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Being the industry standard, this calibrator is also compatible with pretty much everything - after-market calibration software, Eizo's ColorNavigator and NEC's SpectraView, and all types of monitors including CRT, LCDs, OLEDs, Plasmas, front projectors and more. Question: Q: Best screen color calibrator for the iMac LED screens? I hear that Spyder3 Pro is one of the better screen color calibrators but everything I read about it only mentions LCD and CRT. Does it work on LED screens? It is a bit confusing how the industry has named these different screens.
The Rundown
Best Overall:Acer S277HK at Amazon, “With a frameless design and a cool, offset modern stand, this is the perfect specialty monitor for your design desk.”
Best 32-Inch 4K Display:NEC PA-322UHD-BK-SV on Bhphotovideo.com, “New IGZO technology allows…great color while using less power than traditional LCD panel technologies.”
Best 30-Inch Display:Dell UP3017 at Amazon, “Calibrates the displays at the factory to offer some great out-of-the-box color.”
Best 27-inch 4K Display:LG 27UD68 at Amazon, “On-screen controls in the form of a window that lets you adjust the monitor more precisely to your needs.”
Best 27-inch Display:Dell UltraSharp UP2716D at Amazon, “Some of the best color available on the market.”
Best 24-inch 4K Display:Dell P2415Q at Amazon, “One of the most affordable of the professional level displays.”
Our Top Picks
Best Overall: Acer S277HK
Acer floats a bit under the radar, lagging behind in brand recognition when compared to the HPs and the Samsungs of the market. But, considering that Acer's monitors are built with similar components and panels as those larger names, they’re worth considering, and this Acer 27-inch workhorse takes the cake for its price-to-feature ratio. First, with a resolution of 3840 x 2160, any graphic designer will have tons of pixels to play with, and you won’t need to worry about blowing up projects past this screen’s resolution capabilities. It’s also an IPS display, which means that the viewing angle is a super-wide 178 degrees — an important factor for designers because without good viewing angles, you’ll see color distortion on the far boundaries and recesses of your screen. They’ve built in 100% RGB color correction to ensure your projects are as accurate as possible, and with a 4-ms response rate, you won’t see a lag in your mouse movements and adjustments. Add that in with a frameless design, and a cool, offset, modern stand, and this is the perfect specialty monitor for your design desk.
Check out our laptops display and graphics guide so you can make an informed purchase.
Best 32-Inch 4K Display - NEC PA-322UHD-BK-SV
To get the best detail for very minute work with images, a large high resolution display is ideal for graphic artists. The NEC PA-322UHD display offers a very large 32-inch display with a full 4K or UltraHD display resolution. The 32-inch panel used for the display uses the new IGZO technology that allows it to get some great color while using less power than traditional LCD panel technologies. In fact, it can display up to 99.2% of the AdobeRGB color space. To make sure that the display continues to offer the best color possible over its life, NEC also offers this version with its SpectraView color calibration unit. This ensures that digital artists can be sure that there work on their PC will be accurate to their final product. The downside here is of course the price which is typically around $3500.
Best 30-Inch Display - Dell UP3017
Want a large 30-inch display but don't want to have to pay the premium for a high quality 4K display? The Dell UltraSharp U3017 is a great lower cost option available. The 30-inch display panel uses more traditional IPS technology but still offers a nice 2560 x 1600 display resolution for highly detailed work. The display offers some great color support with up to 99% of the AdobeRGB color space. The best part is that Dell with their PremierColor program calibrate the displays at the factory to offer some great out of the box color. While list priced are typically around $1500, it is possible to find it for less making this much more affordable than professional 4K displays.
Take a look at our roundup of the best 30-inch LCD monitors.
Best 27-inch 4K Display - LG 27UD68
LG’s offering for the 27-inch 4K market is great and would make a solid monitor for any working designer — or even just someone who wants to do some gaming and have it look great. The 3840 x 2160 resolution puts you square in the 4K realm, which is important when you’re looking closely at such a large screen. LG promises that the sRGB spectrum will be upwards of 99% accounted for, meaning near-perfect color accuracy and more consistent work output. They’ve made strides with the monitor controls, forgoing an awkward button-based system and opting for on-screen controls in the form of a window that lets you adjust the monitor more precisely to your needs. With such a high resolution, you’re also going to want to try their screen-split tech that lets you work on two projects simultaneously. The other star feature comes in the form of LG’s FreeSync tech, giving you adjusted movement and smooth graphics no matter what graphics card your computer is using. Round that out with a wide-angle IPS panel yielding great color rep, even on the borders, and this monitor is the perfect designer’s rig (including as part of a multiple monitor setup).
