LCD monitor for photoshopping

[chubasco]

I want to upgrade my monitor and would like to know if 500:1 contrast ratio is good enough, or do I want
to go with a 700:1 ratio. My aging refurbed Dell 19" CRT monitor is not up to task for post-image processing.
(As evinced by the squigglies, curly-cues, I see on my monitor at work, which is much more, ummm, analytical
than the one at home--kinda mortifying, actually.:redface:

Thanks in advance for any advice given.

[Travis Bickle]

I would never replace a good crt with a low qual lcd. Tiny colorspace on on the cheaper lcd's under around $2000. Maby 1280x1024res on em... contrast ratio you want more like 1000/1 to be even close.
The quality just isnt there... That's just me.....
I need at min 1600x1200 @85h for work and my games :P. I feel very comfined with a smaller resolution.
I have other cheap lcd screens to view my images with the color dithered, to see if they still look ok.
If I had lots of money I'd buy a $2000-$3000 lcd or somthing. Then they become comparable and much nicer.

I Have a 21in viewsonic its ok, nothing special, but I like it... The best thing is I could buy 2 for the same price as 1 flat with less quality. I actualy use a 19in as a second multi display somtimes for working. I love that... no more alt+tab all day long. :)

When I sold them, I found it funny, some people thought the lcd's were better because of the hype. For photography, I would never recomended one, unless you really wanted the spacesaving, or a high model lcd.

Thats MHO.

I would recomend just taking your time looking, they are what you are going to staring at for a while. :)

[chubasco]

Travis, I'll be looking into these views of yours...1600x1200 rez with 1000:1 contrast ratio. I was hoping to
replace the CRT with a flatscreen LCD, but not at $2000-$3000 (USD?), nope.

Thanks for your reply:-)

[Travis Bickle]

I was exagerating on the price a bit, and that's canadian dollars I'm thinking of, and top end....
I'm not totally up on the latest prices. I would guess $1000+ in the us for a very good lcd, maby a bit more. We have higher prices and lower dollar here :(

[paradise]

Bill, CRTs are better by default on quality, but a nice LCD is very good. I Have a 19" NEC that was only about $500 or so, and it's EXCELLENT. I really like that you can tune it by Temperature, helps with Calibration software such as Spyder. That is what I would look for in a monitor. Get a decent LCD and calibration software and you will love it. I calibrate mine every couple of months.

[reefrunner]

I use a Dell 20" wide screen LCD that uses the same Panel as the Apple Cinema 20" LCD. Both are considered photo editing quality. The Dell uses a stronger back light and has brightness issues when hooked up via DVI, hooked up analog you can adjust the brightness down enough for photo editing. I paid a little over 400 for it a few months ago. The color is very stable and almost spot on out of the box, before calibration. It's important when purchasing an LCD to look at the panel it uses, IPS panels are very good, I've also heard PVA panels are a close second.

[Ibn]

Ditto on the Dell monitors. For the price they're a great deal, even with the banding issue (has since been resolved by firmware updates). If you have more money to spend, then take a look at Eizos.

[chubasco]

Ed, the Spyder software sounds very interesting, will check it out. Eric and Reefrunner, I'll be looking at
the Dell LCDs as $400-500 is right in the ball park of what I thought it would run for an upgrade. Thanks
for the tips, much appreciated.:-)

[paradise]

Does Dell have a lot of different monitors? 'Cause I just got a 'puter for my father-in-law for like $700 including shipping AND a 19" Dell flat screen. Pentium 4 machine, 1gig ram, 160g HD, nice video, 2 DVD Drives, the works. They had a 40% off coupon :)

[chubasco]

Does Dell have a lot of different monitors? 'Cause I just got a 'puter for my father-in-law for like $700 including shipping AND a 19" Dell flat screen. Pentium 4 machine, 1gig ram, 160g HD, nice video, 2 DVD Drives, the works. They had a 40% off coupon :)

Ed, yep, Dell has a lot of different models even in the 19-20" size. Wow, 40% coupons gotta be nice! Was
one of the DVD drives an RW? I would say father-in-law is all set for photoshopping!:)

[reefrunner]

Yes, Dell sells several different LCDs sizes and a couple of different 19" flat panels. This Link (http://aryarya.net/wassyoi/lcdmemo.html) will show you what panels is used in which monitor. This link (http://www.flatpanels.dk/panels.php) allows you to search by manufacturer, model and/or panel type. So depending on which 19" model it is...it could have a PVA panel (not as good as IPS, but at least displays 16 million colors) or a TN panel whiich does not display 16 million colors and doesn't have very stable color.

[RazorBlade]

A bit off topic here - but what about the LCD panels on notebooks? Any links on that?