Monitor advice needed (mac compatible)

[Susan_NYC]

Hi all - I need monitor advice.  I need something better than the monitor on my powerbook G4 laptop - especially now that I'm going to learn photoshop.

I don't mind putting one of those clunky crt's on my desk in order to get a decent image for decent money.  Of course an lcd is sleeker, but from what I see online, they cost triple what crt's cost.

Do wide-screen monitors have a real advantage over normal width? Is there a big (practical) difference between 21" and 24" etc? (I'm used to 15" which I don't like at all.)

Anything to beware of if I buy a used monitor in order to get more affordable better quality?  

Thanks -
Susan

[jake]

Hi Susan! Welcome to Nelsonfoto.

The one nice thing about a large monitor, especially with Photoshop, is that it allows you to have a lot of things open on your desk top AND viewable at the same time. In Photoshop, this includes the main screen with the images and then the other smaller windows with tools, history, actions, etc. I do most of my adjusting on a little 12" laptop, so many functions are a process of shifting things around in order to get to the thing I want, and then shifting things around to return to my original position. A big monitor lets you keep everything out and open, just as you might on a regular desk. Bigger is better for graphics.

An advantage LCDs have over CRTs (beyond radiation) is flicker. CRTs refresh their images like televisions do. If you have seen a still photograph of a television, you may remember seeing a band or half an image on the television. That's the refresh at work. However because it goes so fast, the effective view is bandless. But you do see the bands & the refresh. If you spend several hours adjusting photographs on a CRT, and then turn out the lights and open your eyes, the dark room will flicker just like the screen did a few minutes ago due to the latency effect in your eye/brain. I eventually found this bothersome (headaches - eyestrain) and switched to an LCD as a result.

Not all LCDs are made the same. I did some serious shopping for one a while back, and the one that was the absolute best in my estimation was the Apple Cinema Display (I was going to get a 20" because the larger ones were outside my budget.) There were other cheaper models by other manufacturers (Viewsonic for example) but the image on the screen & the color control was just not there. Apple really does make some of the best screens out there. I did find screens that matched Apple (LaCie) but they were either just as expensive or more.

I stopped looking at screens when the 24" IMac came out. I need a new desktop computer anyway, so I decided I would just limp along with my IBook until next year when I got a new computer (budgets being budgets) and buy a 24" IMac then. Bigger is better for graphics editing (Photoshop etc.) but your choice should be governed by budget and space on your desk. For me, the Apple 20" Cinema Display met the price ($699) image quality and space (very thin - important for NYC apartments!) requirements I had for a monitor, and I would have bought one, as I said, if the 24" IMac not come out.

Used - you want to be able to plug it in and look at it carefully. Look for dark lines or dark spots by opening a white page in say, a word processing program or something to see if there are any dead pixels (LCD) or banding problems (CRT). If you have an Apple laptop, you may need an adapter to connect the monitor to your laptop's port.

The best way (for me) to check monitors is to put several of your favorite images on a USB flash drive and carry it around as you look at different monitors. Plug it into the computer attached to the monitor and see what the images look like. Or if the monitor is connected to a computer that is also connected to the Internet, check your images on your Flickr page. That will give you some baseline of image rendering that you can use to judge the quality of the monitor for you.

Hope that helps!

[Major Black]

Susan, I'm no expert but, I have read that LCD's are far worse than CRTs when it comes to critical photoshop work. This was the standard belief a few years ago anyway. Not sure how that holds today but my pro lab in LA uses CRT's, 100%.

The lab, who are stickelers for technical accuracy, claim that since my monitor, a Sony Trinitron Multiscan G420 which is over two years old, should be replaced. I really can't afford this kind of accuracy.

I am increasingly concerned about eye health and the safety of peering into a monitor eight plus hours a day. Anyone have any info on this aspect? We need to protect our eyes! It should certainly factor into your decision.

[jake]

LCDs are plenty fine now for graphic work. Most of the profiling/calibrating software, etc. is now made for LCD as well as CRT. LaCie, who used to make some of the best CRT monitors going, now only makes LCDs. A certain part of this is style (imagine that, design people being interested in style!) but also I think because many people are worried about eyestrain from flicker/refresh rates and also because of radiation concerns. I do know that some workplaces won't even allow women who are pregnant to sit in front of CRTs.

But what I should have said is that inexpensive LCD monitors ($200 and under) did not look all that great. Between $200-300, there was a Viewsonic model, the VX2035WM, and a Sony that looked pretty good. But the Apple Cinema Display blew them totally out of the water. Granted it is double the price, but if you are going to spend hours in front of something, it better look lovely.

[Susan_NYC]

Thank you Jake and Major.  I'd been reading monitor stuff on the Internet and  getting  overwhelmed - and you made it all make sense.  I'll get an Apple display - after Christmas - when there may be a bit of a sale...(Getting good equipment makes me feel I have to hurry up and shoot better!)  --Susan

[derevaun]

I agree about the Apple monitors--having worked in a few college graphics labs recently, the'yre the best I've seen. My wife's desk recently was assigned a 24" iMac to sit on it. It is a thing of grace and beauty--you almost forget the rest of the world is there.

[ImageMaker]

An advantage LCDs have over CRTs (beyond radiation) is flicker. CRTs refresh their images like televisions do. If you have seen a still photograph of a television, you may remember seeing a band or half an image on the television. That's the refresh at work. However because it goes so fast, the effective view is bandless. But you do see the bands & the refresh. If you spend several hours adjusting photographs on a CRT, and then turn out the lights and open your eyes, the dark room will flicker just like the screen did a few minutes ago due to the latency effect in your eye/brain. I eventually found this bothersome (headaches - eyestrain) and switched to an LCD as a result.

I'd have to suggest that if you're encountering this, your monitor and video aren't set at optimums.  My CRT scans at 75 Hz -- above the frame rate used by IMAX films because it removes all perceptable flicker and gives a "true motion experience".  I do see flicker after a while if, for some reason, the graphic card gets reset to scan at 60 Hz, but at 75 Hz my eyes are good for more hours than my butt is.

And a CRT has better color control, as well as showing far less image degradation when operating below or above "native" resolution -- my monitor (a Sylvania TF-721, if anyone cares, and now about four years old) has such a fine dot pitch (0.25 mm) that I can't see it as anything but solid colors at my standard desk position, which puts the glass about 18 inches from my eyes.

And I might add that this is on a relatively modest, 17" true-flat monitor that did NOT cost an arm and a leg.

For my money, a CRT is better, if only because I do fairly regularly want/need to operate at different resolutions -- and I've seen what an LCD does at that point (you either get a tiny game window in a wide black border, or horrible artifacts from stretching to fill the screen).

If I traveled with a desktop computer, the answer would be different, of course; this is actually (more or less) possible with an LCD monitor, but beyond consideration with a CRT.