Pardon my ignorance, but I can get a HP 20 inch HD ready LCD monitor, 16:9 ratio with my score card rewards from my visa card.I want a monitor with enough resolution to edit digital images and one that I can calibrate for printing so that the prints will match closely with what I see on moniter screen.I have the Spyder2Pro calibrator. No where in the description is the resolution listed, just the ratio. Is anyone familiar with this particular monitor, or can anyone tell me how to find out the resolution for this monitor, and what is minimum res for editing and printing digital images?
Ray Dove
I'm guessing that it's this monitor. It's resolution is 1600 x 900. HP doesn't say what kind of panel it is, so I'm not sure how good it will be for editing photos. You will probably want to search for reviews. As far as monitor resolution for editing photos is concerned, more is better (my personal preference is a minimum of 1200px vertically).
I checked Randall's links, and HP's specs do not include color depth, which is critical. You need 16.7 million colors. When monitors' specs say "16 million" or "16.2 million," they are specifying 6-bit color depth, and that isn't enough. You'll have to see what reviewers say, have to ask someone knowledgeable at HP, and be sure the monitor displays 16.7 million colors.
Ray- If the monitor is the HP 2009M monitor, HP lists it as a TFT monitor. These are great for viewing movies and playing games, displaying business graphics, but they make lousy photo editing monitors. The reasons are: Poor viewing angle - as you move off-axis, the colors and brightness chnage. TFT technology as it is implemented in these monitors cannot display more than 7 bits of information, which will not display enough colors or gray steps to faithfully reproduce your image. Fro example a 7 bit monitor can only display 128 steps of gray, and only 2,097,152 colors. An 8 bit monitor can display 256 steps of gray and 16,777,216. While many manufacturers boast in their specs that their monitors can display "up to" 16M colors, they can only do 2M simultaneously. An 88 bit monitor can display all 16.7M simultaneously.
This can be seen in color or gray banding and abrupt transitions between areas of color or luminosity that should be smooth.
What you want is S-IPS or H-IPS technology, which are made to display 8 bits, or 24 bits per color.
If you look around, you can find one for as little as $400, but expect to pay between $600 and $900. Dell, Lacie, Eizo all make them. Be careful with Dell, though. I have certain models that use either technology, and with the same model number, you have no way to know what you are getting.
Discussion
3 repliesRay Dove
This can be seen in color or gray banding and abrupt transitions between areas of color or luminosity that should be smooth.
What you want is S-IPS or H-IPS technology, which are made to display 8 bits, or 24 bits per color.
If you look around, you can find one for as little as $400, but expect to pay between $600 and $900. Dell, Lacie, Eizo all make them. Be careful with Dell, though. I have certain models that use either technology, and with the same model number, you have no way to know what you are getting.