I'm a photographer and a gamer! Ugh!

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EvilSardine

n00b
Joined
Oct 24, 2007
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Hey guys! First post here.

I was researching my next monitor purchase and I just so happened to have stumbled onto this forum. It really seemed like the people here knew their stuff so here I am with a question.

I have been using CRTs forever and I just can't stand it anymore. I need a 24" LCD!

The only problem is that I need excellent color representation for my photography work while still having a low ms for gaming. The LCD will be calibrated with one of those Xrite things. There's a billion LCDs out there and I'm confused.

I borrowed a 23" Apple display from a friend. It's colors are accurate but it's response time is so slow I wanted to blow my brains out when gaming.

I was looking at dell's 24" UltraSharp 2407WFP-HC and that's a PVA screen. I looked throughout the forum and saw a couple of bad things about PVA. Then again, IPS screens have slow response times. To top things off, TN displays seem to be put down a lot. Now I'm really confused. I'm not looking to spend over a thousand dollars though. :\

What do you guys recommend?

Thanks alot in advance guys.
 
Actually. PVA screens are the slowest, until you add overdrive.

TN>IPS>VA.

Then you factor in Overdrive. The problem is that the Apple 23" ACD does not have any overdrive. The Dell does. But then overdrive causes it's own set of artifacts, the Dell is particular noted for this. Dell is aware of the problem and has admited they can't fix it. They offered refunds to those who are unhappy.

Ideal would be a decent 24 ips with overdrive. I think the NEC 2490 might fit the bill, but it is VERY expensive.

A more affordable fast IPS that may still be available is the NEC 20WMGX2 or Dell 2007wfp (if you get the IPS screen as dell ships IPS/PVA randomly).

Good luck. I too would love a decent/affordable 24 inch gaming/image editing screen. They don't exist for me.
 
Modern IPS panels (S-IPS, AS-IPS, H-IPS) have response times rivaling TN's. They're the best panels for color work and they're also great for gaming. They are rare and expensive, however. I do not know of a 24" model (edit: Snowdog pointed out the 2490). Planar sells a 26".

Take my advice and don't throw out your CRT just yet. LCD's still cannot handle dark colors properly and you may find your LCD to be unacceptable when dealing with shadow detail in your photos. Dark areas in games can also be a pain. Dual monitors, LCD and CRT is definitely the way to go for a designer.
 
a LCD w/ LED backlighting would be great right about now -_-. I don't understand why panel makers are so slow on the uptake of what is really a game changing technology... A couple of laptops, and even big screen LCDs now have LED backlights. Samsung also does LED backlighting in its DLPs. All of them have notably better black lvls and color reproduction.
 
Denki said:
a LCD w/ LED backlighting would be great right about now -_-. I don't understand why panel makers are so slow on the uptake of what is really a game changing technology... A couple of laptops, and even big screen LCDs now have LED backlights. Samsung also does LED backlighting in its DLPs. All of them have notably better black lvls and color reproduction.
Click to expand...

LEDs for backlighting change nothing.

Unless you make a huge grid of LEDs and control them individually at different areas of the screen. Known as local dimming or other names. This is VERY expensive and currently available LED backlight laptops do NOT do this. You essentially can't tell a current laptop LED backlight from fluorescent tube.
 
EvilSardine said:
Hey guys! First post here.

I was researching my next monitor purchase and I just so happened to have stumbled onto this forum. It really seemed like the people here knew their stuff so here I am with a question.

I have been using CRTs forever and I just can't stand it anymore. I need a 24" LCD!

The only problem is that I need excellent color representation for my photography work while still having a low ms for gaming. The LCD will be calibrated with one of those Xrite things. There's a billion LCDs out there and I'm confused.

I borrowed a 23" Apple display from a friend. It's colors are accurate but it's response time is so slow I wanted to blow my brains out when gaming.

I was looking at dell's 24" UltraSharp 2407WFP-HC and that's a PVA screen. I looked throughout the forum and saw a couple of bad things about PVA. Then again, IPS screens have slow response times. To top things off, TN displays seem to be put down a lot. Now I'm really confused. I'm not looking to spend over a thousand dollars though. :\

What do you guys recommend?

Thanks alot in advance guys.
Click to expand...

There's no way around it man - you either get an LCD for photography or one for gaming. There is no 'best of both worlds' when it comes to LCD's, you're sacrificing one for the other.
People can argue this till the end of time but the fact remains.

I suggest you stick with a CRT, because it IS the best of both worlds.

