# Looking for a 15" Laptop with good sRGB accurate colors for Photo Editing...



## Uptown Photography (Mar 27, 2017)

I am having problems picking a 15.6 inch Laptop (PC Type) with accurate colors for photo editing using Lightroom. I prefer a glossy screen (like my current Dell Laptop), but a Matte display would be fine as long as the colors don't look muted like I have seen on some matte displays. 

I am looking to get an i7 (quad 7th gen), 16GB (DDR4) RAM, Dual drives, (a 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD Drive), and IPS display w/accurate colors. I would like to keep price around $1000, but will spend more if needed. A laptop that is easily upgradeable to change drives, RAM, etc is preferable....Thanks. 

Philip


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## clee01l (Mar 27, 2017)

Welcome to the forum If you are looking for a Windows laptop, I'd recommend the Microsoft Surface


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## Tony Jay (Mar 27, 2017)

I will let others comment on other hardware aspects but I will say this: no monitor is accurate with respect to colour - unless it is calibrated appropriately.

Also laptop monitors are not designed for high-end photographic and video editing and so generally suffer from problems with edge-to-edge consistency of colour and tone.
I will admit that newer technology has mitigated this problem to some degree.

Basically all monitors have the theoretical capability to display the sRGB colourspace gamut. High-end monitors developed for video and photographic editing will display a much larger gamut, approaching or exceeding the AdobeRGB colourspace. These monitors also exhibit exceptional edge-to-edge consistency.
An additional capability of these monitors is the ability to accurately display tone and colour at very low luminance values (brightness for the uninformed) often well below 100 cd/m2. This is a critical capability if one is softproofing for the purposes of printing.
Low-end monitors, in contradistinction, are designed very much with a bright display in mind because that is the essential selling point.

*As a bottom line I would say that no laptop monitor is ideal for high-end editing.*
However, if the only purpose of editing is for output to the web then, as long as the monitor is properly calibrated, OK results are possible.

Tony Jay


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## Ian.B (Mar 28, 2017)

As tony said* "As a bottom line I would say that no laptop monitor is ideal for high-end editing.*
However, if the only purpose of editing is for output to the web then, as long as the monitor is properly calibrated, OK results are possible."
Too many variables with lappy screens; the big one being inconsistent viewing angles . You can always use an external monitor for the more serious editing as I do . There is not much point imo in having the best calibrated gear if the room light is not totally consistent 24/7. Even with the best calibrated gear there is no guarantee you will actually see the colours perfectly yourself without a fair bit of experience . When I was getting photos printed; most rejects were due to myself not seeing or reading the colours/density correctly --- usually the photo I rejected actually matched the image on the screen . Most clients could not see why I rejected the photo 
As for which machine: buy the best you can afford and unlike 10 years ago when we basically needed to build an editing computer you can now buy them off the shelf --- my new acer  was around Au$1000 . I still feel a matt screen/monitor is the way to go; but sadly most computers are made and set up for watching youtube and playing games


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