# Wide gamut vs standard gamut monitors, TN/IPS/S-PVA, etc., monitor bit depth, etc.



## camner (Jan 11, 2014)

I currently have a 24" Dell monitor (2408) that is wide gamut (not that I knew what that was when I bought it 5 years ago, though I have a better idea now, and finally figured out that being wide gamut was why Flash slideshows looked oversaturated on my monitor and not so on my wife's sRGB monitor because Flash is not color managed!).  It's an S-PVA monitor.  I'd like to get a second monitor.

Clearly, the way to go today seems to be some flavor of IPS.  

Question 1:  Will it be possible to calibrate a new IPS and the old Dell to be sufficiently similar so that one can reasonably hope to do developing work on either monitor and get to a similar (enough) result?  Or should I plan on retiring the Dell and get two new IPS monitors?

Question 2:  I'm wondering if it really makes sense for me to have a wide gamut monitor.  Right now all of my images are viewed either on the web or on an iPad (exported in jpg), and I'm pretty sure that that means the color space is going to be sRGB.  Is there any particular advantage, then, in having a monitor that has a wider gamut than 100% of sRGB?  Wouldn't any nuance of color that I worked with in a wider gamut space get clipped down to sRGB for display anywhere else except another wide gamut monitor, and perhaps even there if the images are exported in jpg with a sRGB profile?

[I can imagine that in the future I will print some of the images both on photo paper and in book form...I think I understand the vast bulk of printing labs for "regular" work (as opposed to high end work) either require that images come to them in sRGB or will convert to sRGB no matter what the color space the file comes in]

Question 3:  There are now some monitors that are spec'ed to work in 10bits/channel instead of 8 bits/channel.  I have a Radeon 5770 video card in my machine, and although it has a mini-displayport output in addition to DVI (I understand that dvi is limited to 8 bits/channel), I'm not sure that the card is capable of producing 10bits/channel, and beyond that, does it matter much anyway?

Alas, I suspect I'm still at the "just know enough to be dangerous stage"...


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## Tony Jay (Jan 11, 2014)

I think that if you are printing using an offsite lab choose one that does colour management correctly.
The ones that want an image in the sRGB colourspace, in my experience anyway, will only vaguely offer you a result that "looks good".
This is completely hopeless and makes any softproofing that you do an utter waste of time.

If you choose a lab that is colour-managed they will usually want an image in AdobeRGB and sometimes ProPhotoRGB.
In fact they will tell you what printer they are using and give you a choice of papers and either you can download the appropriate profiles from their business or more generally from the web.
(Most of these labs will, in fact, do their own profiles for whatever printer/paper combinations they offer.)
(These labs are not necessarily particularly expensive, costs being linked to print size more than anything else.)
In this instance YOU do the softproofing with the appropriate profile and the image is printed with no adjustments by the lab - IMO this is the way to go.
For this to work a wide gamut monitor is best - the better monitors for the purpose, for all practical purposes, encompass the gamut of the AdobeRGB colourspace.

I do not necessarily think that two wide gamut monitors are required for working in Lightroom - just make sure that the wide-gamut monitor takes the main workspace with Lightroom.
(This holds for Photoshop CS work as well.)
The other monitor could easily just be a cheapie.
Another way to go is to get a high-end wide gamut monitor (NEC, Eizo, or the like) as the main workspace monitor and use the current Dell as a secondary monitor.

So, in summary - if you need to print then you need to softproof, and if you need to softproof then you need a wide gamut monitor, but you probably only NEED one even if two identical wide gamut monitors would be nice.

Tony Jay


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## camner (Jan 11, 2014)

Thanks for your response...

Well, I won't follow up with any questions about printing because I haven't yet received and read the book you recommended, _The Digital Print. _:tape:



Tony Jay said:


> ...a wide gamut monitor is best - the better monitors for the purpose, for all practical purposes, encompass the gamut of the AdobeRGB colourspace.


Wide gamut it is, then!



> I do not necessarily think that two wide gamut monitors are required for working in Lightroom - just make sure that the wide-gamut monitor takes the main workspace with Lightroom.
> (This holds for Photoshop CS work as well.)
> The other monitor could easily just be a cheapie.
> Another way to go is to get a high-end wide gamut monitor (NEC, Eizo, or the like) as the main workspace monitor and use the current Dell as a secondary monitor.
> ...


