Toronto Photography Meetup Group

I have a little bit of a dilemma at hand. I have been thinking hard and long about purchase a top of the line 27" iMac with a i7 processor to replace my 4 year old Macbook Pro.
My other thought is to purchase a high end monitor (NEC LCD2690W2-BK-SV 26" WS Display Solutions)
http://www.vistek.ca/store/DisplayLCDMonitors/244120/nec-lcd2690w2bksv-26-ws-display-solutions.aspx
I will be using this equipment for mainly graphic design and photography work. I'm currently using my Macbook Pro which is docked to a 19" LG monitor.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

IMHO, unless you have specific and stringent requirements (in which case you probably would not be posting in here anyway), spending a ton of money on an expensive monitor is probably not the best way to go. A hardware colour calibrator with a cheaper (but still good) monitor beats no calibrator with a high-end monitor. Consider the HP LP2475w instead of the NEC, and that will save you about $900 on the monitor pricing alone. If you don't have a colour calibrator, budget about $300 for one.

I am in the same exact boat!

4 year old MBP and a 19" LG Monitor!!!

I currently own a i1display2.
Despite numerous calibration attempts the monitor always appears to blue.
I definitely don't need such an expensive monitor, but I'm trying to think which would be the vest investment in the long run.

Now that's just weird!!!

I don't know what sort of LG monitor that you have. But from my experience, unless you get in IPS type display, then you are going to be disappointed with the colours that you get off the monitor.

A fast way to check you monitor out is to pull up a paint program and fill the whole screen with magenta. Then move you head around while looking at the screen. If it changes colour then you are going to have a problem.

My old Samsung 17" monitor was the pits. Yes it's a good 6-7 years old, but uses the same TN technology that is used in the majority of the LCD displays out there today.

I have just added a second monitor to my collection, and now use dual screen. In the US, everyone is gaga about the Dell Ultrasharp 2209wa. Seems there was a deal down south that you could get one for $230 shipped. Never had so much luck up here, so I ended getting the NEC EA231WMi. It was slightly cheeper than the Dell cost in Canada. You do have to go through some hoops to disable the energy star functions to stop it from auto adjusting the brightness and contrast in the name of energy savings. It cost my about $400 for the unit with taxes from Canada Computers. Far lower than the NEC the OP posted from Vistek.

Add in a proper Spyder3 pro and you have a wonderful match. It's can do 1920x1080 with 0.265dot pitch.

If you want to save some money, then this is a very viable option to look into.


That said, the i7 mac is a pretty kick-ass machine if you need that power under to hood. I don't know if you are finding that your MacBook pro is slugish, or just the screen is not up to snuff.

Matt.
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My Flickr - Canon EOS 50D | Canon EFs 18-200mm IS f3.5-5.6 kit lens | Canon EF 50mm f1.4 | Canon 430 EX II
Post Production: AMD Phenon II X4 - 8gb Ram, Win7-64, NEC EA231WMi | Adobe Photoshop CS4 NAPP member

I bought the Dell 2209WA last summer for $279 from here: http://www.shoprbc.com/ca/shop/product_ ... ?pid=55661

Pretty much got it the next day.

I found that a pretty quick test for LCD screens can be found here:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

What software are you using for the calibration? The one that came with the puck, i1Match? Try downloading a free trial version of either ColorEyes Display or basICColor Display (Google both of them) and see if they produce better results for you. The version of i1Match I used produced a magenta tint in the highlights. Neither CED nor basICColor had that problem. They both work with a variety of third-party colorimeters, include the i1 Display2.

I will have to give that a shot. Thanks for the suggestion.
I'm using the bundled i1Match Software at the moment.
After using my sisters laptop with a glossy screen I have removed getting an iMac from the equation. Now it's just a matter of deciding if I want to purchase a top of the line monitor or make do with a cheaper monitor. I was talking with a friend the other day and he was telling me how the cheaper monitors use a different screen which is why they are only able to achieve something like %65 of the colour spectrum in comparison to the high end monitors that can achieve around %97 if not even more.

