The Importance of High-Quality Monitors

What’s the Difference Between a Good Monitor and a Great Monitor?

All modern monitors look okay when they are used to browse the web, check email, and create Word documents. For these applications the difference between a good monitor and a great monitor is hard to tell. However, when using a high-end camera in a color calibrated workflow, the difference can be major.

Monitor Options

Ultimate Solution: Eizo 30″ CG301W LCD Monitor

• Resolution: 2560 x 1600 [2.3 megapixels]
• Contrast: 850:1
• Color Range: 98% Adobe RGB (1998)
• Hardware Calibration
• Calibration Accuracy: 12 bit Look Up Table
• Calibration Stability: Very Stable
• Warranty: 5 years

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High-End Solution: Eizo 24″ CG243W LCD Monitor

• Resolution: 1920 x 1200 [2.3 megapixels]
• Contrast: 850:1
• Color Range: 98% Adobe RGB (1998)
• Hardware Calibration
• Calibration Accuracy: 12 bit Look Up Table
• Calibration Stability: Very Stable
• Warranty: 5 years

Moderate Solution: Eizo 22″ CG223W LCD Monitor

• Resolution: 1680 x 1050 [2.3 megapixels]
• Contrast: 950:1
• Color Range: 95% Adobe RGB (1998)
• Hardware Calibration
• Calibration Accuracy: 12 bit Look Up Table
• Calibration Stability: Very Stable
• Warranty: 5 years

Alternative Ultimate Solution: LaCie 730 30″ LED Monitor

• Resolution: 2560 x 1600 [2.3 megapixels]
• Contrast: 1000:1
• Color Range: 123% Adobe RGB (1998)
• Hardware Calibration
• Calibration Accuracy: 14 bit Look Up Table
• Calibration Stability: Very Stable
• Warranty: 3 years

Alternative High-End Solution: LaCie 724 24″ LED Monitor

• Resolution: 1920 x 1200 [2.3 megapixels]
• Contrast: 1000:1
• Color Range: 123% Adobe RGB (1998)
• Hardware Calibration
• Calibration Accuracy: 14 bit Look Up Table
• Calibration Stability: Very Stable
• Warranty: 3 years

Alternative Moderate Solution: LaCie 526 26″ LCD Monitor

• Resolution: 1920 x 1200 [2.3 megapixels]
• Contrast: 1000:1
• Color Range: 96% Adobe RGB (1998)
• Hardware Calibration
• Calibration Accuracy: 12 bit Look Up Table
• Calibration Stability: Very Stable
• Warranty: 3 years

Optimal Budget Solution: LaCie 324 24″ LCD Monitor

• Resolution: 1920 x 1200 [2.3 megapixels]
• Contrast: 1000:1
• Color Range: 92% Adobe RGB (1998)
• Hardware Calibration
• Calibration Accuracy: 12 bit Look Up Table
• Calibration Stability: Very Stable
• Warranty: 3 years

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Entry-Level Solution: 23″ Apple Cinema Display

• Resolution: 1920 x 1200 [2.3 megapixels]
• Contrast: 700:1
• Color Range: 93% Adobe RGB (1998)
• Software Calibration
• Calibration Accuracy: 8 bit Look Up Table
• Calibration Stability: Moderately Stable
• Warranty: 1 year standard, $100 for 3 year AppleCare warranty

What’s the Difference?

Seeing is Believing

The only window a photographer has to his digital images is the monitor. A monitor that produces poor gray-scales, poor color-gradients, and uneven brightness, along with poor stability and accuracy of color means looking at a digital image through a haze; you can never be sure of what is in the file, versus what is only on the monitor. Otherwise you’ll spend valuable time manipulating images to reduce noise, patterns, uneven-lighting, or inaccurate color which in fact was a result not of a bad file, but of a sub-par monitor.That said, numbers, specs, and technical explanations can’t show you the difference between a decent general purpose monitor (e.g. an Apple monitor) and a world-class monitor designed exclusively for accurate color reproduction. The only way to see the difference is to come to one of our locations and see a demo. The truth is that most photos look very similar on most monitors, but for an image with strong color, large areas of smooth gradation, areas with critical shadow detail, or for workflows that require fast and accurate soft-proofing for print, there is a significant difference. Come and see for yourself; seeing is believing.

Color Gamut (Range of Reproducible Colors)

Many, if not most, high-end photographers using a calibrated color workflow use the Adobe (1998) color space. While there are other useful color spaces, Adobe RGB (1998) provides a very useful benchmark to compare the range of colors/tones various monitors produce. The Eizo 241W can reproduce 96% of the Adobe RGB (1998) color space. As a reference point, average consumer monitors generally reproduce around 75% of Adobe RGB (1998) colors. The range of colors a monitor can produce becomes particularly important when soft proofing an image for output. When using a Phase One digital back, which has a very wide color gamut, the difference between soft proofing on an Eizo and soft proofing on a entry-level monitor might mean the difference between having to toil in front of the computer adjusting an image so the shadows and highly saturated colors are translated correctly into a print, and having an accurate soft-proof before you’ve ever made a print.

Calibration Type: Software or Hardware

Most monitors cannot be calibrated directly. Instead, when a color calibrator is used, the computer’s video card is asked to send different colors to the monitor. For instance, if the monitor is displaying pure reds with a purple-bias, the video card is asked to send anything that should be red as a red with a slight yellow bias, yielding a final result that is very close to pure red. This is called “software calibration”. It works well, but also has limitations. First, anytime software calibration corrects for a color (or tonal range) that has drifted there is a loss in smoothness of the gradation around that color. In the example above, red, purple, and yellow will display correctly after software calibration, but the gradation from yellow to red to purple will become choppier. Second, software calibration does a very poor job with dark shadows and highly saturated colors. An Eizo monitor uses hardware calibration which results in smoother gradations, and dramatically better detail and accuracy in dark shadows and highly saturated colors, especially in cyans, magentas, and yellows.

Calibration Accuracy

When a color or tonal range begins to drift, the hardware or software calibration will choose the best color/tone to replace it with. The table of colors/tones that the calibration has to choose from is called the Color Lookup Table and the more colors in that table, the more accurate the calibration, meaning more precise, consistent colors and smoother gradations.

Calibration Stability

Just like different photographic papers retain accurate color for different lengths of times, so do monitors have varying lengths during which their color is stable. A new monitor may only need a calibration every several weeks, but the older it becomes, the more often it will need to be calibrated, and the less accurate any given calibration will be. Eventually the limits of software calibration will be reached and the monitor will not be usable in a color-calibrated workflow (though it will still be fine for browsing the web). An Eizo monitor will age, but it will do so slower and with more grace than a lower-end monitor. The combination of higher-quality components, different panel technology, and hardware calibration mean that an Eizo monitor will far outlast its lower-end brethren.

Warranty

The warranty on all Eizo monitors is 5 years. The warranty on an Apple monitor is 1 year. Also, given that Eizo is marketed toward professionals and Apple is marketed toward both professionals and consumers, it has been our experience that a warranty repair claim is smoother with Eizo. Just as important as the length of the warranty is what is guaranteed within the warranty. The warranty on an Apple monitor states only that the monitor will turn on. The Eizo warranty states that for five years the monitor will turn on and calibrate to the same standard as on the first day. If you divide the cost of the Eizo over the guaranteed life-span the price is very favorable.