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

[Daniel Stone]

I'm going to be in the market for a new monitor sometime in the next 2mo or so.
Its primary use will be for photo editing. Not much else. I'll use my laptop for internet browsing and bs stuff, but this will be a pretty much "dedicated" monitor for a yet-to-be-built PC photoshop/editing system.

Looking at the entire spectrum price-wise. Of course, if I can spend less money, and NOT skimp on quality/endurance, that'd be great. But I firmly believe in the "do it right the first time, cause it costs you money later" mentality in life. Cheap has always left me feeling let down in the end. I can't afford that this time.

So, I'm totally unaware of this stuff technically, so I'm hoping that I can trust you guys who are more tech-savvy than I to throw out some opinions here. 16bit lookup tables? I have not idea what that means. I just wany WYSIWYG from monitor to output(generally c-paper via lightjet).

I'm totally aware of Eizo and their claim to fame, but I'm not brand-oriented here. Quality of the display, a long-life and ease of use is my goal. Calibration is another thing I'll need to learn. Guess I've been lucky up until now :eek:

thx,
Dan

EDIT:
prefer 24" and up displays size-wise.
I can probably get a 2nd, much cheaper/bargain panel to use with layers and palettes, etc.. One that won't require super-duper technical color/density quality like this one will. This will be for editing the picture at-hand.

[Tin Can]

I use Asus ProArt PA248Q 24" LED LCD Monitor

Now everybody can tell you how it's crap and tell how to spend way more money.

I'm done.

[Preston]

Daniel,

Take a look at the NEC Multisync PA-series monitors. For some of them you can purchase the monitor and the SpectraView calibration system as a bundle. My Multisync P-221w has over 10K hours and it looks as good as the day I got it, and it calibrates nicely with SpectraView.

Dell also has some very nice monitors for color-critical work, so these would be worth researching, as well. Perhaps a Dell user could add more for you here.

Actually, I've read some reviews of later model Asus screens, and I'd hardly call them 'crap'.

With any monitor, you'll want to look at the panel type (IPS being the highest quality--but most expensive). My NEC uses a PVA panel, and I have no complaints at all. You should also look at the color gamut rating, either as a percentage of Adobe RGB, or NTSC: Higher is better, especially color work. Most monitor vendors hype the very contrast ratios, which are fine for games or watching movies, but are way too high for photo work; you'll be calibrating at a much lower contrast ratio and brightness. Some folks like glossy screens, but I find the glare objectionable. My NEC and my laptop screens are both matte, and are much easier on the eyes. That's a personal preference thing, anyway.

I know I haven't given you anything real specific in terms of a make and model, but I hope this info will be helpful in your search. Happy hunting!

--P

[polyglot]

Things to consider:
- absolutely don't buy a TN panel for photo work (gamut too small, effectively uncalibratable due to viewing-angle variations)
- tftcentral.co.uk has a panel database that allows you to check the technology from a model number
- secondhand high-quality products are a good option, e.g. any of the 30" 2560x1600 IPS panels (Apple, Samsung, HP: same panel in different cases) for less than what you'd pay for equivalent quality at 24" and 1920x1200
- there are new 3840x2160 panels becoming available, e.g. Asus PQ321. I'd be all over that if I wanted something future-proof for editing high res images.

The latter two options need modern video cards: dual-link DVI (nothing to do with dual-head) and DisplayPort, respectively, are the minimum requirements.

Don't forget that you can usually rotate monitors to portrait orientation if you more-often shoot that way.

[Daniel Stone]

Polyglot,
What's a "TN" panel referring to?

Thank you Preston, I'll have a look at your recommendations. Your info is very helpful :)

-Dan

[polyglot]

Twisted Nematic. All the cheap monitors boasting ridiculously fast response times but smaller viewing angles are TN.

For example if you search for my work monitor (Samsung 2443) here (http://tftcentral.co.uk/), it says '24"WS Samsung TN Film (LTM240CT04)'. Disgusting monitor.

Conversely if you search for LP3065, it says '30"WS LG.Display S-IPS (LM300WQ3-STA1)', which is a lovely beast - note the S-IPS bit. You want IPS or PVA/MVA, never TN. Or IGZO (meant to be at least as good as IPS, colour-wise) if you're buying one of the new high-pixel-density monitors.

