LCD for Professional Picture Editing

[lonewolf0420]

Sorry, wasn't sure where to post this. I have a customer who is a professional photographer. He and hie wife are looking for a high-end LCD monitor for best picture editing and color. They have been eying the Samsung XL20, but I cannot find it available anywhere. Has anyone come across one or have any other recommendations? Thank you for your time.

[R_Metzel]

Have you thought about the Apple cinema hd displays? 30" wide screen for $2000.00 or the 23" for 1000.00.

[jaypie77]

Stick with Lacie, unless you can afford more.

[Sp00ks]

I wonder how a medical grade monitor would work? I figure its diagnosis quality, it has to be "correct". However, I know they are expensive and I do pretty well with my Dell 20". Maybe just a simple calibration is the key.

[Dchemist]

The EIZO ColroEdge LCD monitors are superb if you can afford the price tag.

[lonewolf0420]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Those all look like nice monitors. The customers biggest peeve is they want a LED backlight as opposed to a CCFL.

[rixth]

I must reccomend Dell's widescreen LCDs. They use the same panels as Samsung.

Top quality, good color, I <3 my 2407WFP (24" wide).

[chakalakasp]

Tell your friends that the best monitors to edit with are not LCDs but CRTs. Tell him to get a high-end CRT, the larger the better.

[SirBrontes]

The EIZO ColorEdge LCDs are rated high for photography/design work.

[Bobster]

my Formac Raven 2010 needed little calibration out of the box..

[primoz]

It depends what exactly do they want. I do "professional picture editing" on laptop on my knees in middle of skiing course. Because all laptops have crappy screens, this could mean anything could do for them. But with "professional picture editing" they probably don't mean picking, cropping, captioning and sending photos back to agency, right? :)
So if they are after monitor with right colors etc., they don't have much chances. LCD's like Dell, Samsung etc. are pretty much useless for stuff like this. When it comes to this you have Nec, Eizo and few others. And at 20" most of them are over 1500eur.
So personally I would suggest, so as someone already did, to get CRT. You get more of monitor for much less money. Not that good CRT's are cheap either.

[Mike Panic]

you can't buy any new crt's anymore - you might find one here or there but the plant in japan that made the sony trinitron fd tubes has long since stopped making them

cinema displays from apple are good - but there are better

as mentioned, eizo is the cream of the crop

viewsonic also makes a really nice higher end

a monitor calibration tool (known as a puck) is a MUST HAVE - i suggest the eye-one

read this article: http://www.shootsmarter.com/monitorcentral.html

[transcend]

Depends on what you mean by professional. Eizo is pretty much to of the heap when it comes to LCDs for editing. Color reproduction and black levels are superb. These are some of the 2 or 3 companies that I would call worthy of professional editing. They are ridiculously expensive.

The Apple displays used to be great, but lately they are having issues with backlight bleed. The Dell's use the same panel as the Apple's, minus the blacklight issues and pretty case. Gateway is actually making some pretty nice high end LCD displays now as well. The viewsonic CRTS are some of the best out there, but I find their LCDs lacking (weird color casts, backlight issues etc).

Whatever you get, calibrate it montly. As the display ages, you will need to do it weekly.

[Pekka]

I've very happy with Eizo 2410 widescreen. As will all LCDs blacks could be blacker but it's all relative.

I'm really looking forward to see if Eizo 2411 works for photo editing. It can adjust backlight and gain to get total black, 1:3000 contrast. Should work great for normal use, games and movies --- but it remains to be seen can it be used in photo work. http://www.eizo.com/press/releases/pdf/S2111W_S2411W_pr.pdf

[Converge]

The EIZO ColroEdge LCD monitors are superb if you can afford the price tag.

I have to agree with this comment. EIZO is the best.