Need a monitor for professional photography

Thank you for replay @maf!

That depends on the model. Prices are from 900 to 1900 €. I’m not so sure what I have to pay attention to with the values in the sense that I don’t buy one that has functionality that I don’t need and at the same time buy the cheap one that doesn’t have the necessary functionality. I’m quite a bit tangled up.

I don’t have it, but I can buy it. Does it work under Linux?

No. I intend to do it myself. I am willing to invest the time to learn how to do it correctly.

Yes.

I’m aware of that. :slight_smile:

It works with displaycal sw calibration under linux (for this it’s overkill imo).
In windows it also works with e.g. benq hw calibration sw.
But i’m not aware of any true monitor hw calibration (what is the advantage of pro monitor) under linux, as it specific and depends on monitor manufacturer tools provided.

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X-Rite is supported by NEC SpectraViewII, Eizo ColorNavigator (both are true HW calibration SW) and Argyll.

I’ve tested each :slight_smile:

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Your answer is in the question: you need professional monitor :slight_smile:
Such monitors are not cheap, ~1400€ up. For such money demand perfection.

Perhaps it’s not allowed but I suggest you look at the photographylife.com and search for user “ColorConsultant”. He usually comments on color management topics but lately has commented on the two following reviews:
BenQ SW320 Monitor Review
BenQ SW271 Monitor Review
Read his comments and also search luminous-landscape.com forums for PA271Q.

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First of all: define professionally.

You may need a reference Eizo or Nec monitor or for you may need entry level photographic monitor.

How critical is color and display accuracy?

Aside from all the good advice given until now, I wish to say some thoughts that hasn’t been mentioned yet, or which are my own preferences:

  • as already said, you can’t go wrong with NEC or EIZO, you will pay more for them, but you will for sure get what you pay for. And just to check prices, take a look at this Spanish online store. They send items to Europe, although you will have to add the shipping&handling costs, obviously
  • I wouldn’t be obsessed by embedded hardware profiling solutions, and if I found a display without hardware sensors or software, but with the gamut I need, I would buy it without hesitation (for professional photography, I wouldn’t go for less than 99% AdobeRGB)
  • don’t forget that color management is not just about having a good display: you absolutely need to start with a good profile for your camera, follow it with a good and properly calibrated display, and end up with a good and calibrated printer. In this sense the i1 Display Pro, even though really good for displays, is useless to calibrate a printer, so you will need another device (and professional quality ones may cost you even more than the display)
  • I’ve recently found that creating images for the web is not necessarily an straight conversion between profiles. You will have to check it for yourself, but it’s worth reading that thread to prevent possible surprises. I’m even thinking about having 2 profiles: one that takes into account the capabilities of my display and the ambient lighting, and another one just to work for the web
  • about ambient lighting, if you have a device capable of measuring ambient lighting (like the i1 Display Pro), most probably you will only have to take care about choosing some lighting with a Color Rendering Index (CRI) of 90 at least (95 CRI would be even better). A cheap led lamp with near 6000ºK, may be enough. Then just let the profiling device to measure the color and intensity of your lighting and adjust the display profile for that
  • remember that with professional color, you can’t be in a hurry when cold starting both the display and the ambient lighting (that is, when they have been turned off for several hours): they need to heat and stabilize before being sure that you get the right colors

Well, just a few thoughts :wink:

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Is this limitation Linux only?

It surprises me that NVidia or AMD would not have jumped to get on the "HDR gaming " bandwagon ASAP, but I can see how their thinking might be something along the lines of “Linux = workstation” so “Linux + HDR = workstation card”.

Restricting their gaming cards to 8 bit output when every gaming console except Switch has offered HDR10 at a minimum for 2-3 years seems like a major blunder for anyone trying to sell gaming hardware.

I don’t think that PC parts for gaming really compete against consoles. PC gamers want PCs, a la /r/pcmasterrace

The discussion about 10bit support is off topic and should be split into a separate topic.

Personally I use an Eizo FlexScan EV2436W, because I wanted a well known brand. Budget wise and for “compatibility” reasons with the rest of the world sRGB seemed to be enough for me years ago.

Today I would go for 27" 2560 x 1440 and maybe 100% AdobeRGB coverage. An Eizo with that specs would be out of range (or it simply doesn’t make sense to spent that money for hobby). And their hardware calibration software is not supported by Linux as well. So I would maybe chose a Dell UltraSharp UP2716D. I have some DELL monitors at work for office purposes, and they do their job.

