well reviewed but then with a negative comment… Then I looked at Eizo CG2420 but the Eizo software doesn’t work with Linux…
** SO PLEASE EVERYONE, ANY RECOMMENDATIONS WELECOME **
94ppi is ok, 109 would be nicer. It needs to be 24" or 27". Pat David’s comment above about going for gamut rather than pixel count sounds good to me. The Eizo is about UK £760, that would be the absolute max for the “package”, by which I mean monitor plus colorimeter if not built in. But the latter must work ok under Ubuntu (16.10)!
Dell ultrasharp are a cheapish way of obtaining a decent monitor. Even the factory calibration isn’t too bad but can be a lot better. Set way too bright for photo work though as they all are now to make dynamic range sound better.
I wondered about Dell PremierColor but last time I looked the hardware calibration isn’t supported by open source. So far on 2 Dell monitors I have been able to get well within the better level of colour rendition standards via a LUT. I don’t print so just look for good coverage of sRGB.
4K though - I have wondered but only to obtain more screen at around 100dpi. I don’t have my nose 6" from the screen. Currently I use a 27" U2713HM at 2560x1440. No suitable 4K monitors so far when I looked a month or so ago.
Setting wise my monitor nearly passes this. https://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/Calibration/monitor_sensitivity.html
It needs a bit of imagination to pass the pairs of extreme black and the white squares. It’s not currently calibrated though just set as close as it can be without a profile. When it was calibrated all was ok except for the highest white.
Whether you print or not is kind of irrelevant. The question is how important it is to you to be able to view on the screen a somewhat faithful approximation of what you can see in the world around you. Colours found in everyday reality – those found in objects likes clothes, for instance – can sometimes look awful when viewed in sRGB. If being able to view those colours is not tremendously important to you and sRGB is fine then no problem.
I have come across a number of people who view aRGB on a monitor and comment about the colours but they all also print. There is a bit of a catch with it. They can see it but when it’s posted on the web it will be shown in sRGB in the vast majority of cases - an understatement. If it’s in any other format and includes a profile it will be transposed to sRGB. If it doesn’t have a profile it will be shown as sRGB and that can have some weird effects. It’s the same for prophoto and others.
Clothes are a particular area. I’m sure fashion people think about sRGB when they design the stuff. I understand that they have moaned about this aspect. There are 2 other factors that have an effect as well. For that sort of work the camera ideally needs profiling. Then comes mixed fabrics that look to be the same colour. That has always been a bit of a pain for wedding photographers even in film days. They may look the same colour to us but wont to a camera. The same can be true of clothes full stop.
Maybe one day sRGB will be updated with something that has a deeper colour depth. It might not be aRGB. The wiki points out some interesting factors about aRGB even that the usual way of showing it exaggerates the difference. It also mentions that it is intended for CMYK printing really not RGB. Note that it also contains a mistake.
Isn’t it more important what you can see before worrying about what others can see? It’s an unfortunate fact that everyday objects from the world around you cannot always be represented sRGB. There is no way around that.
None of this discussion avoids the fact that exporting images as sRGB for the web is necessary. But I don’t see why that necessity should dictate everything else in a workflow.
This whole area is confusing. aRGB’s main purpose in life is higher colour saturation. The reason for that is printing which is using reflected light and has a restrictive dynamic range. On a monitor a similar effect can be obtained in sRGB by punching up the saturation. This is probably what commercial printers do to shots when people have them printed. It’s what my little canon post card printer seems to do too. My laser is calibrated to print sRGB.
There is also an argument that aRGB uses larger colour steps than sRGB. That implies that both can show colours that the other one can’t. That can probably be cured by using pro photo. I hear that editing that for printing on an aRGB monitor is real fun 'cause all of the colours that are produced can’t be viewed.
There is a good page on gamuts here http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/pointers_gamut.htm
It also shows the frequency of the light at the various points around the usual full gamut curve and the human eye’s response curves. To much blue light can actually damage eyes in the near UV range and at some wavelengths we need an awful lot of it to even see it. The link also covers Pointer’s gamut that tries to account for the fact that we see and photograph reflected light. It mentions what I think will happen eventually. We will see things like RGGB monitors or maybe even more colours making up the back lighting. GG= 2 shades of green. It’s already happened/happening in architectural lighting.
I think you’re overcomplicating things. If you don’t want to see on your own computer all that your camera can record of the reality around you, then stick to sRGB. If it’s not that important to you then there’s no need to stress out about it. If you do want to see it, implement a workflow that uses a higher gamut. It will cost more money and probably require some new hardware, but if you’re paying attention to colour you’ll notice the difference.