I ended up picking up at NEC MultiSync EA231WMifrom Canada Computers for $420. It was the cheapest, but decent quality IPS panel monitor I could find.
I calibrated it using my i1display2 and I managed to get quite good results which you can see bellow.
One thing I found rather odd was that all of the monitors settings are done in different increments.

For example...
Contrast 3% increments
RGB 0.5% increments
Brightness 1% increments

Despite that I'm quite happy with my monitor choice, although my eyes are having a bit of difficulty adjusting to it.

One of the features I like about CED and basICColor (and that i1Match lacks) is the profile validation step. The software will display several colour patches and measure how close they appear on your monitor to the actual colours. You'll never get absolute perfection in the real world, but the software can tell you if things are within acceptable limits. For example, here are the results from my Dell 30" monitor:



The smaller the ΔE value, the better. A difference of under 1.0 is generally not perceptible by the human eye. Values of 1.0 to 3.0 are visible, but "close enough" for most purposes. Values above 3.0 need to be addressed.

When I was looking at monitor reviews quite a few websites were using the software you listed to calibrate the machines.
I have come across one issue with my new monitor. I only have two options for refresh rates, 50 or 60 and I find that 60 is to slow. Any idea if there is any work around to increase the refresh rate?

Slow in what way? Ghosting? Response time? Refresh rate on LCD panels is almost certainly never an issue. Your old LG monitor was likely set to 60 Hz as well. It's not like a CRT where too low of a refresh rate can cause flicker.

I'm noticing some flickering when there are large areas of solid colours present.
Odds are it's due to the 14ms response time. My eyes are still use to the 2ms response time of my old LG.

If you are getting a flicker, then it's most likely other light sources in your room. Are you using a compact florecent bulb? Those are the bane of my existance, and I try not to use them whenever possible. They do give off a bad flicker.

Matt.

I never thought of that.
I will have to turn off all the lights in my room and see if the problem persists.

No, LCD response time has nothing to do with that either. That measures how quickly the liquid crystal can change state from opaque to transparent. It only comes into play when you're dealing with fast motion (like in games). If you're staring at a patch of solid colour, it won't matter. Also, different companies measure response times different. Some do black-to-black, others do grey-to-grey, and they typically only publish the best results. So you can't compare "2 ms" with "14 ms" without more information.

I just talked with NEC tech support and they think it may be due to either the DVI cord or possibly the limitations of the video card in my macbook pro.
FML!

After numerous calibration attempts I'm managing to get the desired colour temperature to 6500k on the dot not problem. As well as get the Gamma to 2.2, but when it comes to the Luminance it's all over the map. At times I have had the contrast set to 100% and the luminance is still only at 118(desired luminance is 120).

The other thing that can cause the colour to constantly change on this monitor is the energy saving measures. You need to over-ride them so that it's not constantly sensing the light level in the room and changing the settings on you.

Make sure that you eco mode is set to off. Also that you auto brighness is set to off and the DV mode is set to standard.

Matt.

Check, check, and check.
I made sure to turn off all of the energy saving settings as soon as I purchased the monitor.

ooo im in a similar boat! 1st gen unibody mbp on a 22" dell e-ips monitor!

Looks like I'm going to try and return the monitor. It's causing major strain on my eyes and there doesn't appear to be anything I can do about it.. Now the only issue is that the store only takes returns if the product is "defective"..

this could be easily arranged.

LOL.. What are you thinking?

nothing. Not in the habit

any decent 22" IPS monitors out there, i'm not sure i want to go up to 24" , sorry to tack onto this but others might be looking for suggestions too.

No worries.
If it wasn't for the fact that I'm having eye strain on the 23" NEC monitor I picked up I would have no problem suggesting it to you. After all it got some amazing reviews.

Perhaps I'm a bit late on this thread, but a good friend is in the publishing business (and is also a photographer)- he uses a Lacie 321 and is extremely happy with it. It's an amazing monitor- the most beautiful monitor I've ever seen. It's expensive and has been around a few years, but I would definitely check out the line if I was looking for a high end monitor.