Monitor recommendation

[sapstar]

Hi all, I was looking for a budget monitor for photo editing. I ended up ordering LG 27UL500 for £175 with damaged box from currys.

27'' UHD 4K HDR Monitor | 27UL500 | LG UK

Get information on the LG 27UL500. Find pictures, reviews, and tech specs for the 27'' UHD 4K HDR Monitor

www.lg.com

It is a 27 inch 4K, 98% SRGB, IPS, 10 bit, 300 nits display and colour calibrated. I was also looking at lenovo P27H-20 which comes with a USB C hub built in, but is 2K, 8 bit and costs £65 more.

I am not a professional photographer. I shoot with a Sony a7riii which is a 42MP camera. Would the LG be good enough? Or should I consider something else? I was looking around the £200 price range and there's nothing close to these specs which has an advertised colour gamut.

My laptop is 100% Dci-p3 I think with a 4k OLED calibrated display. But it's only 15 inch. So I am after an additional monitor.

 

[Phill104]

It’s fine.

 

[SFTphotography]

Itll be OK but ultimately you want 99% Adobe rgb coverage but if you edit in srgb and mainly publish to the Web it'll be OK.

Main thing is make sure you set the screen brightness right. Usually around 100 nits is about right (approx 1 3rd brightness)

Google online screen calibration and go from there

 

[sapstar]

Thanks for the info. I will be mostly using it for publishing photos to web. For anything above RGB, I can use my laptop screen which is 100% DCI-P3. Very close to Adobe RBG.

 

[SFTphotography]

Thanks for the info. I will be mostly using it for publishing photos to web. For anything above RGB, I can use my laptop screen which is 100% DCI-P3. Very close to Adobe RBG.

These are some basic tests to make sure the screen is ok.

EIZO monitors for offices, photos & design, medicine, gaming and industry

EIZO MONITOR TEST

www.eizo.be

100% DCI-P3 is fine

I myself have an Eizo wide gamut thing and it's incredible - but a lot of it comes from editing in consistent environment with the screen set correctly.

 

[sapstar]

These are some basic tests to make sure the screen is ok.

EIZO monitors for offices, photos & design, medicine, gaming and industry

EIZO MONITOR TEST

www.eizo.be

100% DCI-P3 is fine

I myself have an Eizo wide gamut thing and it's incredible - but a lot of it comes from editing in consistent environment with the screen set correctly.

Thank you. Just tried this on my laptop screen and it did good on all the tests. Will check the new monitor when it arrives .

 

[Phill104]

Itll be OK but ultimately you want 99% Adobe rgb coverage but if you edit in srgb and mainly publish to the Web it'll be OK.

Problem is, most of us are on a budget. Sure. We could go out and get a top notch screen, but does it really make us a better photographer? Will the slight nuances of that 2% missing gamut, coupled with the fact all our eyes are calibrated differently, cause an issue? Personally I don’t believe it will. If I was a professional tog sending stuff to print shops, clients and publishers then I would think very differently, but then I would also have a dedicated monitor costing a metric butt ton more.

 

[SFTphotography]

Problem is, most of us are on a budget. Sure. We could go out and get a top notch screen, but does it really make us a better photographer? Will the slight nuances of that 2% missing gamut, coupled with the fact all our eyes are calibrated differently, cause an issue? Personally I don’t believe it will. If I was a professional tog sending stuff to print shops, clients and publishers then I would think very differently, but then I would also have a dedicated monitor costing a metric butt ton more.

Indeed but if you spend thousands (in a lot of cases in terms of photography equipment upwards of £10000) then the thing you use to look at what's rolled off your fancy camera matters.

And there is quite a difference and very noticeable too between high end screens and low end ones.

4k, refresh rates Etc aren't really important for stills photography but a screen that displays a wide range is, particularly if you do quite complex toning and curve/levels adjustments

 

[SFTphotography]

Thank you. Just tried this on my laptop screen and it did good on all the tests. Will check the new monitor when it arrives .

If the monitor passes also you're good

 

[sapstar]

If the monitor passes also you're good

Got my monitor today. It did good on all the tests in the eizo link you provided...

But I still seem have a problem... The skin tones look more correct on my laptop screen compared to the monitor. I was looking at a photo of my son. On the laptop the skin seem to have a slightly reddish tint, but on the monitor it was a bit yellowish. I tried adjusting the colour temperature on the monitor from the default of 6500, but it wasn't the same as my laptop at any temperature. Not really sure how I can make them to look the same...

The photo is SRGB, so it shouldn't really be the missing colours in the gamut.

 

[Phill104]

Use one of the many calibration tools available. Different panels, graphics cards and lighting can make a big difference, even on very expensive monitors. Also try plugging your laptop into this monitor to see how the two images compare.

 

[sapstar]

Use one of the many calibration tools available. Different panels, graphics cards and lighting can make a big difference, even on very expensive monitors. Also try plugging your laptop into this monitor to see how the two images compare.

By calibration tools do you mean something like datacolor spyder?

The comparison I posted was when I connected my laptop to the monitor. I have checked the same photo on my Samsung galaxy s10 and it looks more like my laptop screen. So it indeed looks like the monitor may need some sort of calibration.

 

[Phill104]

The spyder is one way, but there are plenty of other free tools from gpu providers etc. You will also find mo it or profiles for your screen on the manufacturer website, a quick Google will give you those. With calibration the GPU and the monitor have to match which is why calibration and profiles exist.

 

[sapstar]

The spyder is one way, but there are plenty of other free tools from gpu providers etc. You will also find mo it or profiles for your screen on the manufacturer website, a quick Google will give you those. With calibration the GPU and the monitor have to match which is why calibration and profiles exist.

Thanks. That's helpful. I will have a look.

 

[sapstar]

I tried the calibration tool built into windows. I couldn't set gamma as suggested in the tool. So I tried calibrize. In that I couldn't set the rgb sliders correctly like it asked me to.

I then put the same picture on the laptop screen and the monitor and comparing the pictures, I played with contrast, black level and RGB sliders in the monitor menus. Finally I was able to get them to match.

I had to bump up red from 50 to 72. Green and Blue remained at 50 and Contrast had to be set to 60. All this is based off of skin tones in a single photo. I have to do some more testing.