Monitor Screens

Get a smaller monitor and put it portrait on the side of the primary?

My 'ideal' setup is probably going to end up being a 27" 4K central, 2 24" portraits flanking it, and another 24 above the central. One or two 18-20" 1080-ish monitors angled down below the central, and connected to secondary computers... However, I deal with a lot of "science things" so my ideal setup is well into the overkill zone by the third monitor when it comes to photographers.

Luckless wrote in post #17751716
Get a smaller monitor and put it portrait on the side of the primary?

My 'ideal' setup is probably going to end up being a 27" 4K central, 2 24" portraits flanking it, and another 24 above the central. One or two 18-20" 1080-ish monitors angled down below the central, and connected to secondary computers... However, I deal with a lot of "science things" so my ideal setup is well into the overkill zone by the third monitor when it comes to photographers.

Nahhhhhh you can never have enough monitors! 1 for processing, 1 for email, 1 for video, 1 misc

njstacker22 wrote in post #17751615
I can see where you are coming from here. I went 4k for a few reasons. If everything goes as planned I will be getting into a Sony A7R2 and intend on using the video features. Pretty foolish to spend that kind of money on a camera that shoots 4k and view/work the files in 2k. Also, I got the monitor at a very good price and it met all my "must haves". To view work on files at 1:1 and not have to scroll/zoom for detail. Last, I'm sick of being behind the curve on technology and for once I feel like I'll just be slightly ahead of the general public! And also because 4k is just.... well, it's 4k!

Thanks for this. Wanting it for editing/viewing 4K video makes sense.

Luckless wrote in post #17751705
I would agree that 4K resolutions are not a critical priority, but they do seem exceptionally nice if you can get it along with general colour accuracy and reasonable response times. It is however not so nice that I'm rushing out to drop a pile of money on it yet.

It is one of those things that you have to decide if it is worth the investment. I think that for most people doing photography these days that a good 8bit IPS monitor is generally enough, and the investment in upgrading to a full 10bit workflow isn't going to be worth it in many cases.

This is especially true for people focusing on digital deployment of their photos, and I would even suggest considering picking up a really cheap and low in monitor in addition to a decent primary in such cases. (To double check how things are rendering on an 'average' screen. Your great and beautiful 10bit workflow isn't worth much if all your fine detail is shoved into too narrow of a range and it renders out as just a blob on lower end screens.)

For my current personal work I would take a good evenly coloured 4K monitor on an 8bit workflow before I dove into the extra costs in setting up for a proper 10bit one. But I wouldn't give up at least dual monitor setups to work with only a single 4K.

Again, some good insight here. Thanks.

I just gave this question some thought, and this is what I came up with...

In the days of film and enlargements, it has commonly been said that a print requires a minimum detail resolution of 5 line-pairs/millimeter on print, in order for the eye and brain to perceive the enlargement as 'sharp'

For a 27" diagonal 4K monitor, it has 4096 horizontal pixels. that permits it to display (4096-1)/2 line pairs of detail resolution, or 2047 line pairs. A 27" monitor has about 24" horizonal, or 609 millimeters of display area horizontally... 2047/609 = 3.37 line-pairs/mm. So, because the 5 lp/mm standard is not achieved, even with a 4k monitor, we really could stand to use even higher pixel count to display a full frame and perceived it is meeting the 'sharp' standard or not.

Great info in this thread! I'm upgrading at the first of the year so this helps.

njstacker22 wrote in post #17748198
Just picked up a Dell 27" 4k P2715Q. Not a single complaint for processing. Full adjustable (tilt, swivel and up/down), matte screen, 27", excellent build quality, 4k, USB 3.0 ports, IPS and amazing color accuracy (factory tuned at 99% sRGB with a color calibration factory report certifying that each monitor has a deltaE < 3).

For the price, I'm not sure it can be beat.

You do realize sRGB is the smaller color space right? Why not go for a monitor that can handle 99% of AdobeRGB instead? 99% of sRGB should be expected in a modern consumer monitor, personally I prefer a wider gamut.

