Best Monitor for viewing Photos

[britt777]

can anyone suggest a good monitor for viewing photos? I am currently using a crt monitor and my photos look very unclear. Is a flat pannel better or different. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks Britt

[Belmondo]

As a general rule of thumb, CRTs will give you better color fidelity. Obviously, there are exceptions...there are CRT's with crappy pictures, and there are some excellent flat panels (Apple, for example).

The maiin problems with flat panels displays are difficulty in color calibrating, and over-saturrated images.

I use two monitors. My primary is a 22" LaCie CRT, and the other is a 21" flat panel. I do all my image editing on the CRT, and it does seem to have solved most of my color problems.

Anything based on a Sony Trinitron is going to be very good.

[blinking8s]

my 17" ViewSonic VX715 LCD is very very good with color...my Viewsonic CRT's at my old job were good, but not superb, and the Apple displays at my current job seem flawless...botht he cinema displays on the G5's and the regular 19" monitors from the G4 series

the sony LCD that ran me $700 a few years back is holding up well...it was amazing for its day though

I spend a ton of time at work on the computer, LCD's dont wear out my eyes as much...I seems drained after sitting in front of the dual CRT setups for 8-12 hours straight looking at the high refresh rates. but good LCD's cost more...a lot mroe than a good CRT

[Pekka]

I would choose Eizo ColorEdge. See http://www.eizo.com/products/graphics/cg220/index.asp and especially http://www.eizo.com/support/wp/pdf/wp_04-006A.pdf

It is just a monitor where everything serves image quality and professional needs.

[CyberDyneSystems]

can anyone suggest a good monitor for viewing photos? I am currently using a crt monitor and my photos look very unclear. Is a flat pannel better or different. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks Britt

That you photos look uncelar on your monitor is not neesarily an indicator that CRT's are worse than LCD.

In fact I would certainly argue the opposite to be true.

Let us know what Monitor you are using currently? It may be a "shadow Mask" CRT which is a very poor display indeed.

Try to find a good brand name Aperture grill CRT. Sony, Mitsubishi, Lacie, etc.. all make amazing AG CRTs.

As mentioned above,. there are some very good LCDs as well,. but don't feel you have to go LCD to get good images, you can maybe do better and save some $$ (at the sacrifice of space) with a good AG CRT.

P.S.,. that Eizo looks NICE!

[robertwgross]

I'll wager that I am using one of the oldest CRT monitors of any of us here, and it is still good. It is an old Nanao FlexScan F550i, 17". The computer behind it has already been replaced three or four times, and this thing keeps right on going like the Energizer bunny.

Back when it was new, the cost was something close to $900. Stuff is much cheaper now.

---Bob Gross---

[PacAce]

Bob, how do you do it? I have a 19" CRT and it's still too small for me to work with when doing photo or video editing without another monitor to dock all my tools and palette windows onto so that the main monitor will have nothing but the image window on it. And yours is only a 17". :confused: I'd have all my hair pulled out by now. Actually, I'm almost there. Good thing I got another monitor before it was too late...for my head, that is. :mrgreen:

[Pekka]

I'll wager that I am using one of the oldest CRT monitors of any of us here, and it is still good. It is an old Nanao FlexScan F550i, 17". The computer behind it has already been replaced three or four times, and this thing keeps right on going like the Energizer bunny.

Back when it was new, the cost was something close to $900. Stuff is much cheaper now.

---Bob Gross---

:)

Eizo/Nano make great monitors! I work with 21" Eizo F-78 (FX-E8 ) which is about 8 years old. Just like new. It was ridiculously expensive back then but in relation to current prices Eizo has kept their pricing same - now you could buy the 21" ColorEdge LCD for less or same amount of current cash. Only problem is that it has a noisy fan (I've replaced it with a quieter one but it's still noisier than my computer).

[robertwgross]

Eizo/Nano make great monitors!

I think Nanao was the old brand name from 8-10 years ago, and then they changed to Eizo as the new brand name.

They were not cheap back then. Of course, I still remember when I could buy lunch for 25 cents.

---Bob Gross---

[robertwgross]

Bob, how do you do it? I have a 19" CRT and it's still too small for me to work with when doing photo or video editing without another monitor to dock all my tools and palette windows onto so that the main monitor will have nothing but the image window on it. And yours is only a 17". :confused: I'd have all my hair pulled out by now. Actually, I'm almost there. Good thing I got another monitor before it was too late...for my head, that is. :mrgreen:

Maybe you are using PhotoShop.

I'm not... and I still have all of my hair.

---Bob Gross---

[mphoto]

I have a LaCie Electron Blue 19" CRT. I am very happy with it. It provides individual RGB controls which helps in producing accurate profiles for the monitor.

[KurtKuhn]

from robertwgross: I'll wager that I am using one of the oldest CRT monitors of any of us here, and it is still good. It is an old Nanao FlexScan F550i, 17". The computer behind it has already been replaced three or four times, and this thing keeps right on going like the Energizer bunny.

I've been agonizing on whether or not to replace my 17" Mitsubishi Diamondtron. It is around 7 years old, and somewhat similar to Robert, I'm on my 3rd computer that's been hooked up to it. I recently got some religion about color calibration, so to replace it with a larger, color accurate LCD is going to be way more expensive (about $1000 more) than a nice Lacie Electron 22 Blue IV at around $650.

Problem is that I don't know "how good" my old monitor is. Do any of you guys know how to intperpret the level of goodness of these curves? They were the results of calibrating with Profile Mechanic.

Brightness (http://www.kurtkuhn.com/images/brightness116.png)
CIE_Chromacity_Diagram (http://www.kurtkuhn.com/images/CIE_Chromacity_Diagram20050212.png)
Gamma_Curves (http://www.kurtkuhn.com/images/Gamma_Curves20050212.png)

BTW, this isn't an attempt at a thread steal. Reason is that since we're talking monitors, we have to talk color accuracy. And if we're talking color accuracy, measuring it is key.

-KK

[JZaun]

I had my 2nd Viewsonic 19" monitor go bad in just over a year. It had high repsolution and did a fine job they just didn't last. I tried a DELL 17" ultra sharp LCD (1280x1024)monitor and wonder why I didn't before. I love it. The color is as correct as my Viewsonics were and the resolution is enough to do a good job. I won't go back to a crt and give up my desk space again :)

JZ

[britt777]

Thanks so much for all the imput. I am currently using a Dell CRT. My pictures dont look real clear and then I print them and they are perfect. I also have a 19 in laptop flat pannel I use. I haven't worked with my pictures much on it, but notice they appear clearer on flat pannel. There is nothing wrong with my CRT. I just didn't know wether it was my monitor or the software viewing pictures.