Digital monitor

johnnywalker

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What is a good monitor for photo editing in the 22 to 27 inch range. My wife is trying to print an accurate picture of her paintings for her website. I rarely do colour, so I'm not much help to her.
 

Pieter12

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BenQ is good. The iMac monitors are good, too. A hood over the monitor and a room with dim light really helps. But accurate calibration of the monitor and the printer are essential, plus having the right printer profile for your printer the the paper you are printing on. If you want to add icing to the cake, a color temperature-controlled viewing booth should be used to inspect the final prints along with the original art. It can be a sizable investment.
 

runswithsizzers

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If the goal is simply to accurately represent a painting on a website -- then where does a print enter into the process? In my mind the process would be: digital photo > minor adjustments (if needed) > website

Or is the goal to sell prints of the painting?
 

sruddy

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ColorEdge: Best Photo Editing Monitors | EIZO

Looking for the Best Photo Editing Monitors? EIZO's ColorEdge Photography Monitors & Displays enable consistent color, every time. Explore Today!
www.eizo.com

I have an Eizo and do profesional photography including reproduction of art including paintings. You will need a calibration device if the monitor doesn't include one and a controlled lighting environment for proofing your prints. Check out link below.

 
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jtk

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You're describing two different intentions.

It's impossible to make accurate representations on a website due to the vagaries of both monitors and websites.
 

4season

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While I’d like to have a fancy wide-gamut, auto-calibrating monitor, for the moment, I’ve got a business-class all-in-one Lenovo PC. And yet, I’ve gotten very good results, both on screen and in print, thanks to my i1Studio calibrator (~550 USD). Even the little Canon Selphy dye sublimation printers can benefit greatly.
 

Pieter12

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First of all, make sure you have a good digital camera and set-up to copy the paintings. Balanced, even light, everything set up parallel and square. It can't hurt to make a reference shot of a color chart. The internet is going to kill any subtleties and nuances of the original, but it can't hurt to have a good original to start with. She might want to self-publish a catalog or book sometime in the future.
 

Sean

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I have a basic 1080p Asus ProArt and am pretty happy with it so far. I will probably need a calibration tool at some point to correct any drift over time.
 

Sal Santamaura

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Mike Johnston recently discussed the Viewsonic VP-2786-4K:

The Viewsonic VP2786-4K a.k.a. ColorPro 27 Monitor

Several people mentioned the 27-inch Viewsonic VP2785-4K in the comments to the previous post. I almost listed that one as being a good alternative, but B&H Photo lists it as "No Longer Available" and the manufacturer currently lists it as...
theonlinephotographer.typepad.com
 

Steven Lee

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johnnywalker said:
What is a good monitor for photo editing in the 22 to 27 inch range. My wife is trying to print an accurate picture of her paintings for her website. I rarely do colour, so I'm not much help to her.
Click to expand...

Product manager here: it actually almost doesn't matter in this case. Any monitor with 100% sRGB gamut coverage will do, because color accuracy will depend on monitor quality of visitors of her web site, and over 60% of them will be on cell phones with unnatural contrast and boosted saturation, while remaining 40% will be using all kinds of monitors, including extremely crappy ones. Also I would advise against "retina" or high-res 4K displays because content created on high-res displays sometimes looks like crap on more typical 96dpi screens, but not vice versa.
 
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johnnywalker

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At this point she is mainly interested in a realistic representation of her paintings for submission to art shows. We realize that her monitor is only half the problem.
 

Pieter12

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johnnywalker said:
At this point she is mainly interested in a realistic representation of her paintings for submission to art shows. We realize that her monitor is only half the problem.
Click to expand...

Something to consider is what her art looks like. Is it about subtleties of color and tone? Or bold shapes and lines? Will the loss of detail and the crushing of range keep one from appreciating the pieces? Things like subject and composition will usually come across no matter what.
 
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johnnywalker

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Thanks for all the advice folks. She's had reasonable success getting her paintings juried into shows, and thinks that Pieter12 is right about the subject and composition factors. For now she'll go with the suggestion of a good colour chart and playing with the built-in adjustments she has on her current monitor. We did go out and buy a more expensive one, but some colours were oversaturated and no amount of adjustment would fix it without ruining other colours, so we returned it.
 

MurrayMinchin

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Hi there! I wandered away from Photrio for a decade or more, and have been keeping my eye out for you.

Not must wisdom from me on this one, other than to say my wife and I calibrate our Mac monitors with an i1Display Studio, a basic/frugal monitor calibration device.
 
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johnnywalker

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Hi Murray, good to hear from you. I've been away for a while as well. I'm living in downtown Salmon Arm these days.
We bought a new more expensive monitor but returned it as the colours were no better than the old one. She decided to take someones comment to heart that you have no control over the monitor the picture is viewed on, and most of what people look at is the subject and composition.
 

Alan Edward Klein

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Maybe you can get some hands-on advice from sites that artists use to sell their paintings. My friend Mel Greifinger, now passed away, used this site. I'm sure there are others. Good luck.

Mel Greifinger Art

Shop for artwork by Mel Greifinger. Purchase canvas prints, framed prints, tapestries, posters, greeting cards, and more. I grew up in the Bronx, New York and have been drawing since I was six years old. I used to copy picture's I found in books and magazines.I went to high school at The...
fineartamerica.com
 

Alan Edward Klein

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PS Equally important is photographing the painting. It's difficult to set up the camera and lighting to capture even exposure and colors across the painting. Have you looked into this?
 

MurrayMinchin

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Salmon Arm? I still live at the head of the Kitimat Arm of Douglas Channel and we have salmon, so that almost makes us related

Yup, monitors are fickle things, and they change over time. We calibrate because we have an iMac, a MacBook, and a printer which is a lot of moving parts. Mac monitors seem to come out of the box with a boost in colour saturation and contrast which didn't match up with the P600, so calibration was in order.

Our daughter is in the Kelowna area now, so we just might bump into each another one of these summers.

Take care & have fun
 
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