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What monitor to use?

J

justmyself

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 2, 2009
32
0
For years I've used my old emac for any design work I've done. The CRT does a great job of showing the colors true color. Since I got a MacBook last year I can say the LCD just does not cut it. I've gone through calibration and the like, but colors always end up looking weird when an image created on the macbook is viewed on CRT.

Basically, I know my eMac won't last forever. I'm wondering what other graphic designers are using for a monitor?
 
Really, I'm leery of trying any type of LCD. I haven't found one yet that holds color like a CRT. Maybe I haven't seen a high quality one, but the LCD I have seen are building lots of CRT loyalty. I went to viewsonics website. I had always thought they would carry some CRT's. I could only find a 15" and a 17". Make me wonder if CRT is going away :(
 
seems to me the CRT has been on it's way out for the last few years. Eizo is probably the way to go, much higher end, but probably as close to the quality as you are looking for. I assume you've seen apple's and dells, those are probably the closest without breaking the bank completely.

Sorry to say, but CRTs are dying mostly. They use tons of power (compared to lcds) and are not good for the eyes due.

Laser tvs are out though. They show something like 90% of the human color spectrum compared to something like 45 or less on current ones, so once that drops maybe you'll start seeing some laser monitors for color work.

Other then that, LCDs and print proofs are going to have to be your route. On the plus side, check out craigslist, CRTs pop up there for super cheap every day (25 bucks or free!)

P.S. i assume you've checked out other monitors, but the macbook (i have one i know!) screen is putrid for color, any LCD will pretty much be better then that. The macbook pros are much better, as are the imacs (24 inchers) ... but definitely look at the higher end lcds if you haven't already, they are pretty great with spider calibration especially.
 
High end LCD's these days offer better color than the CRT's of yesteryear.

Take a look in pretty much any pro studio these days and you'll find high end LCD's from NEC and Ezio.
 
The old aperture grille CRT's are crap compared to a good S-IPS LCD (and your emac screen is MAJOR crap compared to a good S-IPS since emacs use a shadow mask CRT). CRT's went away several years ago, its time to move on, outside of the ones that costed thousands of dollars they werent very good anyways.

You are probably looking at TN LCD's which are the most common, those arent very good. S-IPS is the best. As for the macbook screen of course its not going to look very good, its a low end laptop.
 
Thanks for the suggestions.

Right now I'm a poor student, so I can not afford a high end lcd. All I need is something for web graphics. I have a macbook but I kept getting comments on how wierd the colors looked. When I did see my graphics on a crt they do look odd.

Anyway, my emac is aging and the display quivers at times. I was hoping to replace my emac with a mac mini. Who knows maybe I'll always like crt. Kind of like those people that like vinyl.

Thanks again
 
justmyself said:
Thanks for the suggestions.

Right now I'm a poor student, so I can not afford a high end lcd. All I need is something for web graphics. I have a macbook but I kept getting comments on how wierd the colors looked. When I did see my graphics on a crt they do look odd.

Anyway, my emac is aging and the display quivers at times. I was hoping to replace my emac with a mac mini. Who knows maybe I'll always like crt. Kind of like those people that like vinyl.

Thanks again
Click to expand...

Your laptop may just need hardware calibration. A DataColor Spyder3 or Xrite ColorMunki are both excellent choices.

Jerry
 
Personally I love my Dell 30" 3007, and I got it pretty well matched up with my Camera images (D300 and a Spyder).

But... those eizo screens look awesome (esp the 30" with dual DVI-D and 1600x1200 simultanious split screen inputs - WOW

Such a shame it seems they only ship inside the US. :)
 
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