Monitor Recommendations

[SilvaJr]

Dear all,

I have been working to find good monitors with reasonable quality to be used in a non-Apple prepress environment.

Printing under color standardization (ISO 12647), we got a good software called viewSign. This software tests your monitor just as you test your proof.

Actually, viewSign can testify the necessity of having a well-calibrated and accurately profiled monitor in the first place. This software won't help if your screen is out of whack or your profile is too old. Or, to be more accurate, it will help, but only by reporting, calmly and coldly, precisely how bad your screen is at rendering colours accurately.

After differents tests calibrating different monitors using Eye-One Pro + Eye-One Match to create profiles and viewSign to certify the color accuracy, we encountered Dell 2405FPW Flat Panel Monitor with 95% of color accuracy checking against the wider ISOCoated profile, passing all tolerances according to ISO 12647.

So, for a reasonable price, take the Dell 2405FPW and you wont be so far. But dont forget to buy at least a Eye One Display to create a good profile too.

Thank you,

[David Milisock]

Viewsonic has had some deals on their upper quality monitors for about that price, shop the web. IMO all displays have issues and LCD displays have serious issues with angle of view, yse that incudes all of them. NEC/Mitsubishi has reasonable devices for that price also.

Controling the ambient working conditions and regular calibration are serious considerations also. Light your environment to 5,000K, cover the windows and keep the clutter down.

[David Milisock]

Dear all,

I have been working to find good monitors with reasonable quality to be used in a non-Apple prepress environment.

Printing under color standardization (ISO 12647), we got a good software called viewSign. This software tests your monitor just as you test your proof.

Actually, viewSign can testify the necessity of having a well-calibrated and accurately profiled monitor in the first place. This software won't help if your screen is out of whack or your profile is too old. Or, to be more accurate, it will help, but only by reporting, calmly and coldly, precisely how bad your screen is at rendering colours accurately.

After differents tests calibrating different monitors using Eye-One Pro + Eye-One Match to create profiles and viewSign to certify the color accuracy, we encountered Dell 2405FPW Flat Panel Monitor with 95% of color accuracy checking against the wider ISOCoated profile, passing all tolerances according to ISO 12647.

So, for a reasonable price, take the Dell 2405FPW and you wont be so far. But dont forget to buy at least a Eye One Display to create a good profile too.

Thank you,

Outside of having to support application files from the Apple platform I can't think of any reason to buy a MAC anymore. We have one or two just to solve MAC problems but all production and RIPS run on Windows, using Corel or Adobe. All the hardware is mostly the same anymore.

[jyarrow]

In my experience of over 25+ years in the business, I don't trust any monitor to give "true" representation of what the printed piece will look like, because it is impossible to accurately represent how reflective color will work with backlit projected color (as in your monitor). Thus I base all of my color decisions on the color numbers (in Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, etc).

This frees up my monitor sources considerably. For one of my printers I have put an Olevia 32" 1080p television on one of the mac production stations, and they are thrilled with it. This monitor offers very nice color, a huge production area, and a price that can't be beat at $350. These are sold by Micro Center and you can buy them online. I also have an Olevia TV at home and love it.

For the Xitron "soft proofing" station (i.e., where we roam jobs before printing) I have a refurbished Sony Bravia 32" TV working on the PC as a monitor. This is 720p, but it's still more than enough resolution for the job. This refurb was about $300.

The one thing I do have to caution you on with using the Olevia is to turn off the color modifications that the monitor imposes (usually set to "Vivid") and do the advanced ColorSync calibration. We noted that we couldn't even see some screens on the new monitor before calibration, but doing the advanced calibration fixed that.

Hopefully these suggestions will be useful to you.

Jim Yarrow
Maccimizer, Inc.