Best monitor for photo editing and viewing - suggestions wanted

[patrickjames]

Kirk if you take a step back and think about it for a second it is clear. 5000ºK is a pretty neutral setting for our eyes (caveats of course) relative to our surroundings and I think it is the best place to start. If you are printing your images, they will almost never be seen under a 6500º light, so why adjust the color according to a screen at that temperature? The difference between 6500º and 3200º is quite large. Granted our eyes adjust to these differences given a few seconds or so, but decisions are made along the way that can compound errors in color, or at least errors relative to intent. This causes a lot of problems when people try to match prints to their screen. A lack of understanding of what is going on contributes to the inability as well. Color needs to be thought of in terms of volume but that is another discussion.

My assumption Kirk for the recommendation is that the operator has a closed loop. If you are dealing with other people (commercially) it is easier to adjust to them than to ask them to adjust to you. Most people handle their profiling well enough these days and 6500º is relatively standard. It isn't like it used to be. I am sure you remember those days.

[Kirk Gittings]

Thanks I get it. My clients you would think would pay attention to profiling their monitors but most don't believe it or not. Also I don't print color-ever.

[Tyler Boley]

I've been going in circles about this for years, for critical color print matching, swinging between 5000 and 6500 and everything in between. Much depends on the environmental light the print is under being compared to the monitor. I suppose if it's a very tightly controlled viewing situation this can be well nailed down, mine is not tightly controlled, maybe semi ...
Right now 5000 is matching my color output here, and that's with using soft proof and checking paper white.
I hope it goes without saying that you really need to just see it on paper at some point for critical decisions. Got issues? Make a print.
Regarding the original question, there are many criteria for evaluating monitor quality, and none can satisfy everyone. Many consumer ratings or reviews will not have the demands of most users here in mind. Be sure and take your advice from those involved in graphics work, primarily for print.
Tyler

[Yardley]

Been reading .. no posts for a time.

In the lithography world, the viewing station at the end of a press is equipped with 5,000 deg K lamps. My Macbeth light box has 5k deg K lamps.

ISO 3664-2009 calls for 5k deg K.
http://www.just-normlicht.de/us/prod...ml?maingroup=1

The guy who does my gallery printing (photo pigment) has a 5k deg K booth in his studio. I don't know how critical this is + or - 500 deg K

[Peter De Smidt]

Excerpt from Real World Color Management by Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy and Fred Bunting:

Target White Point
The white point of the monitor plays an important role for your eye. As described in Chapter 1, your eye judges all colors relative to some neutral baseline that it considers white. The three of us unanimously recommend that you calibrate your monitor to 6500K even though many people think of 5000K as the standard viewing white point in graphic arts. Here's why.

The eye has a tremendous ability to adapt to different white-point environments. However, the eye works best when it's operating in a white point closest to that environment most familiar to it through millions of years of evolution--namely daylight. So the discussion quickly reduces to which of the two most commonly used daylight standards, D50(5000 K correlated color temperature) or D65 (6500K correlated color temperature), is best. ... If you have a D50 viewing booth, this might seem to tip the scales toward setting your monitor to 5000 K so that your monitor and print viewing environment have identical white points. But long experience has told us that this doesn't work the way the theory would seem to predict--see "Monitor-to-print comparisons," in Chapter 9, Evaluating and Editing Profiles.

A second factor is that many uncalibrated CRTs, especially older models, are pretty darned blue, with a color temperature closer to 9300K, though the better current CRTs have a native white point closer to 6500 K. In either case, to move the white point to 5000 K, we have to limit the output of the display's blue channel, lowering the overall brightness and dynamic range. This is why many people (including us)( often find a 5000 K monitor to be a bit too dim, dingy, and ... well ... too darned yellow.

So instead, it's worth remembering the sentence that started off this explanation. The eye has a tremendous ability to adapt to different white-point environments. The eye takes a little bit of time to adjust to a change in brightness, but it has little trouble looking at a color image in a 6500K monitor and then moving to view the same image printed out and mounted in a viewing booth. It's the relationships within the image or page that you're evaluating. As long as you give the eye a good adaption environment, and both environments are of approximately equivalent brightness, then you should have no problems.

If your software has more than just two choices for white point, you have another option--you can perform iterative calibrations to find the white point setting that best approximates a sheet of paper in your viewing booth. Some people in extremely color critical environments, with control overall all of their equipment, including the paper being used, have found this to be useful. We, however, prefer to deal with the color o paper white int he printer profile, and concentrate on matching the brightness of the monitor and the viewing booth.

[paulr]

Interesting, Peter. I'd never read that. Always assumed I just had bad habits.

[8x10 user]

It seems you can convert 5000k viewers to 6500k with a new bulb from Just.

[barnninny]

For something that started off as a buying advice request, this has turned into a really informative thread.

[patrickjames]

Excerpt from Real World Color Management by Bruce Fraser, Chris Murphy and Fred Bunting:
.

Um, when was that book written? Why would you reference something that old?

It is a brave new world in the last 10 years. Ten years ago things were relatively primitive. During the process of getting a CRT to 5000ºK it would get real dim which was a function of the technology (on most CRTs) and would also jack up the color balance. Many CRTs would look yellow. Some would even look green. Some LCD's can't be set to 5000º without compromises in color as well (due to their technology). This makes perfect sense if you understand how the backlights work. LED backlights are a step backward from most CCFLs, but the newer LED backlights are coming into their own. That was discussed earlier in this thread. A good monitor at 5000ºK will show pure color without any biases. It is a beautiful thing.



Kirk, I was scratching my head when you asked that question because I know that you don't print color, and I know you know what you are doing, which is why I added that second paragraph. I have stories, as I am sure you do, of clients that have no clue.....The next time I am in Santa Fe I would love to share them with you over a beverage or two.

[Tyler Boley]

well when I met the dear departed Mr. Fraser, the first thing he said was that if you wanted to monitor to match your prints.. you need to lower your expectations...
I'd certainly respect his input more than most now out there claiming guru status, he was the real deal with little apparent political agenda. YOu should certainly take his advice over mine.
That said I'll take issue with him, all my back and forth has out me back to 5000, and that is using soft proof and paper white. My eye is not making those claimed adaptions looking back and forth that easily when I have a print next to my monitor, and we are trying to edit very specific pastel hues on the monitor to match a resulting print. I just went back and forth on a project with a lot of pastel cyan water. Very slight moves from too green to too blue were easily noticeable on both display and print, this is not the first time I've had subtle color concerns, and making minute moves and a bunch of test prints gets frustrating. If the display more accurately predicts the print, those edits go much smoother.
My viewing light right at the display for the proof, and general light out in the room are 5000. I think the lighting has a lot to do with what color temp your monitor should be..
It's these subtle things that are difficult, the more general look of a print and monitor are easier to deal with, but like he said.. keep expectations reasonable.