[pherold]

In the way of education, there are a number of reviews in the ColorWiki that cover high end NEC's, Eizo's and the like. The ones that I wrote talk about the things you want in a good display from the point of view of a photographer/printer. Some of these reviews are rather dated now, but just reading through them will give you an idea of the things to look for (& look out for!), why you'd want a certain feature, that sort of thing.
http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/Category:Reviews

[bob carnie]

I have used a Lacie 526 27 inch screen with a second cheapo monitor for pallettes and Lightroom for years now with great success.

Understanding of the info numbers is a very important issue in my world

I no longer calibrate or make profiles ,,, anyone want an Eye one Pro ??

I have found that in each region of the world there are brilliant techs who are much better at it and we hire them to make our profiles
and each year check our monitors .
Our local guy is Angus Paddy, he is very good.

[Tin Can]

Ah, the voice of reason.

Good idea!



I have used a Lacie 526 27 inch screen with a second cheapo monitor for pallettes and Lightroom for years now with great success.

Understanding of the info numbers is a very important issue in my world

I no longer calibrate or make profiles ,,, anyone want an Eye one Pro ??

I have found that in each region of the world there are brilliant techs who are much better at it and we hire them to make our profiles
and each year check our monitors .
Our local guy is Angus Paddy, he is very good.

[Bruce Watson]

I'm going to be in the market for a new monitor sometime in the next 2mo or so. Its primary use will be for photo editing. Not much else.

For photo editing, to get close to WYSIWYG, look at the NEC spectraview monitors (IIRC, their PA series), and the EIZOs. These monitors let you calibrate the actual hardware itself, which has some interesting advantages.

Below that, you might look for any decent monitor that you can calibrate with a ColorMunki (http://xritephoto.com/ph_product_overview.aspx?id=1115) or other "puck". The disadvantage here is the calibration is in software (LUTs). As your monitor gets older, it may not be able to obtain sufficient brightness. Or it may. But that's my point.

As you go down the list toward ever cheaper monitors, you get into all kinds of artifacts that interfere with photo editing, especially uneven backlighting, both uneven levels, and uneven color. Makes WYSIWYG almost impossible.

All that stuff is why the NECs and the EIZOs stay near the top of the recommended list year over year. Just sayin'.

[Daniel Stone]

Hey Everyone,

thank you for the assistance on this. Sorry for not chiming in more, I've been busy with "preppin" and getting things situated for my new pad(aka apt!). Moving on 7/7, it's local to where I am now, but still an ordeal. Especially since I plan on making/constructing a lot of my own furniture(see "organic/natural bedding options"(give or take) thread I started in the lounge for more info on that)...

back to monitors.
seems that a lot of folks like the PA271W-bk-sv, the one that comes w/ the spectraview software(and dongle/puck, whatchamacallit?)
I'm a total novice on all this stuff, but I'm a quick learner. Maybe someone local can help me out with the whole "calibrating" thing... That might be some time down the road, once I've had time to build my new peecee(ya, would prefer a mac pro(NOT the new trashcan one ;)!), but budget/needs-wise, a windoze machine should more than suffice.

If I need to BUY something, I prefer to know that it'll last a LONG time. With electronics/computers, I'd love to get AT LEAST 5yrs out of a computer(tower), monitors w/ average of 500hrs use/yr, I'd like to get 5yrs @ minimum as well. So not a "power user" per se, but I want to have full knowledge that my money isn't going to waste, so to speak.

A kind LFF member sent me a recommendation of using (2) separate panels. One set for aRGB, and the other set for sRGB. That way, if I'm preparing something for web/small print output, I can make sure that things look good there. I like that recommendation. The sRGB monitor can double as an "everyday" monitor as well, if need be.

was at a friends the other day, and he had one of the 30" mac monitors, boy that size screen is gorgeous! BIG, but I can see why it's a nice thing to have on the desk. But a 27" 16:10 ratio is nice too, and a little bit more friendly size-wise to a smaller room/office space.


decisions decisions, but I feel that the rec of (2) monitors for separate colorspaces is a good one, and will be one I'll be going with.
they(the gentleman that PM'd me) recommended a few brands, so I'll look into them.


