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LCD Screen for Image Editing
An anonymous reader writes "Most image editors will tell you that the colour accuracy on an LCD monitor is still nowhere near as good as a high quality CRT. Although this is generally true, this new screen from NEC is definitely a big step forward for the LCD cause."
If they can pull it off, all the better, but I'm still of firm belief that OLED or color-digital-ink will be the only thing to replace CRT in terms of color sharpness once they're actually useable.
You could probably get a much cheaper, nicer CRT. The market it is aimed at would probably not care about footprint anyway after all.
In 2005 we are expected to have flat (just a little thicker than LCDs) CRT monitors. Since the makers are promising that these monitors will be cheaper than their LCD counterparts, wouldn't saavy buyers just wait until then and get a higher (or equal) quality monitor at the same price?
but are they good enough for gaming yet?
As for graphics, I wonder how LCD technology deals with logarithmic color spaces?
hmm it's already slashdotted
I will argue a point without seeing the article, since it is dead. This screen is still likely much more expensive than a CRT, so unless the desk space you save with the LCD is worth a couple hundred dollars, I am guessing this is not going to appeal to most people.
The people who buy LCD's now do it because they are small, sexy, and save on desk space. The very SMALL minority will be buying an LCD just because it has good colors and refresh rates. Those people do exist (ie gamers and graphic designers and such) but most people are just looking for the slim, sexy design of the LCD, myself included. Code looks just fine on an LCD, I use one at work 9 hours a day, with no trouble at all.
Whats the colour quality like on these
No bullfudging everyone get in line and click that mouse in an orderly fashion in five second increments. The manners of some people sheesh!
... that the CRT is dead. So, most "image editors" don't use CRT:s. They use Apple Cinema Displays.
the colour accuracy on an LCD monitor is still nowhere near as good as a high quality CRT.
/. page after 5 minutes. I'd say the refresh rate really sucks...
I don't know about color, but I've clicked on the link in the blurb and it still shows the
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
...but have you tried looking for a decent CRT these days? Nanao/Eizo, which used to be my favourite monitor manufacturer, has zero models available. Many other manufacturers have at best a limited range.
It might be better there in the US, but here in Japan, it's getting hard to find anything but el-cheapo 15-inch CRTs (for people who can't afford/don't want to spend the money on an LCD) these days.
He means 'definately', no??? Oh /., what's coming next, when even the stories are spell checked now?
s ies
Yours sincerely,
the-one-who-thinks-that-spell-checking-is-for-sis
hmm it's already slashdotted ...!, then someone would have said we bastards!.
No no, you should have said oh my god, we slashdotted
I think there is a much bigger problem with LCD than color accuracy - defective subpixels. In a recent month I had to return three over $1K LCDs (for those who are interetsted: two LaCie Phonot20Vision II and one NEC/Mitsubishi LCD2080UX+). And it doesn't seem even a single manufacturer (not even Apple) is trying to change this; all of them agreed (they even cooked up an ISO standard for this) that some small number of defects is acceptable. Until this nonsense stops LCD will be staying where they are now - consumer electronics.
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:Xn01EiS_IAcJ: www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx%3Fart%3D919+&h l=en
or get yourself a braille display, or use a text-to-speech program.
I remember reading about these wonderful new thin CRTs that used arrays of tiny electron guns and all sorts of gee whiz stuff. Let's see that was... about three years ago? They were just a few months away then...
LCDs are ok, but pretty much useless for graphics apps due to low contrast and washed out color. I'd love to have a thin CRT, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Apple Cinema displays.
Apple is loved by artists all over the place, yet apple doesn't have a CRT anymore, only LCDs.
Are Apple LCDs somehow far far better for color calibration? If not, it seems odd that they would drop CRTs from the menu.
Page 1
NEC SpectraView 1980
Ask any imaging professional or enthusiast about their digital imaging workflow and the words "colour calibration" will undoubtedly crop up in the conversation. However, ask a number of these people to describe exactly what it is that they do and I can pretty much guarantee their methods will all differ in a number of ways, apart from one fundamental goal - the desire to bring all of their imaging hardware and software together under a unified colour-matched umbrella.