WA Tiger wrote in post #17750111
It's hot more to do with the clarity you see when processing your shot and the detail you can get down to in the shot itself.

You can zoom into an image in Ps and see all the detail. 4k doesn't magically allow you to see more detail. I regularly edit at 300-400% on my NEC PA241W monitor. Having a 4k monitor would see me zooming in even farther as the image would be displaying even smaller on my screen.

As Bob_A pointed out: 4k is one of those things that just isn't at the top of the list for photo editing. For video yes, for photos no. IPS, matte screen, wide viewing angle, wide gamut, color fidelity, easy of calibration, accuracy of calibration. . . these are all more important for stills editing than 4k. Think about it, we've been editing images well beyond 8mp for years (4k is 8.3mp) without 4k monitors. If you find a monitor that has everything else you want and it's 4k I'd say go for it, but I certainly wouldn't put 4k at the top of my "must have" list unless I was primarily editing 4k(8mp) video rather than say, 20-50mp images.

njstacker22 wrote in post #17751615
......... Last, I'm sick of being behind the curve on technology and for once I feel like I'll just be slightly ahead of the general public! And also because 4k is just.... well, it's 4k!

I know the feeling. . .it's why I bought a 3D TV years ago.

Scatterbrained wrote in post #17752950
You can zoom into an image in Ps and see all the detail. 4k doesn't magically allow you to see more detail.

Would you like to work with a 320x200 screen? Surely it wouldn't impact your work flow at all to use a screen that small, assuming you could find one and it had decent colour accuracy and all that, and would probably be really cheap to make...

The advantage of 4K for photos isn't that you 'get more detail', it is that you can get detail while still seeing more of the image at a time.

Tell you what look at it anyway you want. I have been looking at photos on the net with a standard screen for the past week and I have just returned home, I am now looking at them on a Toshiba Kira and the difference is amazing. So if its a nice to have then I'm all for it.

To those who are considering a 4k montior, please remember to check the specs on your video card! It was pretty frustrating after I waited for my monitor to be shipped, hooked it up and saw that max resolution was 1920

Also check your HDMI is 2.0 and not 1.4 OR your display port in is a 1.2, this will give you 60hz refresh rate through the laptop/hard drive and not 30hz...

Luckless wrote in post #17753049
Would you like to work with a 320x200 screen? Surely it wouldn't impact your work flow at all to use a screen that small, assuming you could find one and it had decent colour accuracy and all that, and would probably be really cheap to make...

The advantage of 4K for photos isn't that you 'get more detail', it is that you can get detail while still seeing more of the image at a time.

That's a pretty dumb statement. I said that there are other things more important than 4k. Pretty simple, and I'd even think pretty reasonable. I spent over a grand on my monitor when I bought it. I have no issues spending money on quality equipment, and I have no problems with advancing technology. I just don't "fall for the hype" or "jump on the bandwagon" for the sole purpose of one new advancement if it neglects other key aspects. As I pointed out, we've been editing images well beyond the 8mp of 4k for along time without 4k monitors. My point isn't that 4k should be avoided, only that it shouldn't be at the top of the list if you're focused on still photography.

Well the monitor I am looking at is $839 AUD, so that's about $700 U.S. In comparison to what you paid and for what you got at that time this is a much better deal for the upgrade in quality. So why did you pay $1000, what did that screen have that others for $500 didn't?

WA Tiger wrote in post #17753984
Well the monitor I am looking at is $839 AUD, so that's about $700 U.S. In comparison to what you paid and for what you got at that time this is a much better deal for the upgrade in quality. So why did you pay $1000, what did that screen have that others for $500 didn't?

Here's a link, take a look. http://www.newegg.com …aspx?Item=N82E1​6824002531

To be brief:
Matte, low glare screen (vs glossy consumer monitors)
wide gamut 99% AdobeRGB (vs sRGB consumer monitors)
wide viewing angle (color and brightness don't change no matter where you are)
10 bit color (vs 8 bit in consumer monitors)
14bit LUTs (although I end up using my Spyder Elite, I've found the myriad factory calibration settings for different light temps to be alarmingly accurate)