Eizo's have the name, but it seems other mfg's have been biting at their heels with new tech, led's and all that.
Power savings are a nice bonus, but longevity and overall stability(and not needing to re-cal every week, or even month) would be grand, and big savings time-wise.

-Dan

[Greg Miller]

A kind LFF member sent me a recommendation of using (2) separate panels. One set for aRGB, and the other set for sRGB. That way, if I'm preparing something for web/small print output, I can make sure that things look good there. I like that recommendation. The sRGB monitor can double as an "everyday" monitor as well, if need be.

This makes no sense to me. A properly calibrated and profiled monitor simply displays colors as accurately as possible (color space independent). What you describe would mean that a monitor set for sRGB would accurately display colors within the sRGB color space and then clip out of gamut colors depending on a rendering intent (perceptual, relative colorimetric, saturation,...). I don't think that is easily accomplished, and I'm not sure why you would want to do it. There are many output media, such as printing where that won't help you a bit. Just do softproofing before you output your image to a specific media.

If anything I would like 2 sets of monitors, one calibrated for web display and another for printing. Both would be calibrated and profiled exactly the same except for luminosity, where the printing monitor would be much lower luminosity than the web monitor.

[Daniel Stone]

....
If anything I would like 2 sets of monitors, one calibrated for web display and another for printing. Both would be calibrated and profiled exactly the same except for luminosity, where the printing monitor would be much lower luminosity than the web monitor.

I believe this is what was originally meant. I'll double check(or if they see this, maybe they can message me).
one for web/srgb output, one for aRGB/print output(or whatever target is intended)
the sRGB monitor would be a lower-grade, cheaper one. not "bargain basement", but not an equal monitor quality-wise, more of a "lower, middle of the road" pricing one.

thx,
Dan

[Greg Miller]

I believe this is what was originally meant. I'll double check(or if they see this, maybe they can message me).
one for web/srgb output, one for aRGB/print output(or whatever target is intended)
the sRGB monitor would be a lower-grade, cheaper one. not "bargain basement", but not an equal monitor quality-wise, more of a "lower, middle of the road" pricing one.

thx,
Dan

I'm thinking I would want good quality monitors for both scenarios. Accurate colors are accurate colors.

[Leszek Vogt]

Maybe Kirk will chime in...he just bought couple of Dell monitors that were not very expensive. I could use a nice monitor (27" or larger), but don't need it...and will likely get one by the end of the year. My Spyder3 puck keeps things pretty accurate. I'd rather get some nice lens/es vs getting Eizo...though I heard good things about it.

Les

[Tin Can]

I see most people use 2 monitors, so do I, matching is great and a third for video/TV.

Peripherals drive me crazy.

2 scanners
1 real printer
1 MFC Fax printer
2 external Hard Drives
Card reader
MAC Superdrive and a PC one, since you need both
LAN and WIFI
USB chargers for mobiles

I'm sure I forgot something

[Daniel Stone]

well this would be my "system" at home for computers:

-dual 6-core Windoze machine (ya, 12 cores, want to have a future-proof system)
-CS6 photoshop/lightroom only
-2 monitors(as mentioned before, one for critical aRGB editing, the other for sRGB/web/mundane stuff)
-(eventually) an external storage solution, like a drobo or ethernet-link'd drive, plus online backup for critical backup of raw scans, and finally-edited files.
-late 2008 MBP(ya, this will be my web-searching machine, and other "run of the mill" stuff until I can afford to get a newer one, no rush)
-other "smalls/misc" such as card readers, cords, etc...

too much rubbish to run these machines, but I feel no need to try and stay "current" with my computer stuff, since I use 95% film for all my shooting. And the current crop of intel chips are more than fast enough for my needs.

-Dan

[Greg Miller]

Sorry to be a pain about your monitor set-up, but I just don't see what you describe working as intended. With Windows7, a software application can only have color management on the primary monitor. Why would you do any image editing, even for mundane stuff, on the secondary monitor? And you don't profile for a fixed color space such as aRGB. You profile the monitor. Period. Independent of any fixed color space. The monitor is either profiled, or it is not. The profile that is generated is for that specific monitor and is not related to any fixed color space such as sRGB, aRGB, PropPhoto RGB,...