For calibration, I have a colorhug1 and 2, but they need a correction matrix to work properly. Without that matrix calibration ended in color shifts. I had the chance to borrow a ColorMunki Photo to create proper correction matrix for my screen. Because of that experience I would maybe invest in a ColorMunki Photo or similar spectrophotometer. I know they are costly, but they can measure colors more precisely and allow printer calibrations as well.

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The ColorMunki seems to be out of production. It has been superseded by the new i1Studio.

Looks like ColorMunki is still being sold. i1 series is more expensive. I guess they have dropped the lower tiers; however, their website still has those products, which is confusing… I can’t afford this stuff but am often curious what the products are. :stuck_out_tongue:

@s7habo Seen this?

or this

MfG
Claes in Lund, Schweden

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I’m sure it is, until all the remaining stock is sold out. But according to X-Rite website, the ColorMunki is not listed anymore. And above that, it never was a professional tool, unlike the new model is. And of course I wouldn’t buy an amateur device for a serious professional use.

In spite of this, I would buy a ColorMunki for my own amateur work without a doubt.

Indeed, they have updated their site since I last checked last month. Modernized it too.

First of all, many thanks to all for your suggestions and advice so far!

For me it becomes more and more important to earn money with photography. Besides hobby, until now this has been rather a second income for me that I do occasionally. One of the reasons was the fact that I couldn’t afford the good equipment to offer products in sufficient quality. Of course, also I still lack the necessary knowledge concerning this subject. This is slowly changing and I’m trying to focus more on photography as a profession in small steps.

Most of my orders so far have been event photography. Getting the right moment has been much more important for that than the color accuracy you need for print jobs, for example.

I also get more and more requests for portrait photography and have noticed that color accuracy plays a big role. Some people would like to have some of my landscape photos as prints, but so far the color rendering has been rather moderate and I am not very satisfied. I know that there are many other variables that play a role in this, including those that @XavAL mentioned, but I’ve learned that my photos look different on other people with similar initial settings but better monitors. I will gladly start there first.

I would also like to know what is the advantage (difference) and if it makes sense? Is calibration with external calibrator sufficient?

Maybe this sounds like a big limitation, but I want to work exclusively with Linux and don’t intend to install other operating systems virtually or otherwise to calibrate monitors or do other things.
In other words, if hw calibration doesn’t work in Linux, that’s an exclusion criterion for me and doesn’t make much sense to buy the monitor which functionality I can’t use

Yeah, that was my original thought too. As far as monitor calibration in Linux is concerned, choice is not easy either. I know that the @Morgan_Hardwood has some good knowledge and experience about it. What would you recommend @Morgan_Hardwood ? Which calibrator gives good results and works well in Linux?

Are you referring to hardware calibration on e.g. Eizo? There is no Linux support, that is correct

But dispcalGUI and argyllCMS works fine on Linux with supported calibration devices.

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Yes.

The question is,

  1. is calibration with external clibrators is as good as internal hardware calibration.
  2. maybe that’s another topic, but which devices are supported in Linux and which ones are recommended. Here are some already named. I am in the middle of informing myself about it. I am seriously thinking about buying one.

If you want a device to profile only displays, go for the i1 Display Pro

If you want to profile everything in your workflow, go for the i1Studio (I would)

If you need something more sophisticated, then you would have to spend a lot of money, and I have no knowledge about them.

As I see it, the internal calibration devices are mostly the same as one of those mentioned:

  • advantage: they are supposedly tweaked to create the best profiles for that precise display (in the end, they know what they are building)
  • disadvantage: what happens when that device stops working properly? Do you throw away a perfectly good display?
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Please stop giving false information!!!
Eizo Color Navigator IS available on Linux Natively. Moreover CN7 is far more better than CN6. I am using it!
It is not directly listed on Eizo web page but you need to ask for it and will receive direct download link.
Before buying Eizo I’ve contacted Eizo representative in Poland. Don’t know why they’re doing it like it.
Nec SpectraView is also available for Linux. I use it on Linux too!

We need to get our terms straight. I could explain it but why do so when we already have an excellent resource here: Calibration vs. Characterization?

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