Best 27-inch Display - Dell UltraSharp UP2716D
On big issue that many 27-inch 4K displays face is the inability to properly support the higher color gamuts. They may have the detail, but they lack the color. Dell's UltraSharp UP2716D may only have a 2560x1440 resolution but it offers full support of the AdobeRGB and sRGB colors spaces plus support for the REC 709 and DCI-P3 often used in video work. Combine this with the Dell PremierColor factory calibration and this display offers some of the best color available on the market. Pricing may be a bit on the high side compared to some other displays but even at the full list price of $899, it is an incredible display that is great for anyone doing professional graphics work.
Like this size? Take a look at our picks for the best 27-inch LCD monitors.
Best 24-inch 4K Display - Dell P2415Q
Sadly, Dell does not make a UltraSharp 24-inch display with 4K video support. This is partly a problem with the supply of high quality 24-inch Ultra HD display panels. While they may offer great resolution, they tend to lack the color performance of most of the larger displays. This of course does offer the advantage of them being much more affordable. The display still does offer up to 99% coverage of the sRGB color space but less when it comes to the AdobeRGB. In addition, it is not factory calribrated to the same levels as the PremierColor displays the company offers. Still, it is one of the best 24-inch display panels for those that want 4K resolutions. List price for the display is $550.
Best 24-inch Display - ASUS PA248Q
If you have a limited budget and desk space for the display, than the ASUS PA248Q makes for a good option for those needing a solid display for graphics work. The 24-inch panel uses a somewhat non-standard 1920x1200 native resolution that gives it a slightly higher resolution than many others. It uses IPS technology and offers some good color that is color calibrated by ASUS but not to the same levels as Dell's PremierColor displays. It features a full 100% of the sRGB color spectrum which is good enough for many users. Best part about this is that the display can often be found for under $300 making it one of the most affordable of the professional level displays.
Want to read more reviews? Browse our selections for the best 24-inch LCD monitors.
If you're an avid photographer, you've probably shot tons of photos, investing a large chunk of your time and disposable income in a digital SLR camera. And you’ve spent even more time learning the ins and outs of photography, including lighting, composition, and image editing. So why don’t your photos look better than they do?
Maybe it’s your monitor.
Best Monitor Color Calibrator
Why Should You Calibrate?
Best Color Calibration For Mac Screen
Calibrating your PC display is an important step, for one simple reason: You want the colors and black levels to look as accurate as possible. The most obvious benefit of proper calibration is that it ensures the best results when you're editing or viewing photographs. But accurate colors and black levels also make videos and games look better on your monitor--you’ll be viewing content in the way the content's creators intended.
In this article, I'll talk about how you can use Windows 7’s built-in tools to perform a quick calibration. Then I’ll mention a website or two that can aid in calibrating your display. Finally I’ll discuss a low-cost hardware tool, to give you a feel for how you might use something similar to calibrate your monitor.
Consider the Monitor's Capabilities
Tv Screen Calibrator
Before diving into the minutiae of monitor calibration, I'll talk a bit about displays themselves. At first blush, it’s a great time to be a computer user: Big, bright displays with very fast response times cost a couple hundred dollars. What’s not to like?
Well, they may not be very good. Most low-cost LCD screens use TN (twisted nematic) technology. The response time of TN displays can be fast, but most of these monitors are limited to a color depth of 6 bits per pixel. With three pixels representing the red, green, and blue primary colors, this means the number of simultaneous colors on screen is limited to 262,144. Such displays simulate higher color depths via dithering--a process that digitally simulates greater color depths than are really available. That’s why, if you’re looking at an image with finely shaded color gradations, you may see color banding.
You really want a monitor with a color resolution of 8 bits per pixel, since such a display is capable of showing over 16 million simultaneous colors. A few monitors capable of 10 bits per pixel are shipping now, too.
Most of the higher-end displays that support 8 bits per pixel use either a version of IPS (in-plane switching) or some flavor of PVA (patterned vertical alignment). Both technologies are more costly to manufacture, but you can find relatively good, 24-inch IPS-based displays for around $400. The point isn’t to focus on the LCD tech as much as it is to pay attention to better color depth.
Set the Color Gamut
You often see higher-end monitors touted as having wide color gamuts. Although many models let you set your color gamut of choice in their on-screen menus (aka on-screen displays), some high-end 30-inch monitors have no built-in video-processing chip. If that's the case with your monitor, you need to use Windows' display controls to adjust the color gamut. I’ll give you a closer look at the advanced Windows display control panels shortly.
A good rule of thumb is to set your monitor's color gamut to match your target output device. If you’re mostly editing photos that go up on websites, good old sRGB works just fine, even though it’s “only” 78 percent of the NTSC color gamut. If your printer is the target device, you may want to set a higher color gamut, depending on the printer model. But then you have to worry about the color settings on the printer. Calibrating for printer output is a whole other topic that requires its own article.
I want to focus on monitor calibration for everyday use and for uploading photos to the Web. I’ll mention calibrating for video in passing, but the assumption is that you'll view the video on your monitor, rather than burning it to a Blu-ray Disc for playback on an HDTV.
Next page: Understanding monitor settings, and starting Windows 7 color calibration