Assuming a decent i7 or XEON processor, I'm also not sure how much you will benefit from 12 cores. Photoshop is more RAM intensive than processor intensive, especially for LF. For my money, I would invest in more RAM until it was maxed out to the constraints of the motherboard. Then I might go with an SSD drive for the Photoshop swap file. Only then would I add a 2nd processor.

[Greg Miller]

As a side note, having dual monitors for Photoshop is a huge plus. Use the big profiled monitor for the image being edited. Then a 2nd monitor to hold all the palettes. When I teach or give presentations on a projector/laptop, it kills me to have only one monitor. There's absolutely no going back to a single monitor for hard core image editing.

[Daniel Stone]

Sorry to be a pain about your monitor set-up, but I just don't see what you describe working as intended. With Windows7, a software application can only have color management on the primary monitor. Why would you do any image editing, even for mundane stuff, on the secondary monitor? And you don't profile for a fixed color space such as aRGB. You profile the monitor. Period. Independent of any fixed color space. The monitor is either profiled, or it is not. The profile that is generated is for that specific monitor and is not related to any fixed color space such as sRGB, aRGB, PropPhoto RGB,...

Assuming a decent i7 or XEON processor, I'm also not sure how much you will benefit from 12 cores. Photoshop is more RAM intensive than processor intensive, especially for LF. For my money, I would invest in more RAM until it was maxed out to the constraints of the motherboard. Then I might go with an SSD drive for the Photoshop swap file. Only then would I add a 2nd processor.

Ok Greg,
You're smarter on the computer stuff than I am, but it seems that there is soooooooo much b.s. flying around the internet, I can't figure out what's what ;)! What's new, that's the internet....
With CS6, it looks like they're making it more GPU intensive? So I'll need to make sure the GPU(s) are fast enough to be somewhat "future proof"? Guess there's not much to future proof when I'm continuing to shoot LF and drum scan it, so it's not like I'm getting more megapixels or anything ;).

So, your recommendation(if you have one): Intel i7 6-core or these new AMD 8-core chips that are out?
this is going OT, but since I was the one that started the thread, I guess I can take it that way :D!

this is what I was thinking part-wise:
AT LEAST 6-core chip, intel or amd(they have an 8-core now?)
AT LEAST 24gb(preferably 32gb) of paired ram, fastest/most stable available in my budget range
one high end gpu, or two mid/upper range running in tandem. enough to drive two monitors(one for pallets/windows, the other "calibrated" monitor for the main image)
(1) 128gb ssd (use as the "c/boot drive")
(2) 128gb ssd as the "scratch" disk in RAID 1(striped) *will not be used for storage, just for editing purposes* >>>is this a good application for raid?<<<
(2) 7200rpm 2TB drives in RAID 1(mirrored) for redunancy *mid-›long term storage*

online backup(3rd copy) *added soon after, when budget allows*
external ethernet backup(on site): 4TB(4x2TB, in raid 1) *added later*

(2) monitors, one "whatever" monitor for pallets/web/misc, and the other for editing.

[Brian Ellis]

I've had the NEC P221w that Preston discusses for about 3-4 years and second everything he said. Very nice monitor, easy to calibrate with the dedicated software, very reasonable price, etc. etc. NEC makes more expensive monitors and I seriously considered a couple of those but finally concluded that the features that made them different and presumably better in some ways than the P221w weren't features that seemed all that important for editing photographs.

The only thing I'd change if I could is the screen size. I went from a 24" Dell to the 21" NEC (I think they're now 22") and at first it bothered me but after a few days I got used to it and seldom think about it any more.

[Tin Can]

A comment on size, I wear glasses, I need to move my head to see many things, too big a monitor is not better for me. YMMV

Also consider viewing distance, just like a print, there are ideal viewing distances.


I've had the NEC P221w that Preston discusses for about 3-4 years and second everything he said. Very nice monitor, easy to calibrate with the dedicated software, very reasonable price, etc. etc. NEC makes more expensive monitors and I seriously considered a couple of those but finally concluded that the features that made them different and presumably better in some ways than the P221w weren't features that seemed all that important for editing photographs.

