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New iMac's glossy screen to anger graphics pros?
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It is a TN panel, which means it is 8 bit with dittering
Do you know this for a fact for this particular panel? If you take a look at linked specs they clearly state 8 bit. On the same spec table there are others spec'd 6 bit + FRC so it is not like they are trying to hide the fact that some panels can only produce 6 bit colors.
TN panels have traditionally been 6 bit. Many manufacturers are listing some of their TN panels as offering 16.7 million colours but it seems that nobody knows for sure.
Summary of TFTCentral's article about TN panels:
"TN panels are known to offer 262k colours, they can produce 16.2 million colours thanks to Frame Rate Control (FRC), also known as dithering. IPS panels are capable of producing a real 16.7 million colours with no need for dithering. These are the 8 bit panels.
The reason that TN Film panels have traditionally been 6 bit panels is that the manufacturers used low performance A/D Convertors. This was a means to keep costs of these panels down, and also to help improve responsiveness. TN panels could just as well be 8-bit panels if the manufacturers decided to make them so.
Nowadays things aren't as clear cut. Many manufacturers including Samsung and BenQ for instance are listing some of their TN Film panels as offering 16.7 million colours. While it is hard to get any confirmed information from the manufacturers, it would seem that perhaps some modern TN Film panels now offer a full 8 bit colour depth, and perhaps negate the need for dithering technology.
Discussions across the internet seem to suggest that TN Film panels are either 6-Bit with FRC, or 6-Bit extended to 9-Bit, offering 16.7 million colours on paper. Either way, it looks as if there have been changes in TN Film recently, and dithering has become far less common."
Please don't burn me, this is an honest question:
How does the glossiness of a screen mess up its ability to display true colors?
I understand how glare could be an issue, but assuming someone could position their computer without glare, are glossy screens inherently less able to produce accurate color, even once calibrated?
How does the glossiness of a screen mess up its ability to display true colors?
I understand how glare could be an issue, but assuming someone could position their computer without glare, are glossy screens inherently less able to produce accurate color, even once calibrated?
It is a TN panel, which means it is 8 bit with dittering
I always thought that the old 20" iMacs used S-IPS panels, and thus delivering true 8 bit.
I am a professional designer and am posting this reply from my work machine is...(*gasp*) an iMac. If you are only using layout and 2d design apps it is plenty fine. My PowerBook at home has a single core 1.33 ghz processor that was state of the art 3 years ago and did everything I needed it to do fine...and now that there is something out there that has over double the power I should consider it garbage because it has an "i" in front of it's name? PLEASE! Besides, many design firms prefer iMacs because they are "good enough" power wise and more cost effective than say a $3,000+ Mac Pro. Also, the bashing of the glossy screen is totally out of control...I was playing with one yesterday at the Apple store and thought it was fine. The truth of the matter is everyone on this board feels the need to make mountains out of mole hills and complain about new products....its just confusing.
This panel tech is a bit out there... The 20" is stated to have a 160-160 degree viewing-angle at the US apple site. On many (if not all) international sites it says 170-170. To my knowledge 170 degrees would be more than a TN display can handle. 160 degrees on the other hand would be very consistent with TN, and thus 6bit per color channel - meaning dithering is needed to re-produce a 24bit color resolution.
The 24" on the other hand has a 178-178 degree viewing angle, which is not achieved by the TN technology. As there is no (S)-IPS panel in that size it is most likely to be a Samsung S-PVA Panel or possibly some MVA. This will be a 8bit per channel color resolution.
[update:] there IS a IPS panel in 24" - sorry bout that. My money are still on a Samsung S-PVA anyway
We are not making a mountain out of a mole hill, we are perhaps a lot more fussy about calibration than you are though. Maybe for what you do you do not need to calibrate the screen. To say that you played with one in the Apple store and thought it was fine is no way to test a screen. You cannot tell by doing just that that it will calibrate. People who have already bought the new iMac and calibrated the screen and then done test prints on a calibrated printer are saying the screen is showing colours that are to saturated and that is far from 'fine'.
Please don't burn me, this is an honest question:
How does the glossiness of a screen mess up its ability to display true colors?
