I’m a keen advocate of colour management. For photographers, designers and digital artists calibrating and profiling your monitor is only one part of the colour management jigsaw. Without covering topics such as print profiling this article addresses the importance of having a monitor that is fit for purpose. I will outline a check-list for assessing monitors. My aim is to give you confidence when asking further questions of sales staff. For more information about colour management please review my articles on colour management written for the British Journal Of Photography in 2009 or inquire about my colour management training.

 

Calibrating your monitor is essential to make the most of your screen, but it can never give a display a better colour range or greater subtly of contrast. A good quality monitor as vital tool.

 

I recommend you visit the online Monitor Showroom at Colour Confidence. They offer a wide range of displays from the world's leading monitor manufacturers to suit a variety of budgets. You could buy equipment directly from them if you wish. I have found them excellent people to deal with, but of course there are other resellers.

 

Colour Confidence assess monitors using a star rating system from three to five stars. Monitors with higher star ratings have larger colour gamut, better shadow detail, better colour and tone consistency across the panel and greater viewing angles; laptop displays are notorious for their narrow angle of view. If you’re sat in front of a laptop nod you head up and down and watch for the colour and tone variation on the display. For colour critical work, I recommend buying in the highest grade monitor you can effort even if this means choosing a smaller monitor; size isn’t everything.

 

I’ve already used terms such as colour gamut, calibrate and profile. Let’s review them now.

Colour Gamut

In the screen grab the area marked in red shows two colour spaces or gamuts. The grey shape is a 3D representation of Adobe RGB and the coloured shape is the colour space or gamut of my MacBookPro. Clearly my laptop only displays a small portion of the full gamut of Adobe RGB.

 

Display manufacturers are working towards monitors that display the full Adobe RGB Gamut. As much as this is desirable, please note that photo-lab printers use colour spaces with a gamut equivalent to sRGB and that sRGB (small space red, green and blue) is the standard for High Definition Video Displays. So for many of us having a monitor with a colour space greater than sRGB is the most important factor. Getting close to full Adobe RGB is then down to budget, but there are other factors to consider.

Calibration & Profiling

Higher end monitors will not only have gamuts close to Adobe RGB they will also offer greater calibration options. You’d expect a monitor to have controls for brightness and contrast; laptops tend to only have control of backlight. In order to optimise a monitor, first it needs to be calibrated then it needs to be profiled.
If you chose to buy a high end display then you would also benefit from buying a pro-level spectrophotometer. There are two types of profiling device, spectrophotometers and colorimeters. Pro-level spectrophotometers such as the X-Rite i1 Pro range can be used to reprogram displays. When running they set the brightness and contrasts of a monitor with greater finesse that can be achieved by the pressing buttons on the display.
Here are two screen grabs of the Curves panel from Photoshop CC.

The use of Photoshop is irrelevant, it meres provides a quick visualisation of Curves which are ubiquitous in digital imaging. The Curves Panel is graph of tone response. Plotted on the x and y axis the ‘curve’ on the left is linear, therefore if you Input 0% black the Output equals 0% black. 0% black is white. The same is true for inputs across the range from 1% to 100% black, what ever value is input the output is a perfect match; in this part of the aim of colour management is revealed. If only the reality of output were so simple. When printing: an artwork might contain an area of 75% grey but the print renders it as 82% grey. By adjusting the tone curve a compensation can be made. Returning to monitor calibration the first step towards optimisation is linearisation; getting input and output values to match as closely as possible. A pro-level spectrophotometer can do more than adjust brightness and contrast it can remap the tone response curve (TRC). The squiggly line on the right hand Curves Panel is an attempt to show how tone compensation can be redrawn via calibration.

 

The cheapest type of monitor calibrator is a colorimeter. Colorimeters can’t been used to reprogram a monitor, but depending on the model of display you buy they might be all you need. Why spend more than you have too.

 

Take heed of the following:

‘Make your monitor look like a print. Do not try to make a print look like your monitor.’

A factory–fresh monitor will be set with a high contrast ratio. Meaning the tone range of a display would be rich, with the brightest whites looking very bright! Let’s consider the brightness of white paper. Paper can only reflect light and unless viewed outside on a sunny day the whiteness of paper will be duller than the brightest white of a factory–fresh monitor. In normal viewing conditions a print will have a white that’s less white than monitor white. Hence, ‘make your monitor look like a print.’ The recommend brightness for a monitor being used for print applications is 120cd/m². That’s 120 candelas per square metre. Candela or candle power is a measure of luminosity. Strictly speaking brightness should be referred to as luminosity,  A selling point for HD TVs is their incredibly high contrast ratios allowing viewing in daylight. For print work, monitors and associated hardware and software should be set in a low light environment. The key point here is that preferring to buy a monitor with a higher brightness value than a competing model with a lesser range isn’t necessary.

 

There’s no need to explain monitor size other than to say that the measurement is taken diagonally across the display area of the monitor. and that the aspect ratio of displays can vary. The resolution of new monitors all exceed 1024 x 768 pixels. Most are at least 1080p which is classed as High Definition (HD); the measure is the vertical height measured in pixels.

 

Having attempted a little jargon busting, that’s apply these insights by looking at the technical specifications of a high end display, a 27in NEC SpectraView. Isolate the key variables and compare this display with other monitors, for example the Eizo ColorEdge CG276 27in LCD Monitor - 4K. Reviewing the technical specifications for these two displays side by side the key criteria are, resolution, contrast ratio, brightness and coverage of the Adobe RGB colour space. Then of course there is price.