The only thing I'd change if I could is the screen size. I went from a 24" Dell to the 21" NEC (I think they're now 22") and at first it bothered me but after a few days I got used to it and seldom think about it any more.

[Kirk Gittings]

Maybe Kirk will chime in...he just bought couple of Dell monitors that were not very expensive. I could use a nice monitor (27" or larger), but don't need it...and will likely get one by the end of the year. My Spyder3 puck keeps things pretty accurate. I'd rather get some nice lens/es vs getting Eizo...though I heard good things about it.

Les

The two Dells-UltraSharp U2412M 24"-I recently got cheap are good monitors for the money, BUT I had to return one it just wouldn't calibrate well. That might be a problem for a novice-how would you know the monitor was bad? The calibration software didn't scream "this monitor sucks". I only knew it because it calibrated far differently than the other new Dell and the Lacie I was replacing (I wasn't replacing the Lacie because of calibration issues but something loose inside-the monitor would cut out and I would have to whack it on the side to get it to come back)). The third Dell was fine-2 out of three ok? Is that the norm these days? These Dells are better than the Lacie 319 by a long shot.

[Tin Can]

I love the fact we can still fix things by hitting them, loose connections and corroded tube pins were the bane of an earlier time.

Most of us older folks regularly hit the TV, cranked on the channel dial and wiggled antennas.

Dropping cell phones in toilets is all the kids have these days...




The two Dells-UltraSharp U2412M 24"-I recently got cheap are good monitors for the money, BUT I had to return one it just wouldn't calibrate well. That might be a problem for a novice-how would you know the monitor was bad? The calibration software didn't scream "this monitor sucks". I only knew it because it calibrated far differently than the other new Dell and the Lacie I was replacing (I wasn't replacing the Lacie because of calibration issues but something loose inside-the monitor would cut out and I would have to whack it on the side to get it to come back)). The third Dell was fine-2 out of three ok? Is that the norm these days? These Dells are better than the Lacie 319 by a long shot.

[Daniel Stone]

....

Dropping cell phones in toilets is all the kids have these days...

Well I'm 25, so I don't know if I would be classified as a ”kid” anymore ;)
I have to occasionally give the dash a tap or two to get both speakers to work, but maybe that's what you get for driving a 1996 BMW ;)?

Car drives great(318ti, 5spd manual), but need to get the speakers issue worked out sometime soon...

[Greg Miller]

Ok Greg,
You're smarter on the computer stuff than I am, but it seems that there is soooooooo much b.s. flying around the internet, I can't figure out what's what ;)! What's new, that's the internet....
With CS6, it looks like they're making it more GPU intensive? So I'll need to make sure the GPU(s) are fast enough to be somewhat "future proof"? Guess there's not much to future proof when I'm continuing to shoot LF and drum scan it, so it's not like I'm getting more megapixels or anything ;).

So, your recommendation(if you have one): Intel i7 6-core or these new AMD 8-core chips that are out?
this is going OT, but since I was the one that started the thread, I guess I can take it that way :D!

this is what I was thinking part-wise:
AT LEAST 6-core chip, intel or amd(they have an 8-core now?)
AT LEAST 24gb(preferably 32gb) of paired ram, fastest/most stable available in my budget range
one high end gpu, or two mid/upper range running in tandem. enough to drive two monitors(one for pallets/windows, the other "calibrated" monitor for the main image)
(1) 128gb ssd (use as the "c/boot drive")
(2) 128gb ssd as the "scratch" disk in RAID 1(striped) *will not be used for storage, just for editing purposes* >>>is this a good application for raid?<<<
(2) 7200rpm 2TB drives in RAID 1(mirrored) for redunancy *mid-›long term storage*

online backup(3rd copy) *added soon after, when budget allows*
external ethernet backup(on site): 4TB(4x2TB, in raid 1) *added later*

(2) monitors, one "whatever" monitor for pallets/web/misc, and the other for editing.