I understand how glare could be an issue, but assuming someone could position their computer without glare, are glossy screens inherently less able to produce accurate color, even once calibrated?
The problem is the screens will not calibrate. You can use your calibration software/hardware on them but after that the screen is still not calibrated correctly. Gloss screens show too saturated colours plus too much contrast. They will also lose some of the detail in the blacks. So you adjust say a photo and then print it and the two just do not match.
Really? I have been looking for such a report on the net all day and came up empty. If there is an article/blog entry/whatever that discusses the calibration of the new iMac screen I would love to read it.
BTW, from what I read the display is matte but behind a glass plate. Does that make a difference?
Call me crazy but i never go by the color on the screen when working for print under any circumstance. I work with a $500,000 nexpress digital press every day and know that the only way to match a color is offset printing. Buy a pms swatch book to be sure. On the other hand i see how this can be an issue when working for web.
Is that true for the 24" aswell? It has 178 degrees viewing angle so I doubt it. Probably pva/mva/ips.
stefan sagmeister is not a pro.
I think all you guys in here stating that imacs are totally non-pro and should not be used by any serious designers are quite amusing. I just came across this image the other day:
http://www.pingmag.jp/2005/09/27/visiting-stefan-sagmeister/
It is a shot taken at Stefan Sagmeister's studio. Look, i spot a laptop! Oh, Oh, and behind that chair, could that possibly be, god forbid, an imac?!?
Some of the best design studios in the world don't just use mac pro's. As various posts here mentioned: You don't need crazy power for 2D Graphics, which, sorry to say it, are still the main business for most designers on the planet.
So stop complaining about the imac being totally unsuitable for "pros". Sagmeister has one in his office. Or maybe he's just not a real pro.
The glossy screen is another argument and is based on preference (colour accuracy btw. shouldnt be handled by any screen anyway if you're serious about it. No matter if glossy or matte...) , but as far as power goes, the imacs are fine.
I think all you guys in here stating that imacs are totally non-pro and should not be used by any serious designers are quite amusing. I just came across this image the other day:
It is a shot taken at Stefan Sagmeister's studio. Look, i spot a laptop! Oh, Oh, and behind that chair, could that possibly be, god forbid, an imac?!?
Some of the best design studios in the world don't just use mac pro's. As various posts here mentioned: You don't need crazy power for 2D Graphics, which, sorry to say it, are still the main business for most designers on the planet.
So stop complaining about the imac being totally unsuitable for "pros". Sagmeister has one in his office. Or maybe he's just not a real pro.
The glossy screen is another argument and is based on preference (colour accuracy btw. shouldnt be handled by any screen anyway if you're serious about it. No matter if glossy or matte...) , but as far as power goes, the imacs are fine.
No, it's 170-170 degrees for the previous 20" iMac panel on the US site too. Where do you get your information from? I have saved the old iMac page on my computer. The Tech Specs from the US site are:
Display
Built-in 17-inch (viewable), 20-inch (viewable), or 24-inch (viewable) widescreen TFT active-matrix liquid crystal display
Millions of colors at all resolutions
Typical viewing angle:
17-inch model
140° horizontal
120° vertical
20-inch model
170° horizontal
170° vertical
24-inch model
178° horizontal
178° vertical
Typical brightness: 250 cd/m (17-inch model); 280 cd/m (20-inch model); 400 cd/m (24-inch model)
Typical contrast ratio: 500:1 (17-inch model); 800:1 (20-inch model); 700:1 (24-inch model)
That's fine but that does'nt help with adjusting photographs and then printing them on say fine art papers or sending your photo files to your regular pro print lab or forwarding the same files onto your client who then prints them off.
Some links to these calibrating 'people' you mention would be great.
Well me making a note of the sites would have been really sensible would'nt it! lol. Ok think it was on http://www.dpreview.com and then going into the mac section.
One more thing about that reflection... when we were all using crt monitors they all had glass in front of them, and most of the time it didn't bother us. I doubt the reflection on the glass of the new iMac can be any worse than the reflection on an old crt. Or is this logic wrong?
