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."

Comments

Still looks a little pricy.

[Blapto]

You could probably get a much cheaper, nicer CRT. The market it is aimed at would probably not care about footprint anyway after all.

Re:Still looks a little pricy.

[badasscat]

One problem with all the 1280x1024 LCD monitors are that they don't have square pixels. The display itself is 4:3, but the pixels are squat, unlike 1600x1200, 1280x960, 1024x768, 800x600 et cetera.

This is completely, 100% false.

1280x1024 LCD screens have a 5:4 aspect ratio. This is why the resolution can be 1280x1024, and the pixels remain square. 1280x1024 screens are the only screens with a 5:4 ratio. Don't ask me why this is, but it is. You can easily verify this by looking at the specs on any LCD with this native resolution.

I would guess you're confusing what happens when you use 1280x1024 as a resolution on CRT's. This will give you non-square pixels, and you should not use 1280x1024 on a CRT for this reason (unless you have a 5:4 CRT, and I'd guess there are at least a few of them out there). You should use 1280x960 instead. But this does not apply to LCD's, all of which have one native resolution, and they're built specifically to support that native resolution.

Now, as to this assertion in the original article post that "most image editors" think LCD's are "nowhere near as good" as CRT's... I think this is at the very least overly dramatic, if not outright false. First of all, what's an "image editor" to begin with? A retoucher? A photographer? A designer (and print or web)? All of the above?

Up until a few months ago I worked in the web design department for a large corporation, and like most companies we worked pretty closely with the print designers as well. 95% of my company used LCD's because they wanted to use LCD's. If any designer wanted a CRT they could simply request it - very few did (maybe two or three at the entire company). I personally had an LCD as a primary monitor and a CRT as secondary, because when working for the web it's important to see how things are going to look on different setups (especially when working with compressed images).

I'm also a photographer, and I don't have a CRT in my house. I have three LCD screens, and while not all of them are created equally (the oldest one does have a pretty narrow gamut), they're all at least adequate for photo processing, and my laptop screen is perfectly fine. I know plenty of other photographers who also do retouching on their laptops and don't feel they're missing anything.

LCD's are different, but even with a narrower gamut they do some things better than CRT's. No CRT can approach an LCD's pixel-perfect sharpness, for example - it's impossible to judge a photograph's true sharpness when viewing it on a CRT. So there are tradeoffs in both directions.

I think there's a difference between intellectually knowing that one thing may be technically better in certain areas than another thing, and actually using those things in real life. "Image editors" are people too, and they like the convenience and space savings of LCD screens as much as anybody else. And there are things that LCD's do better than CRT's, just as there are things CRT's do better than LCD's.

Will this be the rage in 6 months?

[Darkn3ss]

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?

Re:Will this be the rage in 6 months?

[aardvarkjoe]

Size isn't the only advantage that LCDs have. Most people also find them to be easier on the eyes, and they are cooler and more energy efficient.

And anyway, I'll believe the stuff about thin CRTs in 2005 when I see them on the shelves.

Re:Will this be the rage in 6 months?

[SmokeSerpent]

LCD monitors are lit by a flourescent tube. Just as some people get migranes from flourescent lighting, the number of people having trouble with LCD displays will begin to escalate as more and more LCD displays surround us.

A modern CRT monitor usually has a refresh rate faster than 60hz, and the fading out of the phosphors tend to even out the flicker even more.

If your wife wants a flat panel display, she could try a plasma model. While plasma is also based on flourescent lighting technology, it is essentially made of thousands and thousands of individual flourescent lights, all turning on and off and varying their brightness individually, which might eliminate the migraine-inducing flicker.

Nice, 2 comments and already slashdotted

[jmcmunn]

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.

Not just a problem of color

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

the colour accuracy on an LCD monitor is still nowhere near as good as a high quality CRT.

I don't know about color, but I've clicked on the link in the blurb and it still shows the /. page after 5 minutes. I'd say the refresh rate really sucks...

Quality of LCD panels

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Quality of LCD panels

[lachlan76]

AFAIK, some manufacturers offer a zero-defect screen.

The supply of such screens is already at a trickle.

Re:Quality of LCD panels

[Tablizer]

I think there is a much bigger problem with LCD than color accuracy - defective subpixels.

'
.

Nah, you're exaggerating
.

Here's what I wonder.

[mindstrm]

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.

Re:Here's what I wonder.

[Marovingian]

Apple Cinema Displays have great contrast, wide viewing angles, and [when properly calibrated with professional hardware/software] great color accuracy. I worked in prepress for 6 years and we had no problem moving to ACD's for all of our color critical work.

And Apple [unfortunately] still makes a CRT- the eMac, not that you would catch a color professional using one...

Re:always six months, isn't it?

[tschak]

LCDs are ok, but pretty much useless for graphics apps due to low contrast and washed out color

Yeah and CRTs tend to have over-saturated color that drifts over time. I'm a prepress tech, and I have to do a lot of color correcting for my job and the general rule is that the screen is wrong. period.

A CRT or LCD will never be able to represent colors in RGB that exists in CMYK, or even some of the wildly bright color in the Pantone system. How can a monitor reproduce fluorescent orange or silver metallic ink? It can't. Once your good, you can mentally map what a color should look like compared to what it looks like on screen. Most of the people in my field who complain about how LCD aren't color accurate are just looking for an excuse when they can't remap their own color perception lookup table in their head.

And, if you complain about how a LCD has crappy contrast or under-saturated colors and a poor refresh rate, maybe you should buy a nice LCD instead of a cheap piece of crap from Walmart.

Wide Gamut LCDs

[new500]

. . . .

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

Yep, the're great

[Anonymous Coward]

The're classic Apple products: the're great beyond what you normally find; at the special Apple price.

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