Multiple GPU's won;t help. You just need one. Any current video card will do the job (Photoshop does not place that much demand on the video card - only for brushing, zooming, panning,...), but for optimal results get a NVIDIA Quadro video card. I would go with one 256 GB SSD drive. Put the OS. Photoshop, and Photoshop swap file on it and put data on a separate SATA drive. It used to be a good idea to separate the OS and Photoshop swap file on separate physical drives but it isn't really necessary with SSD technology.

Rather than going 4x2TB in RAID1, go 4x2TB in RAID 5 - you gain an extra 2TB if usable space that way.

[bob carnie]

Regarding Glasses

I had to have prescriptions made for screen distance, It has changed my experience in front of Monitors.

In Dan's case he probably does not need them, but unfortunately its a given that the eyes will go , then all the other body parts, its just a matter of time.


A comment on size, I wear glasses, I need to move my head to see many things, too big a monitor is not better for me. YMMV

Also consider viewing distance, just like a print, there are ideal viewing distances.

[Daniel Stone]

Regarding Glasses

I had to have prescriptions made for screen distance, It has changed my experience in front of Monitors.

In Dan's case he probably does not need them, but unfortunately its a given that the eyes will go , then all the other body parts, its just a matter of time.

Bob,

I (used) to need to wear glasses. I hated wearing them, and decided to start looking for more "natural" solutions to the problem. Well I found one, and it's worked great!
Just perform 1-2x/day what's shown in the video below(I do it upon waking up, and just after lunch, takes about 5min each time):


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAF07V_FWe8&list=PLiOw77MIuuR4Sy6w8-vsqdPttWzd9XxtK

Thankfully, I don't find the need to wear glasses anymore. For close-up or distance. Now it's one more thing to NOT forget when leaving the house ;)

-Dan

[Tin Can]

Eye exercises will not cure me.

I have always considered California a foreign country, it is 2000 miles away.

I am starting to really believe it now.

My former work required safety glasses at all times, since I am -6 and -8 diopters, that was an easy requirement.

I am glad you are in good health from your efforts.



Bob,

I (used) to need to wear glasses. I hated wearing them, and decided to start looking for more "natural" solutions to the problem. Well I found one, and it's worked great!
Just perform 1-2x/day what's shown in the video below(I do it upon waking up, and just after lunch, takes about 5min each time):


Thankfully, I don't find the need to wear glasses anymore. For close-up or distance. Now it's one more thing to NOT forget when leaving the house ;)

-Dan

[Darren Kruger]

(2) 128gb ssd as the "scratch" disk in RAID 1(striped) *will not be used for storage, just for editing purposes* >>>is this a good application for raid?<<<


RAID 1 is mirroring; what goes on one drive will be on the other. Good for data protection but I don't think helps with speed. I know there was some discussion online on some of the hardware forums going on about using RAID 0 to speed up performance but there was no consensus. Might be cheaper to get the 256gb drive as someone else suggested in the thread.

Also, since you are thinking of doing raid for your mid-long term storage, start looking at dedicated raid cards. the higher end ones have battery backed write caches which can substantially increase performance.

-Darren

[Greg Miller]

RAID 0 will improve performance via faster read/write speeds by striping the data across multiple hard drives, but it adds a lot of risk. If either drive fails, you lose all of your data. RAID1 provides no speed benefits. It does keep you working in the event of of a single drive failure. The cost of RAID 1 just needs to be balanced against the benefits. No RAID flavors should be confused with a backup. RAID 1 & 5 provide redundancy for many drive failures, but a RAID controller failure, or many other issues like water pipe bursts, lightning strikes, theft,...) can be catastrophic. Especially the inexpensive software RAID (hardware RAID is much better but can still fail).

[Tin Can]

So Raid is not enough, and we are left with double external HD' and the cloud, which can be done very cheaply.

Negatives last a long time...

[Greg Miller]

Cloud isn't very feasible for large image files. Internet speeds (especially upload) for most people are much too slow.

