Any Thoughts on NEC P Series Monitor?

[Preston]

Hi All,

My Dell 19" CRT finally bit the BIG one. It powers up, but no video at all. I even tried it on another machine--zip, zilch, nada.

After doing a little research, I found a NEC P221W. The specs look great, and the reviews at B&H are all positive, but I wondered if anyone here is using a NEC P-Series monitor, and what your thoughts are about it?

I looked at Eizo and the other professional monitors from NEC and they are way out of my budget! At about $390 and free shipping from B&H, this one looks really decent.

I'll be using my Monaco Optix-XR with X-Rite software for calibration.

I need this pretty quick, so any help you can provide over the next couple of days is much appreciated.

Many Thanks,

--P

[tlitody]

I was just looking at NEC monitors yesterday so I'm interested in this too.
The lab I'm thinking of using for lambda output works in Adobe RGB so I'm hoping to find a monitor 100% Adobe RGB capable but they seem to be very expensive.
If your output device is only sRGB capable then I think several of the less expensive NEC monitors fit the bill.

[Preston]

This particular monitor (according to the specs at NEC) gives 96% of Adobe RGB. Not too shabby.

I use an Epson R2400 printer and print using Adobe RGB, so I need this output.

-P

[Ken Lee]

It's nice to work in a big color space, so that other people with wide-gamut monitors can see all the colors, but unless I'm mistaken, the gamut of a R2400, even on glossy Epson paper, is a very small portion of the Adobe RGB color space.

[Brian Ellis]

I recently bought the P221W and have been using it for about a month. It's a joy to use and I'd highly recommend it to anyone looking for a reasonably priced monitor that can be easily and accurately calibrated. However, I also bought SpectraView II, the NEC calibration software, which is the usual recommendation with this monitor. So I can't tell you how it would do using your existing calibration software and hardware.

I'd suggest that you go to the NEC web site where you can find a list of third-party sensors that are compatible with SpectraView. If your Monaco is one of them then you could buy the SpectraView software alone, which only costs about $100, rather than having to buy both the software and the NEC sensor, which together cost about $250. I did quite a bit of research before buying the monitor and everything I read evaluated the monitor on the basis of using it with SpectraView rather than a 3rd party calibration program and certainly that's what I'd recommend if you only need the software and not the sensor as well. My Spyder III Pro sensor is compatible with SpectraView so at $100 it was an easy decision for me to buy the software, especially since I've never been very enthusiastic about Spyder III Pro. If you would have to spend $250 then you probably should buy the monitor alone and try calibrating it with your existing setup. You can always add SpectraView later.

Of course on the same theory you could forget SpectraView, try your existing calibration software, and maybe save $100. But to me it was worth $100 to know from all the research I did that calibration was going to be a snap if I had SpectraView vs the uncertainly of using the monitor with a 3rd party program. And not having had a lot of success with Spyder III Pro and my previous Dell monitor made it that much easier.

[tlitody]

I was thinking that a monitor with a contrast ratio of 500:1 would be more than enough for colour calibrating for printing. I this correct or are the higher contrast monitors better or worse?

[Brian Ellis]

I was thinking that a monitor with a contrast ratio of 500:1 would be more than enough for colour calibrating for printing. I this correct or are the higher contrast monitors better or worse?

I think that's correct. I've never measured myself but I've read that the biggest contract range you'll get on paper is about 400:1, in which case you wouldn't need any more than that to calibrate your monitor.

[Ken Lee]

I was thinking that a monitor with a contrast ratio of 500:1 would be more than enough for colour calibrating for printing. I this correct or are the higher contrast monitors better or worse?

Bright and contrasty LCD monitors are great consumer products for surfing the web, reading email, and playing video games in brightly lit rooms - but they are troublesome for editing fine art images which are eventually sent to a printer.

Paper and ink provide a comparatively modest contrast ratio, and a very narrow color gamut compared even to sRGB, never mind Adobe RGB or others. Good calibration software like ColorEyes Display Pro lets you turn down the brightness as part of the calibration. Photoshop soft-proofing lets you visualize the printed image, in part by simulating the low contrast of paper-white and paper-black. Photoshop also holds back the colors for you, and lets you spot out-of-gamut colors with another tool.

Much of what these tools do, is circumvent the brightness, contrast, and saturation of consumer-grade LCD monitors. I'm not suggesting that everyone needs a $2000 monitor (I don't have one) - just that you need to know what you're doing, or you will waste a lot of money in paper and ink. I have.

You'll appreciate these articles:

Are Your Prints Too Dark ? The Cause, And The Cure on the Shutterbug web site

My Printer is Too Dark on the Chromix Color Wiki

Here's how the article starts: "First off, I have a confession to make. The real title of this article is "My Monitor is Too Bright"."

[tlitody]

I think that's correct. I've never measured myself but I've read that the biggest contract range you'll get on paper is about 400:1, in which case you wouldn't need any more than that to calibrate your monitor.

512:1 is 10 stops so given that paper is only capable of 7 or 8 stops then if contrast range is all that mattered, then you would be looking at 128:1 but I don't think its quite that simple.

[tlitody]

You'll appreciate these articles:

Are Your Prints Too Dark ? The Cause, And The Cure on the Shutterbug web site

My Printer is Too Dark on the Chromix Color Wiki

Here's how the article starts: "First off, I have a confession to make. The real title of this article is "My Monitor is Too Bright"."

Thanks, I'll read those.