Now, how to do this properly has been a long-running and continuing debate that started ever since colour film and colour displays were brought to market. How is colour perceived? Does an output device produce a comparable image to the input device? Does the software accurately handle colour? Does the final image look like the original scene? These are the type of questions that worry users, especially those in the pre-press sector or those fully versed in digital photography or graphic design and animation.
Whether you fall into one of the aforementioned job descriptions or if you simply like to produce your own pictures at home on your printer, there is one component of the digital imaging workflow that is generally regarded as the most important piece of hardware - the monitor. This is the device you use to evaluate those pictures you've captured from your scanner or digital camera and in my opinion it's the first device you should calibrate.
If I tell you the number of times I've been asked the question, "Why do my prints look nothing like the images on my monitor", then you'll understand why I believe monitor calibration to be such an important task. If you can't place any faith in the colours it reproduces there's basically no point in conducting any colour calibration to the rest of the components in your imaging setup.
In the past (and to this day I might add), many monitor manufacturers overlook calibration altogether and basically leave the user to calibrate the monitor themselves whether it be a CRT or LCD. This is why a number of third party companies have stepped in and have produced hardware or software packages that allow you to calibrate your monitor by creating ICC (International Colour Consortium) profiles that are specific to the actual display you are using. These are then employed by the operating system at start-up (Mac OS), or are made available when ICC aware software applications (Photoshop, etc) are fired up. Such examples are Adobe's Gamma utility that comes with the companies Photoshop software or the various photo sensors, colourimeters, and spectral photometers that are available that actually take measurements directly from the monitors screen.
However some monitor manufacturers are fully aware of how important their displays are in the world of image editing, and consequently they've taken the proverbial bull by its horns and seriously entered the colour management market.
One such company is NEC/Mitsubishi that back in September 2004 announced a new range of LCD monitors that are geared towards colour critical applications. All members of this range fall under the company's sub-brand "SpectraView" and the first to market are the 19in SpectraView 1980 which I have here, and the 21in SpectraView 2180. These will be followed by the launch of a 21in LED backlight version (the SpectraView 2180WG) in 2005, which the company claims will have the widest colour gamut in the history of flat panel displays. For now though, let's take a closer look at the SpectraView 1980.
First of all, the SpectraView 1980 is actually an S-IPS (In Plane Switching) TFT MultiSync 1980SXi that has undergone the SpectraView treatment (the aspects of which I'll explain later). Many of our readers will also instantly recognise NEC/Mitsubishi's angular design that we saw in the both the 2080UX+ and the 2180UX models we've reviewed. Personally, I like the overall industrial look of these monitors but I know that some will prefer monitors with smoother lines. Of course, it
Delta E calculations are made on displays where I work such that 1 delta E is the limit of acceptable colour change on a monitor. More than that over the range of Code values and the monitor fails.
... suck.
The BEST LCDs have about a 10 delta E. If you figure 1 Delta E calc is equivelent to 50% of the population seeing a change and 50% of the other 50% guessing (therefore 75% say "Yes, there's a change") then that means LCDs
WHEN they make an LCD that acts as a lambertian light source they will see a change for the better. Until they do this NEC monitor (Don't know if we've tested it yet, to be honest, but I had heard we had some NECs in that were pretty good- and that meant 9 Delta E's compared to the 20 before) is a nice word processor doc, but never ever ever will it be certified for imaging...
I quite like using LCDs and avoid CRTs (even good ones although I wouldn't know) when I can. Now I know that I have recently seen amazing LCDs on notebook computers recently (TOSHIBAs and VAIOs more specifically, but probably not limited to) - they look SHINY. On a parallel with development of photograhies - it seems quite similar to the shiny/mat preferences although in my case I prefer mat photos / shiny LCDs. Any comments?