If you HAVE to have both, there is no other choice. You CAN get a CRT like the one in my sig from accurateIT that both movie studios use and CAD drafters use for color accuracy.
And of course, they have no lag times that will always be faster than any LCD with even zero lag time.
 
joemama said:
Some will say no to this one simply because of the glossy screen coating but I have one and it works great for gaming and my (non-professional) digital photos look great also. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...Flat+Panel-_-NEC+Display+Solutions-_-24002319 keep in mind that this monitor was over $600 when it first came out...and makes a decent bedroom/office tv as a bonus!:cool:
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That's primarily a gaming monitor. I've had that one before also. It has pretty good colors but no where near one would consider for photography work. You just can't get good black levels (critical for color work) on LCD's.
pretty good gaming monitor though, unless you play twitchy FPS's.
 
Well, let's say that you HAD to make a decision and buy a 24" LCD for gaming and photography work.

What would it be? (Excludes $1k+ models)

I'm sure there's one that I would be happy with. I know there isn't a perfect one....
 
I am still using my HP L2335 as my primary monitor, its a S-IPS panel and is great in both games and photoshop. I recently bought the Soyo Topaz S 24" as a secondary monitor for my actions list and tools in photoshop. Works out great.
 
ToastyX said:
The 24" NEC LCD2490WUXi is down to $967.40 at Provantage: http://www.provantage.com/YNECL08W.htm

That monitor is as close to perfect as you're going to find.
Click to expand...

Woah woah....wait a second. So is this finally the answer I was looking for? an H-IPS panel with good colors and a fast response time?

What's the catch? Other than the price being a tad bit higher than the others but I'd rather spend just a little more to be completely happy.

[EDIT]

What's with the two different response times? color and gray to gray on this newegg page? Is this the same monitor?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824002168

Does that mean it's 16ms just like the super ghosting apple monitor?



darktiger said:
I am still using my HP L2335 as my primary monitor, its a S-IPS panel and is great in both games and photoshop. I recently bought the Soyo Topaz S 24" as a secondary monitor for my actions list and tools in photoshop. Works out great.
Click to expand...

That can't be good for gaming. It has a 16ms response time which has as much ghosting as the apple 23" I was using (that one was 16ms) and I hated the blur so much when looking around.
 
I like the 20wmgx2, I have a ACD 23" and I when i place it side by side, the color range for both is about the same, but ACD 23" suck at gaming...

I am so happy with the 20wmgx2 that I got 3
have 2 running in dual screen setup and replace my old crt and old pc with the 3rd..

wasn't apple suppose to renew their line of LCD soon?
maybe you should wait for that
 
EvilSardine said:
Woah woah....wait a second. So is this finally the answer I was looking for? an H-IPS panel with good colors and a fast response time?

What's the catch? Other than the price being a tad bit higher than the others but I'd rather spend just a little more to be completely happy.

[EDIT]

What's with the two different response times? color and gray to gray on this newegg page? Is this the same monitor?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824002168

Does that mean it's 16ms just like the super ghosting apple monitor?
Click to expand...
The 16ms is just an honest reporting of response times...the gray to gray is probably around 8ms. I have a Dell 2007WFP S-IPS rated @16ms and it seems just as fast as my 6ms NEC 20WMGX2 when it comes to gaming (and independent testing shows that it is closer to 8ms) so I would say that NEC is what you're looking for...you just don't see much talk about it here because of the price is high for a 24".
 
Yep, the NEC 2490W is definitely the answer. Just a little lower in price, and I bet the disscussion starts to intensify around here. Even at $1000 it's worth every penny though.
 
ToastyX said:
The 24" NEC LCD2490WUXi is down to $967.40 at Provantage: http://www.provantage.com/YNECL08W.htm

That monitor is as close to perfect as you're going to find.
Click to expand...

vista_blista said:
Yep, the NEC 2490W is definitely the answer. Just a little lower in price, and I bet the disscussion starts to intensify around here. Even at $1000 it's worth every penny though.
Click to expand...

absolutely agreed - NEC's and EIZO's are the top of the line.

if i were you i'd give this some serious consideration - 69% color gamut prolly the best you're going to get below $1700:cool:
 
So have you made a decision yet?

To be honest I hate this part of computers... Costs alot of money and nothing really seems to fit the bill. :D
 
Well, what's the gray to gray response time on a 23" apple then? I tested that LCD in gaming and there was a lot of ghosting so I really didn't like it. If the NEC has the same response times color/g2g then what's the point of even considering it? :\

Anyone hear anything good about Gateway's 24" LCD? I thought I heard somewhere that it's better than Dells.
 
Dunan said:
There's no way around it man - you either get an LCD for photography or one for gaming. There is no 'best of both worlds' when it comes to LCD's, you're sacrificing one for the other.
People can argue this till the end of time but the fact remains.

I suggest you stick with a CRT, because it IS the best of both worlds.

