Flat-panel monitors! What's the verdict for 2013?

[Preston]

Paul, I agree with all of your comments.

It is always a good idea to convert a file to the color space you'll be using. For example convert a *.psd file to sRGB if it's to be used on the Web. Images used in MS Office documents, as I understand it, work best if they are tagged sRGB. I do all my editing in Adobe RGB and allow Photo shop to manage colors when I print to my Epson R2400. This seems to work very nicely for me.

For my NEC monitor, I created a custom profile that SpectraView uses when I calibrate. It took a little experimentation to get the best profile for screen/print matching, but once done, life is easy.

With regard to video cards: Most of the higher end cards, like the Quadro Pro are designed for gaming, 3-D rendering or video editing where high frame rates, pixel shading, etc. are required. As you say, Paul, this kind of performance is not needed for photo work. A decent, passively cooled, 1 or 2 GB card will provide excellent screen redraws in Photo Shop or other image editing software. (Adobe has a list of CS5-CS6 compatible video cards that should be consulted before specifying a card)

"The spectraview hardware calibration is a thing of beauty and will spoil you. "

I can atest to this: I am definitely spoiled. It's so easy, you'll wonder if you missed something while the process is running.

--P

[Greg Miller]

While I agree that any modern video card is perfectly adequate (I mentioned this in an earlier post), it is also true that for optimal performance, an NVIDEA Quadro card is best. Adobe has certified these Quadro cards for Windows computers:

Quadro 6000, 5000, 4000, 2000, 2000D, 5010M*, 5000M, 4000M, 3000M, 2000M, FX5800, FX 4800, FX 3800, FX 3800M, FX 3700M, GTX 580, GTX 570, GTX 470, GTX 285

And NVIDEA has performed specific testing with Photoshop to ensure these cards are optimized for Photoshop. Whether or not the improvements are wort the expense is up to each individual to decide.

[Greg Miller]

Additionally, anyone who has used dual monitors with an onboard video card, or a low end video card, is familiar with the phenemenon of the disappearing mouse pointer as the pointer is moved from one monitor to the other. This is the video card struggling to keep up. A mid- to high-end video card will eliminate or minimize this. It's a minor issue for most people, but for those who obsess over performance, it is a factor worth considering.

[Daniel Stone]

Greg, looking at some of the models you recommended, in particular the Quadra series of cards(2000, 4000(the 4000 being way more than I want to spend), I'm only seeing (1) dvi port. I'm assuming this could be an issue with driving two monitors?

[Otto Seaman]

Dan I use two inexpensive NEC P221W 21-inch monitors with a Spyder3 Elite calibrator and so far they've been great for 18 months now. The Mac Mini video system is less than ideal but it hasn't given me any trouble knock on wood. (Otherwise the Mac Mini Server has been great, i7 chip with 16 gb RAM is enough for my modest needs.)

I make master files and when I want web images, I downsample and also lower the saturation about 20-25 points, then use Photoshop's "Save for Web" with the checkbox to convert and save the jpg with the sRGB profile. Most of the time this is all I need to do, but sometimes with a delicate image I need to go back and adjust the saturation and the Green/Magenta. This isn't much different than printing to your inkjet, in fact I think of it the same way... your goal is to display the best possible image online and it would be naive to think you could always just downsample and save it perfectly every time. Sometimes you need to go back and tweak it a few times, just like making an inkjet.

If you want to get further discombobulated, bear in mind that the world is moving towards higher-resolution displays. There are already large 4K displays as well as the Apple Retina displays... undoubtedly we'll see a 20"-plus iMac with a super dense pixel count. We're going to have to pay more attention to how we prep our web images for the best display... they will be at similar pixel counts as what we were doing for 8x10 prints (2400 x 3000 pixels) and prepping images for the web will be just as demanding as fine print making has been.

[Tin Can]

I have to agree Otto, well put. 4K is here.

I am saving and waiting for the time I have to upgrade to 4K which will be soon, and as a few have suggested, most of us do not need supercomputers. Otto's Mini is really a lot for a little.

Dan I use two inexpensive NEC P221W 21-inch monitors with a Spyder3 Elite calibrator and so far they've been great for 18 months now. The Mac Mini video system is less than ideal but it hasn't given me any trouble knock on wood. (Otherwise the Mac Mini Server has been great, i7 chip with 16 gb RAM is enough for my modest needs.)

I make master files and when I want web images, I downsample and also lower the saturation about 20-25 points, then use Photoshop's "Save for Web" with the checkbox to convert and save the jpg with the sRGB profile. Most of the time this is all I need to do, but sometimes with a delicate image I need to go back and adjust the saturation and the Green/Magenta. This isn't much different than printing to your inkjet, in fact I think of it the same way... your goal is to display the best possible image online and it would be naive to think you could always just downsample and save it perfectly every time. Sometimes you need to go back and tweak it a few times, just like making an inkjet.

If you want to get further discombobulated, bear in mind that the world is moving towards higher-resolution displays. There are already large 4K displays as well as the Apple Retina displays... undoubtedly we'll see a 20"-plus iMac with a super dense pixel count. We're going to have to pay more attention to how we prep our web images for the best display... they will be at similar pixel counts as what we were doing for 8x10 prints (2400 x 3000 pixels) and prepping images for the web will be just as demanding as fine print making has been.

[Greg Miller]

Greg, looking at some of the models you recommended, in particular the Quadra series of cards(2000, 4000(the 4000 being way more than I want to spend), I'm only seeing (1) dvi port. I'm assuming this could be an issue with driving two monitors?

Sorry, I grabbed the wrong list. Here is the correct list:

Tested and Approved Video Cards for Photoshop CS6 (as of early June 2012):
• NVIDIA Quadro 6000, 5000, 4000, 2000, 600, 400, and CX, including “M” series
• NVIDIA GeForce 9000, 8000, 9000, 500, 400, 300, 200, and 100 series
• AMD/ATI Radeon 7000, 6000, 5000, 4000, 3000, and 2000 series
• AMD/ATI FirePro 7900, 5900, 4900, 3900, 9800, 8800, 7800, 5800, 4800, and 3800
• Intel HD Graphics, Intel HD Graphics P3000, Intel HD Graphics P4000