Are CRTs really more energy-efficient than LCDs? My two ViewSonics use 65 watts of power when on with a moderately bright picture. My powerbook uses at most 35 watts when going full tilt gaming with the CPU and GPU maxed out. (18w when sitting idle, with LCD on full intensity)
By this comparison at least, the LCD looks very much more efficient. The only efficiency issue I see is that the CRT draws less power (relative to itself) when displaying a dark image, whereas the LCD draws about the same power at all times, unless you adjust the backlight intensity,
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I find most LCDs in public libraries/net-cafes are just not good enough for porn, you just need a CRT and theres no way around it, its abit sad to see so many people switching and knowing they will never be able to enjoy a good porno again. Luckely CRTs are cheap and crappier (read: cheaper) net cafes still have them. But having said that, I did have a go on one of those flashy new Apple LCDs and the cleavage looked pretty good, that was until the rude security guard kicked me out of the shop.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The article has the usual misunderstandings about color calibration.
Now, how to do this properly has been a long-running and continuing debate that started ever since colour film and colour displays were brought to market. How is colour perceived? Does an output device produce a comparable image to the input device? Does the software accurately handle colour? Does the final image look like the original scene?
Well, I'm sure photographers, Photoshop jockeys, and consumers like to debate such things over and over again. However, the answers to those questions are well known.
If I tell you the number of times I've been asked the question, "Why do my prints look nothing like the images on my monitor", then you'll understand why I believe monitor calibration to be such an important task.
In general, you cannot make prints look like images on the monitor: they have a different gamut and their appearance depends on illumination and many other factors. Making prints look correct requires a lot of skill and experience and monitor calibration is not sufficient (it's not even necessary, actually, if you know what you are doing).
well i guess it depends from user to user and the type of work they do. if your just into writing your thesis, then LCD is fine but a graphic designer would not be very happy with it, even the newer ones...
I don't know about graphic design all that much. I have 3 friends (that don't know each other) that all work in this field. I have never heard any one of them complain/talk about this topic.
For work a graphic designer has to have the printer in mind. Every printer/printing machine works different and therefore has a slightly different output to the same intput as far as I know. So one has to adjust to the machine e.g. be able to adjust colors on the monitor. So this would be more about being able to adjust colors.
Also this might be about viewing angle since lcds change colors (every slashdot user that has access to a laptop can check this) depending on the viewing angle. This is being worked on. So I imagine this new machine to have more stable colors as the viewing angle changes.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=133290&thresho ld=1&commentsort=3&tid=196&tid=1&mode=thread&cid=1 1130281
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Hmm, the screen reviewed is quite reasonably priced, IMO. Below is a edited and amended copy of a posting i wrote elsewhere.
CRTs require lots more calibration. Geometry just complicates things. Guns get out of alignment quickly. They lack luminance, which means that even a *poor* LCD _can appear_ to out-perform a top CRT. Apple wag on about this for their "cinema" displays, which honestly aren't in the same ballpark as a Eizo CG21. So _any_ LCD will *appear* to show a wider gamut than a CRT. But you *just don't* get to replicate that luminance on a print.
CRT is EOL everywhere (save for the Mitsubishi WG CRT), so over a few years, expect problems with support, parts and gun alignment. Yeah, sure, serious CRTs allow you to align the guns and all sorts through firmware, but they're comparably priced to the CG21 I currently use.
The article references Wide Gamut LCD's
OK, I have been in contact with all the relevant product managers over the past six months regards ordering these for my company.
Some pretty solid facts I have learned
1. Expect NO availability of WG monitors until H2/05. Both Eizo with the CG210 and Mitsu' are sorting out pre- production and *will not* release a half- assed product to beat time - to - market.
2. Forget the WG Mitsu' CRT. Same price almost as LCDs in pre-production now, and is supported in Asia - Pacific only. Correct that, Mitsu' will support you, but it won't be convenient.
3. WG LCDs almost require 10bpp DVI-D input. I am not aware of a graphics card which supports this right now. I sense that Matrox will support this with a new PCI-E Parhelia next year.