If you HAVE to have both, there is no other choice. You CAN get a CRT like the one in my sig from accurateIT that both movie studios use and CAD drafters use for color accuracy.
And of course, they have no lag times that will always be faster than any LCD with even zero lag time.
Click to expand...

Yeah that CRT is pretty much the best you're gonna find right now if it's anything like my Dell P1130 (Sony G520). The P1130 is a 20" viewable screen with almost perfect blacks (can barely tell the screen is on in a dark room when I turn on a plain black screen, after it's warmed up of course), amazing response time, bright, beautiful colors. The only thing I wish it had is widescreen, which your monitor / Sony FW900 has.
 
Scyles said:
Gateway's 24" ended up being one of the worst 24" panels due to an "inverse ghosting" problem, from what I've read. I saw a YouTube video of the problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOIWSAKTC_k&mode=related&search=
Click to expand...

Wow. Thanks for the info. That looks horrible!

So, anyone know if the NEC display with 16ms color and 8ms gray to gray will have the same ghosting as apple's 23" which has 16ms listed on it's specs?

If it does, I might as well scratch that off my list. Heh.
 
Dunan said:
There's no way around it man - you either get an LCD for photography or one for gaming. There is no 'best of both worlds' when it comes to LCD's, you're sacrificing one for the other.People can argue this till the end of time but the fact remains.

I suggest you stick with a CRT, because it IS the best of both worlds.

If you HAVE to have both, there is no other choice. You CAN get a CRT like the one in my sig from accurateIT that both movie studios use and CAD drafters use for color accuracy.
And of course, they have no lag times that will always be faster than any LCD with even zero lag time.
Click to expand...


Dell 3007WFP-HC ?
 
Buy two monitors, 1 cheap TN panel for gaming (and perhaps checking your photos on what most people see), and one pristine IPS panel for pro work. This way, when you are choosing the IPS panel, you don't have to worry about speed issues or its drawbacks. Besides, sub 20" TN panels are unbelievably cheap.
 
EvilSardine said:
So, anyone know if the NEC display with 16ms color and 8ms gray to gray will have the same ghosting as apple's 23" which has 16ms listed on it's specs?
Click to expand...
I'm surprised you find the 23" Apple so offensive. It's actually what I would have recommended first for what you wanted. It has reasonable response times compared to other monitors I've tried and has less than one frame of lag. It has some motion blur, but all LCD monitors have motion blur. The NEC is a little better with overdrive on, but it has about two frames of lag, which you may or may not notice. Overdrive is designed to reduce motion blur by reducing gray-to-gray response times. The Apple doesn't have overdrive.

My recommendation is to get the NEC, and if you're really bothered by it, use your CRT for gaming. That's the best of both worlds right there. Even a TN panel won't beat a CRT for gaming.
 
Ricey said:
Gaming at a lower resolution than a LCD's optimal looks like crap for the most part :p
Click to expand...

Maybe for you, maybe not for everybody.

I've been running 1920x1200 for quite some time without enough GPU horsepower to run native rez.

Proper scaling algorithms give an adequate image with an image deterioration that is almost an order of magnitude less than having the other type of image flaws if I went with a no-blur fast display (TN), or a decent image quality for photo manipulation, but with bad features for gaming (input lag, display lag).

It depends on _what_ each person wants. The best way is to see for oneself and see what is the compromise for oneself.

For me 3007WFP-HC (or something similar) is the obvious choice, once it's Euro price comes down about 50% (it's more than twice as expensive locally than in the US).
 
halcy said:
Maybe for you, maybe not for everybody.

I've been running 1920x1200 for quite some time without enough GPU horsepower to run native rez.

Proper scaling algorithms give an adequate image with an image deterioration that is almost an order of magnitude less than having the other type of image flaws if I went with a no-blur fast display (TN), or a decent image quality for photo manipulation, but with bad features for gaming (input lag, display lag).

It depends on _what_ each person wants. The best way is to see for oneself and see what is the compromise for oneself.

For me 3007WFP-HC (or something similar) is the obvious choice, once it's Euro price comes down about 50% (it's more than twice as expensive locally than in the US).
Click to expand...


It'll look like crap unless it has 1:1 pixel mapping. If it does, great, but if not, then it will look horrible.
 
repoman0 said:
Yeah that CRT is pretty much the best you're gonna find right now if it's anything like my Dell P1130 (Sony G520). The P1130 is a 20" viewable screen with almost perfect blacks (can barely tell the screen is on in a dark room when I turn on a plain black screen, after it's warmed up of course), amazing response time, bright, beautiful colors. The only thing I wish it had is widescreen, which your monitor / Sony FW900 has.
Click to expand...

