Can you recommend a monitor? (a good one)

[ashleygg]

I'm in the market for a new monitor. I need something that is large because of this whole digital scrapping business, but I also need one that is going to be good for editing photos. I really like the flat screen ones.

What do you have?

Can you point me in the right direction?

[hguenthe]

So many choices and options These days, most brands are pretty good but some good, reliable brands of flat panel monitors seem to be Apple, Viewsonic, Dell, and BenQ. They tend to have good resolutions, refresh rates and reliable color maintenance.

Personally, I have a 30" Apple Cinema HD Display and love it. It is by far the best monitor I have ever owned and never regretted spending more on it. The resolution made me drool when comparing it to others when I was looking for a monitor. It has maintained its calibration very well and what I see on the screen matches prints easily. I love the 30" size for monitor "real estate" especially when doing photo editing or having a number of things open together.

I also use a 19" BenQ monitor as my second monitor but it is mainly used for browser windows, itunes and adium because it's resolution and colors aren't nearly as reliable as the Apple. It has never calibrated quite as true as the Apple one.

[DesignerDigitals]

Originally Posted by hguenthe

I have a 30" Apple Cinema HD Display and love it.

Katie, don't read this post...

[Kirsty85]

LOL Randy...

[hguenthe]

Originally Posted by rpertiet

Katie, don't read this post...

Why? you already have it hidden away for a present for her?

I bet she puts her current monitor to better use than I do anyways... from the look of the store every Sunday, I think that is guaranteed.

[Mary Rogers]

If money didn't matter, I would purchase a SONY HD Flat screen - 32" Bravia - amazing clarity...

but any Sony would do for my budget

32" Bravia

[Mary Rogers]

or maybe Randy doesn't want her to add it to her "must have" list, lol...so
jealous heather!!

[bluelemur01]

Well, I have an amazing monitor. It's an Eizo ColorEdge CE240W flatscreen with perfect color rendition and quality. But it did cost over $1K. (I have a wonderful DH! It was my anniversary gift last year!) I love it so very much! It has better resolution than many big screen TV's I've seen.

But before that I had a Gateway flat screen that cost about $400 and it was also amazingly good, for that price or for any price. In fact I still have it hooked up as a 2nd monitor. The model # on the Gateway is FPD1810. I don't know if they still make them; it's kind of old, but it's still very good. Gateway prob. has newer ones that are even better.

gl!
Jennifer

[mommydawn]

THe LaCie monitors are my favorite!
I have the LaCie 321.
If this tells you something, I'm a professional photographer and I use my LaCie for photo editing and my 23"Apple Monitor sits next to it holding my photoshop actions, history and layers so I can see the photo full screen on my LaCie

[digigrandma]

Wow, you guys with the huge monitors are making me jealous!

[audrey77]

Um... yeah. I have a thing on my desk. Pretty big. Small screen. Could be used to weigh someone down in a mob hit.

[tdavenport]

Originally Posted by audrey77

Um... yeah. I have a thing on my desk. Pretty big. Small screen. Could be used to weigh someone down in a mob hit.

Too funny!

[bluelemur01]

Mommydawn, the LaCie sounds great! The Eizo is awesome for professional photo editing too, b/c I know that what I see IS EXACTLY what I get, as long as I print to a lab with printer color profiles/etc.

Merrilee, obviously the lack of a big monitor has not slowed down your creative juices one bit...you talented team member, you!

Audrey, that mob hit comment is very funny! Maybe you can make a little $$ on the side...list it on Craig's List, lol.

[cheska99]

Ooh--let's talk more about the two monitor option, especially for Photoshop. On a lot of the Photoshop geek boards they say once you go to two you'll never look back. Some problems for me here. I have a new large screen monitor and then the old monitor sitting in the closet. I'd be happy to move the old monitor out (although I don't know where I'll find the space) and add it on, but since the settings have to be different for both monitors (the wide screen vs. the non-wide screen), the little one is going to be pretty unsatisfactorily looking. But if it was only for those pesky panels in Photoshop . . . anybody know anything that will help me decide?

[mommydawn]

to use two monitors, you also have to make sure your video card will support dual monitors and that you have the ability to plug two monitors into your tower.

I couldn't live without two monitors now to do my graphic work.

[hguenthe]

Originally Posted by Cheska99

I'd be happy to move the old monitor out (although I don't know where I'll find the space) and add it on, but since the settings have to be different for both monitors (the wide screen vs. the non-wide screen), the little one is going to be pretty unsatisfactorily looking. But if it was only for those pesky panels in Photoshop . . . anybody know anything that will help me decide?

Originally Posted by mommydawn

to use two monitors, you also have to make sure your video card will support dual monitors and that you have the ability to plug two monitors into your tower.

Warning: techy stuff that likely won't make sense unless you are trying to do this and looking at settings while trying to set it up

Sharon, as Mommydawn mentions, you need to make sure your video card will support dual monitors. Easy way to know this is to find your monitor cable at the back of it and follow it down to your computer to where it is plugged in. Look at the connector and see if there is another one beside it that looks the same. (computers are great about connectors all looking different for different purposes & a lot of new ones are color coded) If there is, your card supports dual monitor. If not, it doesn't and you would need a different one that does support dual monitor.

If your card supports it, figure out how to place the second monitor on your desk or near same height off to the side of your desk. Then plug it in and depending on whether you are on a Windows or Mac machine, go to your video settings/display settings and you should see that you now have two monitors to adjust.

They will be set differently based on their abilities. For instance, my main is set to 2560X1600 and my second is set to 1280X1024 because that is their native resolutions. You can set them up independently of one another so I wouldn't worry about one being widescreen and the other not (my second isn't widescreen either).

You should also see a setting section for Arrangement. This will allow you to virtually tell it how you want your two monitors to be set up for mousing from one screen to the next. I have my second monitor off to my right so I have its arrangement set up so that it is to the right of my main display in the arrangement and have the bottoms of the screens at the same level. That way, when I want to go from my main screen to the second screen, I move my mouse along the bottom right half of my main display and then it pops over to the second screen. Play with the arrangement until you find a positioning that works naturally for your mouse movement from one screen to the next.

That should be pretty much it to set up dual monitor viewing. Then you can just drag things from one monitor to the next and keep things you want to access but not get in your way on the second screen and have your main screen available for your main work.

Since you already have a second monitor to play with, as long as your video card supports two displays, you might like to try this out and see if you can get comfortable with it before next weekend's All Day Chats. It is extremely handy those days for having the chat window open on the second screen and scrap away on the main screen or vice versa.