4. Cost. Cost. Cost. You need a real justification for the Wide Gamut monitors. Intro prices will be quite a bit >5K$.
5. Barco appear to have chickened out on this market. So says the grapevine anyway.
6. Mitsu' appear to me at least to have some better technology for WG monitors. Possibly also for normal calibrated LCDs, but I am very happy meanwhile using a Eizo CG21 .
7. You probably don't need one of these unless you are planning to One Time Only scan - to - archive - digital of loads of Kodachromes,, or need to soft proof for Aniva or 4+ ink presses.
8. LaCie is not IMO in the same game. LaCie filled the Radius gap in Mac pre-press environments. They DO NOT manufacture their own components, as do Eizo, Mitsu'. I've not been impressed at all by any of their products. For that matter, for my uses, I wasn't impressed by Apple's cinema displays .
9. Whatever you do, if you're editing photos or critical color ; Get a monitor hood. Think like lens shades. Control flare. It's much worse on a LCD, IME.
10. Viewing a CRT properly requires a darkened environment. See above.
Component burnout is a fact of life. All the new calibrated Mitsu' / Eizo LCDs are very thouroughly tested and heavily guaranteed / supported. But they will likely wear out in a few years or so. To combat this both Mitsu' and Eizo run luminance below max levels.
Also, if I get my facts right, the only reason Mistu' released the WG CRT is because Japanese printers actually do use the current abilities of their presses properly. Just like DOF scales, SWOP and EuroScale are so outdated people just waste the capabilities of their output media.
Some annoyances with the article
"as a rule, a DeltaE value of one is considered a perfect calibration i.e. there is no difference between the CIE L*a*b* colour space and the colours reproduced by the monitor."
No, not a perfect calibration, just delta 1.0 is about the threshold of your capacity to distinguish tones.
There will definitely be a variation between what you see and the L*A*B co-ordinates, notwithstanding the delta value as the L*A*B space is theoretical.
"In addition, it's worth noting th
that would help you see those colors you're supposed to be watching.
What makes you think I have EVER bought an LCD monitor? What makes you think? Nothing at all, apparently.
Posted anonymously because you're not worth it...
Well, with my old CRT I hardly ever needed to heat the room my computer is in. Since I switched to TFT the room is considerably cooler. It would be a fun exercise to estimate the power saved for say, the US, which must have at least 50 million active CRTs (If you start counting TVs this number would rise enormously) You probably could shut down many power stations if all CRTs were replaced by TFTs. Just something to think about in these times of high oil prices.
The parent wrote that LCDs are more energy efficient, not the other way round.
I am not sure, but is there really any big difference when the CRT is firing or not? I was under the impression that the real killer is the magnets directing the electron beam, and those will surely be just as active even if the beam is almost gone.
(But maybe the magnets are responsible for adapting the amplitude of electrons reaching the surface, but I wouldn't think so? Too lazy to Google...)
Nothing new here. The screen got a S-IPS LCD which has better colors. Thats it.
Personally, I do design for a living and I LOVE LCD as I get no headaches like CRT used to give me. Staring at an LCD all day everyday is just easier on the eyes. Add to that 23" of flat widescreen real estate and it's a no brainer. I switched a long time back and would never, ever consider going back to CRT.
I saw that and honestly shrugged- that may be true for a midtone, but I honestly (and I really mean honestly) doubt thats true thru the entire range.
....
I've seen some very good monitors with Delta E's, for one patch, of 1. The whites and blacks tho were shot- one had a colour temperature range from 6300K to 8000K
don't know about your question, but i've been looking at lcd's lately and will buy the above one. It uses the same panel as the apple's (its the exact same panel as in the g5 iMac 20") and is half the price of the similar cinema displays. Never bought anything dell before, and never expected too. The 2005FPW looks nice and MUCH more reasonably priced.
The have a great viewing angle AND they are SWOP certified, so no need to doubt the color accuracy
"Certified systems are capable of producing proofs visually identical to the SWOP Certified Press Proof as defined in ANSI CGATS TR 001,"
So the (calibrated) screen is good enough; no need to do a special color print to know what it looks like.
http://www.apple.com/displays/technology.html
It is a cliche because it is true. Real estate is an order of magnitude more precious in Japan than in the United States - simply divide the total population by the total land area of the country:
Japan: 130 million / 395,000 km2 = ~ 340 persons/km2
U.S: 291 million / 9 million km2 =~ 32 persons/km2
See: Japan Statistics and U.S. Statistics for the exact figures.
