I get a lot of questions about what displays I recommend, and answering them can be tricky. Some people are seeking justification for spending a lot of money on something they may not need. There are a lot of old notions that we need to forgot as well as newer features we need to consider. I have a few display recommendations on the recommendations page and people often ask me my why brands like NEC or Eizo monitors are not on there.
My feeling is that the internal calibration hardware that some displays have (NEC, Eizo, Sony, Barco, etc) played an important role in addressing real issues we had decades ago that do not really exist today. For the last 10+ years or so one can place a high quality display without internal calibration next to high quality display with internal calibration, calibrate them with i1Profiler and the internal solution respectively, and get equal results. I have talked with several high end industry professionals that agree with this but are generally afraid to admit it publicly.
The really neat thing about displays today are their increasingly high pixel counts which allow you to see more image detail. The more pixels the better (the same with cameras). If there was a high quality 5K display without calibration available for the same price as a high quality 4K display with internal calibration, I would buy the 5K display. The problem with the internal calibration displays is that they are stuck at 4K and continue to charge exorbitant prices.
As for color gamut, we all know sRGB is a 30+ year standard that is inadequate for modern workflows. AdobeRGB is a 26 year old specification that lacks a meaningful amount of saturation in the reds. P3 is the modern stand that replaces both of these. Let me say that P3 is fantastic, and I’m tremendously happy with it for a variety of reasons. No only does it have a meaningful amount of reds that AdobeRGB did not, it’s not only a fantastic viewing space it’s also an excellent working space. Now that all web browsers are color complaint, there no reason not to save images for the web in P3. All high quality displays today, like those found in most phones and tablets are P3 and most phone cameras shoot to the P3 image space as well. Getting on board the P3 bandwagon makes sense.
When it comes to maximum brightness and/or HDR capability, these things are of little consequence to still image and print professionals. High brightness levels are important when viewing a mobile device in direct sunlight and possibly when viewing movies in a well lit environment. Video production professionals might find value in HDR displays but color critical non-video production workstations don’t need super high brightness levels and typically lower the brightness when calibrating.
Another factor to consider is the surface. If you print primarily to matte surface papers one could argue that it makes sense to choose a matte surface display. If you work primarily with non-matte papers then it certainly makes sense to use a modern non-matte display with antireflective coatings like our lenses have. The achievable black point will be determined by this choice of surface. You can simulate lighter print blacks on a non-matte display but you can not simulate super rich deep blacks on a matte surfaced display, for example.
Apple deserves some credit here. They did an amazing thing when they put two panels together to create the 5K display they have used in the 27″ Macs since 2014. LG sold the same display as their 5K Ultrafine display initially for $1000. The extra resolution really mattered at a time when most displays were stuck at ~2K resolution. All of Apple’s displays (phones, tablets, laptops and desktop displays) all use the P3 color gamut today.
Apple’s new 5K Studio Display is excellent. The optional nanotech surface is unmatched in the industry and there are still few other 5K displays to choose from. Apple’s 32 inch 6K Pro Display XDR display is also beautiful thing to behold regardless of price. These are excellent options and two different price points. Meanwhile, NEC, Eizo, etc still sell 4K displays with internal calibration at prices even higher than Apple’s higher resolution displays. Have you seen Barco’s low resolution $10K medical displays? Meanwhile major brands are focusing on high-profit margin, high resolution huge TVs, not desktop computer monitors. I would love a 32 inch 8K display but would never use a 80 inch TV for a monitor. I never thought I would say this but, Apple is the leader in high quality computer monitors today, not NEC, Eizo, or Barco.
There is also a huge need to for inexpensive displays that are relatively high quality. For that reason I also feel good about recommending LG’s $200 32 inch display and the $550 4K version. Different displays for different folks, all of them quite good for different reasons.
Of course, we used to make really good drum scans on B&W monitors by following the numbers and making proofs. Not relying on the monitor to judge image quality was a powerful lesson.