There are pros and cons for both negatives and digital. Negatives can get mold, or misplaced, need to be kept in an archival manner which takes up space, and you really only get one generation1 copy. Digital allows for multiple generation 1 copies stored in multiple places. Opinions vary, but I have terabytes of digital image files and and don't lose any sleep over losing any data. Properly done, it isn't that hard to protect negatives or digital images. They just have their own methods. But I really like knowing that I have my digital files in multiple places and each copy is just as good as the other. I expect PSD, TIFF, JPG,... to be readable for the rest of my life, and if a better format emerges there will be an easy migration path - just copy & convert. And the prices of storage keep getting less per byte every year.

[Preston]

Greg,

I had a system with hardware RAID 0 on two drives. One of the drives failed. Fortunately, I had my user files backed up to an external drive, so I didn't lose them.

I also agree with you about RAID arrays in general. They can be finicky, even with a decent hardware RAID controller. So, I've decided to stay away from RAID and use multiple internal HDD's and an external SATA 6 GB/s drive for archiving and backup. I have no interest in backing up to the 'cloud' for the reason you stated--too slow. Unless one has a T1 connection, or equivalent, it's just not practical for large files.

--P

[polyglot]

For bulk storage, use RAID-5 or (better) RAID-6. With 5 you get N-1 space from N drives, so in my setup for example, I get 6TB from 4x2TB drives. The drawback with RAID-5 is that when a drive fails, you have your data but it's effectively on a huge RAID-0 array with no redundancy. You must insert a fresh drive ASAP and start a rebuild and what people find is that the rebuild process (which must read ALL of the data from ALL of the other drives) can cause a second drive to fail, at which point you're completely stuffed.

If the array is well built (wrt thermal and vibration) then you'll only get drive failures from manufacturing faults, maybe once per 3-4 years off 4 discs (i.e. same odds as a single drive dying once every 10-15 years). However if you're not good with your case construction & layout, you can very very rapidly kill drives with vibration and heat. When one goes, its friends are not far behind and this is where RAID-5 will kill you.

RAID-6 has a hot spare that's always maintained, so rebuilding the array doesn't require thrashing all the other discs for a week. So it both reduces the probability of a second failure during rebuild (reduced stress in rebuilding) and it can survive the second failure. You lose more space though and consume more power.

Do some research on ZFS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS).

RAID is never a substitute for offsite backups. If someone robs your house & takes your PC, they're gonna take all your external hard drives too for sure; same for fire. I keep a couple hard drives in my desk drawer at work and rsync to them every month or so. Internet backup is appealing but the bandwidth isn't really there for most people yet - how are you gonna do a 4TB restoration over the internet?

For your scratch space and SSDs, I wouldn't bother RAIDing them. If you want more speed and don't care for reliability, use RAID-0; that's fine for scratch and your windows partition: keep a clean backup image of it on your RAID-5. But there's probably not a lot of point because you are likely to find that your drives are nearly as fast as your computer's bus and/or SATA controller, so RAID may only give a minimal performance boost.

Don't bother with 12 cores. WTF are you going to do with 12 cores and photo processing? You're not running a web server or password cracker. Likewise with the memory: you need enough of it to hold ALL of your necessary image data without swapping, but adding more memory above that makes absolutely no performance difference whatsoever. Think of RAM as desktop-space for paperwork: if you don't have enough room then you waste 99% of your time walking back & forth to the filing cabinet (HDD) to swap pages over but there's no benefit in having a square kilometre of desk, it won't make your work any easier/faster in the area that you are actually using.

Let's say you have 150MP scans, that's about 1GB per image at 48 bits. Add a whole bunch of layers, maybe you'll use 8GB. You really don't need more than 16GB of RAM for photos. I still have 4GB; it's not optimal but it's fine unless I want to edit multiple images concurrently or do a stitch of more than about half a gigapixel. The other thing is that with swap on SSD, the major cost of swap (latency) is dramatically reduced. Swapping isn't as evil as it used to be though it's still best avoided.

Modern GPUs are designed for gaming. The performance differences are mostly in rendering triangles and textures stupidly fast and running miniature programs for every damn pixel. Mostly you just need one "good enough" for Photoshop (or whatever's) purposes, and enough to get your displays up. That bar is pretty low these days.

[Greg Miller]

We're in agreement on most things. But I have 16GB of RAM on two different Photoshop computers and max out all the time. Wish I had more...