> the colour accuracy on an LCD monitor is still nowhere near as good as a high quality CRT.
/. page after 5 minutes.
I don't know about color, but I've clicked on the link in the blurb and it still shows the
I got to the article without any problem, but it was hardly worth reading. The key element was missing, namely a link to the ICC profile for the monitor.
That's the key element in any discussion about monitors for professional (or even serious amateur) color work. First of all, the mere fact that the generic ICC profile for the model is provided would say a lot about both the product and the reviewer, and secondly, if the profile is linked then interested readers can plug it in to color gamut viewers and other analysis tools for themselves and see whether the monitor is good for their application.
You didn't miss much. The article was quite reasonable at a shallow consumer level, but did not hit the mark for the color professional.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
You have the same quality difference with LCD as you do with CRT. I have a $900 Sony LCD .21 dot pitch. Never had a problem at all with brightness, its currently on 22 of 100 during the day. You have 4 temperature color settings and using DVI input. Picture perfect. My only gripe is the 25ms delay time for gaming, making images blurred if you are turning fast. Its a small price to pay to save my eyes and avoid radiation from CRTs.
or get yourself a braille display,
Feel sorry for the blind when they feel goatse for the first time. In fact, goatse is probably how they GOT blind.
Table-ized A.I.
CRTs consume an infinitesimal amount of electricity compared to lighting and heating/cooling. You could shut down maybe a half dozen power plants if everyone switched to TFT. Not a significant savings.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I figured it was worth the money on the long term.
at an Apple store, I'll have to disagree with you. Apple not only sales them, but they're promoting them pretty hard. They had six on display at the store. They only had two iBooks and four PowerBooks on display.
It's actually pretty simple.
The very best top of the range INDUSTRIAL GRADE tft (which by definition excludes all the consumer stuff, remember tft are rated post production much like cpu cores) are absolutely spectacular, especially when paired with first class backlighting and first class video conversion circuitry, but you're looking at 2000 dollars per screen.
Consumer grade TFT is just muck, plain and simple, doesn't matter a damn what rebranding label is on it, even if the label is Apple.
Factory refurbished CRT is as cheap or cheaper than consumer grade TFT, I'm looking at this page on a Sony F520 that cost me about 400 bucks (but in Uk money) as a good as new factory refurb direct from the sony workshop here, it rocks.
If you're really short of money smaller / cheaper CRT are the way to go.
There is however ONE AREA ALONE where CRT can never compete with TFT, and that is power consumption / heat rejection.
If your application requires 4 or 6 stacked screens then TFT is the only game in town, think stock traders or other financials.
There is also one are where TFT cannot compete with CRT, and that is physical resolution and refresh rates, if your application requires equal sharpness in differing resolutions and high refresh rates then CRT is the only game in town, think 3d animation or video mastering or gaming or other scientific visualisation.
For everyone else it's just go faster stripes and penis envy and as valid an argument as Apple vs PC
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
If you're really serious about color accuracy the one tool that's more important than whatever screen your using is simply the info palette. I've heard stories of prepress techs using monitors with totally overblown contast settings because they're not looking at an image the way a designer is but rather the way the offset press will try to recreate it as--Strictly going by the math/color values to determine how well the image will print color/contast etc...
That said, as a designer there's still a bunch of junk you have to do before you send your design to press... worrying about your monitor shouldn't be one of them.
I'm not sure who does trustedreviews website but it's obnoxious even with Mozilla. After adblocking all the scripts and pictures it was better. Won't be shopping there though.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
I have an Acer Aspire 2010 notebook sitting in front of me. The colour accuracy isn't that great. I would never use the builtin screen for serious photo editing.
That said, I would never use a CRT for anything other than serious photo editing again. The LCD in this thing is crisp, sharp, always in focus and doesn't have any of the horrible flicker problems associated with CRTs, even good CRTs.