While that's true, they also usually had a mat (anti-glare) coating on the glass. I don't believe that there's a anti-glare coating on the new iMac, because it's all about extra glossy, these days.
DPreview is the first site I went to trying to find more info on this potential "calibration" issue. Again, lot's of speculation but I haven't found a single thread about someone that actually owns one of the new iMacs and have tried to calibrate it. There is lots on the MPB glossy screen reporting issues but the iMac seems to be different because it's a matte screen with a piece of glass in front.
Again, I'm not trying to be a pain but if you have links to anything non-speculative about someone that owns a new iMac and that tried to calibrate it that would be nice...
The NEW 20" iMac uses TN Film from LG.Philips
Whether it is 6 or 8bit is still unknown - but the main factor for me is not dithering (at this resolution you are very unlikely to notice dithering anyway), but the issue is color distortion at different viewing angles - something that S-IPS and S-PVA doesn't suffer from.
The NEW 24" iMac is either a S-IPS panel (more likely) or a S-PVA panel based on the viewing angles alone. However as LG.Philips do not manufacture any *VA panel, this points to it being the superior S-IPS or even Enhanced S-IPS. The Cinema displays are S-IPS, so I think the 24" panel will be as good if not BETTER than the current Cinema displays that Pros use.
If the glass does indeed affect calibration (and i've not seen any evidence that it does on the new iMac with todays colorimeters and good software) then it can be removed!
Whether it is 6 or 8bit is still unknown - but the main factor for me is not dithering (at this resolution you are very unlikely to notice dithering anyway), but the issue is color distortion at different viewing angles - something that S-IPS and S-PVA doesn't suffer from.
The NEW 24" iMac is either a S-IPS panel (more likely) or a S-PVA panel based on the viewing angles alone. However as LG.Philips do not manufacture any *VA panel, this points to it being the superior S-IPS or even Enhanced S-IPS. The Cinema displays are S-IPS, so I think the 24" panel will be as good if not BETTER than the current Cinema displays that Pros use.
If the glass does indeed affect calibration (and i've not seen any evidence that it does on the new iMac with todays colorimeters and good software) then it can be removed!
DPreview is the first site I went to trying to find more info on this potential "calibration" issue. Again, lot's of speculation but I haven't found a single thread about someone that actually owns one of the new iMacs and have tried to calibrate it. There is lots on the MPB glossy screen reporting issues but the iMac seems to be different because it's a matte screen with a piece of glass in front.
Again, I'm not trying to be a pain but if you have links to anything non-speculative about someone that owns a new iMac and that tried to calibrate it that would be nice...
Sure it was dpreview but I must admit I have had problems finding things on the agai in the past sometimes. If I come across the stuff again I wil put a link up.
I have out of interest just phoned up the shop I use to buy my calibration equipment now he explained things in a way which makes things clearer than the words I have used.
Although the screen will calibrate ok the trouble is gloss screens show a level of black the you just can't get when you print. ie it's much darker. So your sat looking at your screen seeing these different levels of black and adjusting your photo accordingly. The end result on scrren could be that you can see right into the shadow detail. You then go to print it and all that lovely shadow detail has turned to one level of black and the paper it is being printed on has nowhere near the range. The papers range is nearer that of a matt screen not gloss. Same problem if you adjust the photo on a gloss screen and then you upload it onto a website and people start viewing it on matt screen. You must remember this problem will not just be on black it will be on all colours.
One thing he did add was this, the calibration software/hardware company Gretag company have said that the macbook pro's with the new LED screens at present cannot be calibrated even if they are matt. For whatever reason the LED backlighting fools calibration systems. Gretag have told him they are looking into it and seeing what cure they can come up with. It maybe as simple as a software update.
Gloss screens on the other hand have no cure.
Glad I made the call because he explained the problem in a much clearer way than I have done so far. Hope this helps. Complete suprise about LED screens.
Sorry, for some reason I missed the 'old' in the whole thing. My bad
All I can find on the LM201WE3 panel, says it is an 8-bit.
These guys say it is a LM201WE3:
http://www.kodawarisan.com/imac_2007_mid/imac_2007_mid_03.html