OK, this confuses me a bit.  If I understand the way LR uses two monitors (I've experimented by invoking the 2nd monitor window on my 1 monitor setup), the secondary window/monitor can only do Loupe, Grid, Survey, and Compare, and cannot do Develop, so the main, higher quality monitor would be the one with the Develop module open. Cletus wrote in a post about dual monitors: _In LR I keep one reserved for the "Secondary Window" and with the image there at 100% (1:1) I am able to visually see the changes that I make in the Develop screen on the other monitor This is especially good for brush tools that have an overlay that hides the effect. _This makes a lot of sense to me, but if the secondary monitor is in Loupe mode with an image at 1:1, wouldn't one want the colors of that larger 1:1 image to be as accurate as possible?  

NEC has several series: EA, P, and PA (and some are available with and without SpectraView, which is their bundled colorimeter tool and software).  The EA series is clearly too low-end for this kind of work.  The P series doesn't seem to me to be wide-gamut, and if I'm right, that means the PA series is the one to go with (which gets pricey!).  How valuable is the Spectraview?  I currently have and use the xRite ColorMunki Display to calibrate my Dell.  Is that adequate for the NEC, or do I need to spring for the Spectraview to calibrate the monitor correctly?


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## Tony Jay (Jan 11, 2014)

With regard to monitor calibration the Spectraview software works excellently with many pucks including your xRite ColorMunki so no need to shell out for the Spectraview puck. 
(You can confirm the compatibility by looking up the specifications of various spectraview monitors on the web if you like.)

When one is softproofing one wants to compare the edited image (the one that looks really good AFTER you have finished the Develop module edits) with the softproofed version (it may look pretty bad when the ICC profile is operative) with the idea that one edits the softproofed version to restore it to looking like the original edited image.
IMO it is imperative that this is done using a SINGLE monitor (obviously well calibrated and luminence appropriately set to the lighting in your studio). Wouldn't it be annoying to have subtle colour shifts across monitors (even if they are supposedly calibrated to within an inch of their lives) when softproofing - not what one wants.

Tony Jay


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## camner (Jan 11, 2014)

I wasn't so much thinking of the soft proofing process as I was just the develop process.  If one (not very good) monitor is used for the Loupe view in the secondary window while the Develop module is open on the first monitor, wouldn't using the larger image on the Loupe view to look at detail of color be misleading?

As for the ColorMunki display, so what I would do is buy the Spectraview software and use it with the CM display, right?  I thought I read somewhere that this combination doesn't actually calibrate via the hardware calibration in the monitor but instead uses the video card to make its adjustments, but perhaps I misread that.


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## Tony Jay (Jan 11, 2014)

camner said:


> As for the ColorMunki display, so what I would do is buy the Spectraview software and use it with the CM display, right? I thought I read somewhere that this combination doesn't actually calibrate via the hardware calibration in the monitor but instead uses the video card to make its adjustments, but perhaps I misread that.


No, it will be hardware calibration, the LUT's in the monitor itself are adjusted, the video card does not come into it.

Tony Jay


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## Linwood Ferguson (Jan 13, 2014)

I have two NEC monitors, an LCD2490WUXi and a PA271W.   I use Spectraview for adjusting, and it does program the LUT's in the monitor, and is fast and easy.   When Tony says the video card does not come into it, that's mostly true (or maybe I should say "wish it were true"), but changes in that card can affect what you see on calibration.  For example, when I've upgraded Windows or the video card software, sometimes (not always) I suddenly get weird colors.  I recommend re-calibrating after any such changes just to be sure. 

Also, and maybe I just can't follow directions appropriately, but I had no luck with using one in wide mode and the other (which is only) sRGB.  I had EXPECTED something to keep track of which was which, so a photo displayed (in a color managed application) appeared the same on both (if it was within sRGB's gamut).   Didn't happen - the wide monitor was over-saturated and red on skin tones, grossly so.  Something like lightroom would show completely different in dual screen mode for the same photo.  

I ended up following the KISS Solution of changing the wide monitor (the PA series) to sRGB mode, and am quite happy since I do 99% web work and the rest generally use labs that (despite the comments above) let me color manage with printer profiles, but expect sRGB output.  You may or may not find you need wide gamut on the one monitor, but if you can't make them match, give it a try in sRGB mode.  

But Spectraview and the PA series -- love them.  VERY nice.  I was pleasantly surprised to see it had a built-in usb KVM-like device, so I can use two computers with it as the main monitor between the two, and switch back and forth with a button on the front - no separate KVM needed.


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## davidedric (Jan 14, 2014)

I have a regular gamut monitor,  and a modest  four colour ink jet printer.   Although the "colour space" of the monitor is considerably larger than that of my regularly used paper/ink profiles (as plotted in ColorThink) ,  there are still colours that could print but that the monitor can't display.    I'm sure if I were buying again it would be wide gamut.


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