I think he's bent on getting an LCD no matter what:D

Sony tubes are the best for colors and blacks. The blacks on your monitor are like mine, if the lights are out, you really cant tell its on.:D

To the OP: I would seriously consider staying with a CRT if doing photo work is a priority because unless you have serious bank, you're going to be disappointed with LCD offerings for colors/response time. You wont find a color critical LCD for under $1700, and that would be NEC's intro LCD pro line.
 
Ricey said:
Gaming at a lower resolution than a LCD's optimal looks like crap for the most part :p
Click to expand...

I didn't say you have to let the image stretch to fullscreen ;)

I game myself on my laptop on lower resolutions then native, with black around it. Thanks to the nVidia drivers. And there are some monitors who can do it theirselves indeed (1:1 pixelmapping). But it's also possible in the output side, to send just the lower resolution image with black around it.

And 1280x800 on a 30" is also good. And 800x600 on a 20" too :p
 
I wouldn't need it to be the perfect LCD. We actually use apple LCDs at our studio and they're good enough when it comes to photo work. If the blacks aren't darker than a black hole, then that's fine. I just want something CLOSE to the apple but with less ghosting during gaming.

Arg!

Thanks for the suggestions so far guys. This forum is nice.
 
Higher is better, but you have to be skeptical about anything higher than 1000:1 contrast ratio. If its higher than 1000:1, then the manufacturer is advertising dynamic contrast which is totally inaccurate.

You shouldn't even care about color gamut unless its a professional monitor to begin with. High gamut, cheap TN panels are a joke.
 
jcvjcvjcvjcv said:
I didn't say you have to let the image stretch to fullscreen ;)

I game myself on my laptop on lower resolutions then native, with black around it. Thanks to the nVidia drivers. And there are some monitors who can do it theirselves indeed (1:1 pixelmapping). But it's also possible in the output side, to send just the lower resolution image with black around it.

And 1280x800 on a 30" is also good. And 800x600 on a 20" too :p
Click to expand...

True, but whats the point of spending so much money on a monitor if your going to be using/playing at a lower resolution with black bars? I hate black bars, sure it lets you play at a lower resolution and still looks ok but then the logical thing would just to have gone with a smaller monitor or a CRT, unless of course its a old game that only supports a lower res in which case the black bars would be fine. I can understand using black bars on a laptop too since their GPUs cant be upgraded to something more powerful so your limited to what you can do.
Also doing photo/color work, the image deterioration caused by a non-native resolution on a LCD is just unacceptable to me. Not trying to push anyone's buttons but just dont understand the logic of getting a large LCD and not using native resolution, its like buying a top of the line Pioneer ELITE plasma and using it to watch s-video or SDTV only. Just not the reason why you would spend so much on something and not use it to its full potential. Also he may be using it to do image work at one point or another so you should consider image quality at non-native.
 
I just received my LCD2490WUXi today and it really is the best looking 24" LCD I've seen, bar none. I even played a little HL2:Episode 2 on it over my lunch break today and it looked great. No noticeable ghosting or input lag, but then again, I may not be as sensitive to those things as other people are. I intend to use it for mainly photo/video editing, so the gaming thing is not such a big issue with me, but the monitor seems to be completely capable of providing an enjoyable gaming experience. My only beef is that it was damn expensive, but I guess you get what you pay for.;)
I had also considered the ACD 23", but the 1-year warranty really turned me off. Too much of a risk for that much money. I'll keep you posted if I find anything terribly irritating with my monitor. So far I haven't found anything to complain about.
 
machinaex00 said:
I just received my LCD2490WUXi today and it really is the best looking 24" LCD I've seen, bar none. I even played a little HL2:Episode 2 on it over my lunch break today and it looked great. No noticeable ghosting or input lag, but then again, I may not be as sensitive to those things as other people are. I intend to use it for mainly photo/video editing, so the gaming thing is not such a big issue with me, but the monitor seems to be completely capable of providing an enjoyable gaming experience. My only beef is that it was damn expensive, but I guess you get what you pay for.;)
I had also considered the ACD 23", but the 1-year warranty really turned me off. Too much of a risk for that much money. I'll keep you posted if I find anything terribly irritating with my monitor. So far I haven't found anything to complain about.
Click to expand...

Thats a sweet monitor:D
 
Scyles said:
You shouldn't even care about color gamut unless its a professional monitor to begin with. High gamut, cheap TN panels are a joke.
Click to expand...

I have a TN right now (fhd2400) by no means is it a cheap display. When you say unless its a professional monitor, what does that matter? Color is important to me, and i would never go less than 92%.
 
21questions said:
I have a TN right now (fhd2400) by no means is it a cheap display. When you say unless its a professional monitor, what does that matter? Color is important to me, and i would never go less than 92%.
Click to expand...
If color accuracy were truly important to you then you wouldn't have a TN panel..
 
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