[Daniel Stone]

I currently use(and love using) LF(4x5 and 5x7) and MF(645/6x8) film. Occasionally some 35mm.

I'm in the camp of "scan it great, ONCE" and then archive the film(except for b/w, which I prefer to print via darkroom means anyhow) away for good. Unless an original needs to be re-scanned, this has worked well for me. Generally 4x5 scans(@16bit) come in @ ~1.5gb, and 5x7 I'd say would probably start @ 2gb, at min. I want to know I can pull a 35x49(ish) sized print @300dpi, without the need to upscale in post.

Online backups, yes, are somewhat of a moot point since the apt complex where I'm moving can only have cable currently, or dsl(ick!). I inquired about getting FIOS, but Verizon said it wasn't available since the property owners wanted to not lock their customers into only one service provider. FIOS currently looks like the most ideal option for faster UPLOAD speeds vs spending megabucks for a dedicated T1 connection.

So making consistent backups, and storing a the backup copies off-site(say at my parents house) can work, for now.... No biggie.

I'm not shooting a huge amount currently, but I tend to scan on a quarterly basis. I haven't actually turned my scanner on in over 3mo, I'm just building a log of film to scan, and once I have 50-60 shots(of all format sizes) total, I'll turn it on.

Back to monitors!
Looking at, and hearing about the recommendations of the PA-271W-BK-SV, it's looking like the most cost-effective "bang for your buck" option at present. And being bundled with the dingle-dongle thingamajig, it seems the most logical too.
but that 30" display is sure tempting, but 2 monitors will probably be the better option anyhow(1 for palettes, 1 for critical "image at hand" representation)

-Dan

[polyglot]

The 30" monitors are dirt cheap secondhand! Buy two and put them side-by-side in portrait orientation. Seriously.

[paulr]

A couple of thoughts ...

No need to have monitors with different calibrations. That's just needless complexity. If you're doing work for both print and web, use a wide gamut display, and color manage all your images. Convert all web images to sRGB and they will display as such on your wide gamut display.

The only disadvantage to a wide gamut setup comes up in in Mac OS (at least up to 10.6) while surfing the web or using non-color managed applications, like Office. Untagged images and graphics will get mapped to the wider color space, and will display with psychedelic, velvia-like saturation. This can be annoying.

An antidote wtih my NEC display is calibration presets. I have one set to Adobe RGB for photography, and one set to sRGB for wasting time. But in truth, I never bother shifting into sRGB. The ocasional oversaturated web page just isn't a big deal.


On video cards: makes no difference. Photoshop CS5 and 6 use the gpu for some display animations, but not for any actual image processing. And these animations are blazing fast even on a low-end card, as long as the card is supported. I'd go for the cheapest, most energy efficient supported card that has enough memory for your monitors. Getting something like a Quadro is ludicrous for Photoshop. It will offer no discernible advantages, but will cost a fortune, use a ton of energy, and make your machine run hotter / louder.


Definitely get a second monitor. The size is up to you; the quality is unimportant. You don't have to calibrate. It's for palettes, and anything you want off to the side. Craigslist probably has one for you for under $50.

I second the recommendations for the higher end NECs. They're roughly as good as the Eizos, for a lot less. The spectraview hardware calibration is a thing of beauty and will spoil you.

[Greg Miller]

No need to have monitors with different calibrations. That's just needless complexity. If you're doing work for both print and web, use a wide gamut display, and color manage all your images.

I will disagree here, and I will be speaking to calibration here (not profiling).

There is a common complaint from people printing on inkjet printer that their prints always look to dark. This has to do with a typical monitor's brightness vs. the brightness of a typical viewing room. Modern LCD monitors have a brightness somewhere around 150 cd/m2. Most indoor viewing rooms have a brighness around 80 to 90 cd/m2. So it is natural to have the print look dark when viewing it in a typical room. Take the same print outdoors in bright light and it will look just fine.

So there is a clear benefit to having 2 systems that are calibrated differently. One calibrated for room brightness around 80 to 90 cd/m2 that would be used to prepare for prints to be displayed indoors. The other calibrated for web use at about 150 cd/m2. Both systems should be profiled so they display colors as accurately as possible for their respective calibrations.

[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