Buying The Best LCD Monitor For Color and Productivity
Buying The Best LCD Monitor For Color and Productivity:
COLOR: If you are shopping for a computer monitor for creating color graphics, art work or photographs the color accuracy should be one of your highest priorities. Most budget LCD monitors produce only 6-bit color which means they top out at 262,144 colors. Buying a 6-bit monitor might not matter to someone not concerned with color but 8-bit is much better for those that are, as they can reproduce 16.7million colors. Be aware that monitors that say they are 16.2 million colors are actually 6-bit. There are links to some charts below that will help you find out if a particular monitor is 6-bit or 8-bit.
SIZE: The size of the monitor is one of the most important factors in productivity. Large screens offer lots of room for not only your artwork but also all the tools bars, menus, dockers and other user interface buttons and settings. A large high resolution screen also allows you to see more of your artwork (in your artworks actual size) so you can better see what you doing. Imagine trying to paint a painting looking through a key hole? Wouldn’t it be better if you opened the door and thus could really see what your painting?
Remember, large screens do not always mean you see more, unless they have higher resolutions to go with them.
A 24 inch monitor can have a resolution of 1920 by 1200 which is usually higher than a 37 inch (or bigger) TV type LCD monitors that often have only 1366×768 resolution.
PORTS: Consider a monitor with a DVI digital video port if you want to ever use a modern graphics card.
VGA and DVI if you are in transition. HDMI is hot right now.
FEATURES: Other features that are nice for artwork are monitors that swivel/pivot between portrait to landscape. Thus if you masterpiece is taller that it is wide it can be really helpful to just pivot your monitor to match your artwork.
CONTRAST and BRIGHTNESS: Higher contrast ratio is better for deeper color reproduction and higher brightness is useful if you work in a brightly lite area.
VitalBodies ended up buying a 24 inch LCD Samsung SyncMaster 245BW. Awesome monitor…
HELPFUL LINKS:
Here is a database showing what LCD panel a particular monitor uses:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/panelsearch.htm
Here is a link to a site that shows the color depth of many different panels:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/panel_parts.htm
Here is a link to a web site that goes deeper into the specs and details of LCD monitors:
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/specs.htm
General Information on LCD monitors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lcd_monitor
UPDATE: Suggestions:
Resolution matters more than size for the digital artist.
Color accuracy matters – Go for 8-bit not 6 unless you are a gamer only person that needs only speed.
Read some reviews on Amazon and Newegg to avoid the junk.
If the seller is questionable check them on http://www.resellerratings.com to avoid the scams.
If any links are out of date – do tell do tell!