I have almost permanently relegated my (faster) desktop PC to doing nothing becuase I find the laptop screen so much easier on the eyes than the 19" CRT I have.
For almost all of the masses LCD screens have more advantages than disadvantages. Nearly everyone just browses the web, reads email and composes the occasional document, spreadsheet, etc. Why do they need perfect photo quality editing on their PC?
Better to save power and heat loading (which saves power in summer anyway; less work for the air con to do) and use a nice efficient LCD. It's too bad that good large LCDs that have a decent resolution are so damned expensive still. I call decent anything more than 1024x768. A 17" panel with that res is affordable, but if you want to go to 1280x960 or above then you're going to start breaking the bank.
I drink to make other people interesting!
It's nice to see Slashdot get more democratic. Now we don't get just Apple ads, we get NEC ads, too.
CMYK is the one that lacks in color resolution.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I have seen some LCDs where they just stick a piece of clear plastic over the panel. I don't know why anyone would want that (the glare has to be absolutely terrible), unless they were in some kind of harsh environment and it was for protection.
Anyone working on output intended for other machines should never depend on their working machine as a true representative of the end result.
This is why people who work in the print industry have the pantone color system. A color doesn't need to look the same on the screen as it does when printed. It only needs to share the same numeric color values as its pantone equivalent.
As for output to non-print mediums, it will always be a best guess issue outside of matching RGB values. You cannot count on the end viewer to have a system calibrated identically to your own.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Do U guys really think a troll could sit in front of a CRT or LCD screen jerking off on porn?
nah, the guards kicked 'm out because this is a: LCDs and porn (Score:0, Troll)
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Or they will tell you that the Apple HD Cinema Display is the best monitor for the job. I use one in graphic design, and with 2 adjustments to my printer settings get almost perfect screen -> print comparisons. I can't think of a better monitor for graphic design than a 23" Apple HD LCD, and thats on a PC. Not to mention, good luck finding a 23" CRT with adequate refresh rates at that size and smaller dot pitch, higher contrast ratio and widescreen for less than 2k. LCDs are fighting and winning a good portion of the market for good reason.
Yeah I would have given him a +1 Funny, even if he is serious.
I'm sorry, what's the LCD cause?
Is there some sort of health hazzard or environmental issue that makes LCDs a moral imperative, or is this just the "other" slashdot effect whereby any stupid trivial thing becomes a "cause."
LCD monitors aren't a cause, they are a consumer option. There are plusses and minuses. It is not someting to go picketting CRT makers over nor signing petitions, or whatever people do.
is it really so hard to keep things in proportion?
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Are you talking about? One of the finest screens ever produced for image and film editing was the fantastic SGI 1600sw. Its high-contrast, razor sharp and fast response LCD screen led the flat screen revolution.
It's still highly respected. Too bad SGI never followed up with a second generation model.
One of the great things about electromagnets and electric plates (the things used to direct the electron beam in a CRT) is that you only have to supply power when you want them to work. A CRT with a power saving mode that actually deactivates the electron gun can save power by turning off the directing machinery but as long as the beam is running it msut be scanned over the screen or it will burn a hole where it naturally comes to rest (similar to the 'burn in' effect that old monitors can experience). I don't know if the magnets are the main power drain in a CRT, the actual electron gun would suck some serious amps as well.
Sick of WoW? Try the thinking man's MMORPG: EVE Online
There is a weird problem in my house where my computer monitor gets lines scrolling across it. I've tried different monitors, plugging monitor into a disconnected UPS instead of the mains, the works. The only thing that works for me is an LCD, but that doesn't give good colour.
I really hope this is as good as the review makes it out to be!
He said it had the problem "plugging monitor into a disconnected UPS instead of the mains", so there can't be any noise in the AC signal.
Sounds more like intereference - like you said, moving the machine (unless he lives under high tension lines or something).
Speaking of which, that kind of interference can't be therapeutic.
Oh, and a crap VGA cable will give similar results.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)