 

NEC SpectraView Reference 271W LCD monitor: NECM029

 

Specifications:

    •    Panel Technology: P-IPS

    •    Screen Size [inch/cm]: 27.0 / 68.5

    •    Colour Gamut Size / Coverage: 107% / 98% Adobe RGB

    •    Pixel Pitch [mm]: 0.233

    •    Viewing Angle [°]: 178 horizontal / 178 vertical (typ. at contrast ratio 10:1)

    •    Contrast Ratio: (typ.) 1000:1

    •    Brightness (typ.) [cd/m²]: 300

    •    Response Time (typ.) [ms]: 7 (grey-to-grey), 12 (7 white / black; 5 black / white)

    •    Colours [Billion]: 1.073 (10-bit per colour)

    •    Horizontal Frequency [kHz]: 31.5 - 93.9 and 118.4 (digital)

    •    Vertical Frequency [Hz]: 50.0 - 87.0

    •    Optimum Resolution: 2560 x 1440 at 60 Hz

    •    Supported Resolutions: 1920 x 1080p; 1600 x 1200; 1280 x 1024; 1280 x 960; 1280 x 720p; 1200 x 1920; 1152 x 870; 1152 x 864; 1024 x 768; 832 x 624; 800 x 600; 720 x 576p; 720 x 480p; 720 x 400; 640 x 480p; 640 x 480

    •    Connectors Digital: 1 x DisplayPort; Digital: 2 x DVI-D

    •    Plug & Play: VESA DDC/CI; DDC2B/2Bi; EDID Standard

    •    Adjust Functions: Advanced User Menu; Auto Adjust; Black Level; Brightness; Colour Temperature Control; Contrast; Expansion Mode; Fine Adjust (analog); Hotkeys; Intelligent Power Management; Language Select; Monitor Information; OmniColor™: sRGB and 6-axis-colour-control; On-Screen-Display (OSD) lockout; Sharpness; sRGB; User Menu Safety and Ergonomics CE; TCO 03; TÜV Ergonomics; TÜV GS; C-tick; GEEA/Energy Label; FCC Class B; PCT/Gost; UL/C-UL or CSA; CCC; ISO 9241-307 (pixel failure class I); MPR II/ MPR III; PCBC/B-mark; PSB; RoHS

    •    Power Consumption on Mode [W]: 117 (max.)

    •    Stand-by Mode [W]: 1.4

    •    Power Supply: 100-240 V; 1.64 A/0.65 A; integrated power supply

    •    Ambient Temperature (operating) [°C]: +5 to +35

    •    Ambient Humidity (operating) [%]: 30 to 80

    •    VESA Mounting [mm]: 100 x 100 (4 points); 200 x 100 (5 points)

    •    ErgoDesign®: Height adjustable Stand [mm] 150 (Landscape mode)

    •    Screen Tilt / Swivel [°]: 5 to 30 / 170 to 170

    •    Screen Tilt / Swivel / Rotate [°]: 5 to 30 / 170 to 170

    •    Dimensions (W x H x D) [mm]: 640.4 x 396.2 - 528 x 235.5 (Landscape mode)

    •    Bezel Width [mm]: 20.3

    •    Weight [kg]: 13.6

    •    Cable Management: yes

    •    Kensington security slot: yes

    •    Benefits: Adjustable power LED (colour and brightness); AmbiBright; Auto Black Level; Auto Brightness; Auto Contrast; AutoBright; Backlight Ageing Correction; CableComp with Sync Continuity Detection; DDC/CI compatible; Digital Uniformity Control (ColorComp); Direct Brightness and Contrast; EcoModes; GammaComp (14 bit Look Up Table) and 14 bit Gamma Correction; NaViSet®and NaViSet®Administrator compatible; OmniColor™: sRGB and 6-Axis-Colour-Control; Overdrive; Picture-in-Picture Mode; Quick release Stand and Handle; Rapid Response Technology; RapidMotion; Real Time Clock with Scheduler (Power-On and Power-Off Timer); Self Diagnostics; SpectraView® Profiler Software; TileComp; TileMatrix; TORO™ Design

    •    Windows 7 and 8 compatible

    •    Audio Functions Option: MultiSync® Soundbar 90

    •    Colour Versions: Black Front Bezel, Black Back Cabinet

    •    Shipping Content: Monitor; Power Cable; Signal Cable DisplayPort; Signal Cable DVI-D - DVI-D; CD-ROM; Sales Office List; User Manual; CD-ROM with SpectraView® Profiler Software and manual; Detachable black light protection hood including accessories; SpectraView® Certifier document

    •    Warranty: Warranty Zero Defect Pixel Warranty up to 6 months after date of Purchase; 3 years warranty incl. backlight

Hopefully the specifications make some sense, particularly in the areas previously explained. I’ve chosen to show the specifications for the NEC Monitor; a top notch display and that you can cross check with other displays in the Colour Confidence Monitor Showroom.

 

My aim in writing this article is to give you confidence and insights in to which questions to ask. Checking online is a start but speaking to sales staff and getting hands on with the displays is very important. When choosing my primary display the final decision was based on simply preferring the look of my test images on one monitor more than a similarly priced display of near identical specifications.

 

Feel free to contact me via www.markwoodphotography.com I will post more general information on colour management and digital imaging as time permits.

Colour Confidence can be found at www.colourconfidence.com