Wide Gamut or not?

[pascalb]

Hi everybody

 

I've been working with a Philips 17" LCD for a long time now and I'm planning on buying a new monitor. I've

looked at the HP LP2475w which has received a reasonably good review on prad.de

(http://prad.de/en/monitore/reviews.html) and is not too expensive. I'm working mostly in Adobe RGB and convert

to sRGB at the end to have prints done at a lab. My questions are:

 

Is it a good idea to buy a wide gamut display? or will I get undersaturated prints because a wide gamut monitor

displays too saturated?

Will I bee able to calibrate the monitor well with my Spyder2 Pro?

 

Thank you for your input and suggestions.

[toddr]

The only thing I would warn you about is that colors will look oversaturated in your regular windows apps (assuming you're on windows). This is especially a problem if you're doing graphic design type things in an app that's not color managed, like Adobe Fireworks. You can use Firefox 3 with color management turned on for web browsing and all the other Adobe apps work great.

 

You shouldn't get oversaturated prints if you're using a color managed program, like Photoshop or Lightroom, because the wide gamut *allows* it to display a wider color range, but if you soft proof to the printer's profile, it will show you the range of colors actually printed (within the monitor's gamut).

[pascalb]

Thank you for the answer. What about the calibration with spyder2? Does that work on wide gamut?

[roger_smith4]

Spyder 2 should work fine. Your "wide gamut" may allow it to accurately display more of the AdobeRGB space.

[scott_turner]

Pascal,

 

I just finished building a new photo editing system (my first foray into a 64 bit OS thanks to the release of PS CS4), and chose the HP LP2475 as the display for a number of reasons. It's one of the least expensive IPS panels you'll find, yet the quality is definitely there. It's also wide gamut, but not to the extreme level that some are, which helps with non-color managed stuff - see below.

 

As my main purpose for the display is critical photo editing, not web design, I didn't worry overly much about how non-color managed material would look, and so far I think I got it right. Once calibrated, color-managed images are simply spectacular, while non color managed stuff isn't really as over the top as some would suggest.

 

I bought a new Spyder 3 to calibrate it, specifically because the Spyder 3 seems to be about the only moderately priced calibration unit purported to handle the newer wide gamut displays. I've always liked the Eye 1 Display 2, but I've read too many reports of late about issues with it and wide gamut displays.

 

Again, it's early days for me, but I'm very (OK, very very!, but I'll cautiously discount that a bit due to the "new stuff" factor) pleased so far, and would extend a conditional recommendation, especially if your main purpose is photo work. I'll know more in a few weeks, after I've had a chance to push the limits a bit further with known test images, but the ones I've evaluated in the first week have certainly left me impressed.

 

Scott

[scott_turner]

Just a quick followup to my earlier comment on the Spyder 3 - Here's a quote from NEC on the use of the Spyder 2

with their own wide-gamut monitors:

 

"The Datacolor Spyder2 color sensor has been tested with the the NEC LCD2690WUXi, LCD3090WQXi and LCD2180WG-LED

displays and found to cause inaccurate measurements when measuring the color primaries. This is due to the wide

color gamut aspect of these displays. This may result in an inaccurate calibration and ICC Profiles to be

generated. Using this color sensor is not recommended with these displays. The Datacolor Spyder 3 has improved

measurement performance for these displays. "

 

Of course, this information is specific to NEC's monitors, and I don't believe that the HP is quite as wide gamut

as the NEC's referenced here, but this and other comments I found were what steered me to adding the Spyder 3 to

the list of things I had to buy. The Pro version is relatively inexpensive (I found mine for $125 with rebate),

and should serve your needs well.

 

Bottom line - I don't think your Spyder 2 is the best choice for calibration should you choose the LP2475w.

 

FYI.

 

Scott

[Tim_Lookingbill]

Scott,

 

Thanks for your posting your personal experience on using this display and on the Spyder 3 recommendation. I'm also looking

into getting this display.

 

And for those looking for a very thorough review of this model check this out:

 

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/hp_lp2475w.htm

[scott_turner]

After further review...

 

I use Firefox 3 which is a true color managed browser when configured properly. This includes the ability to recognize specific monitor profiles, which is key here. For images and graphics which are not tagged with a specific ICM profile, Firefox does the right thing for those of us on wide-gamut displays, and assumes sRGB color space. This was protecting me more than I realized, as I hadn't had a chance to try things with FF color management turned off, or with another non-color managed app. Well...

 

If you're not going to use Firefox, or if you regularly use non color aware tools to view images and graphics, you're probably not going to be very happy with this monitor. I retract my previous statement, as I hadn't realized the extent to which FF and my other color-aware apps were protecting me. A reasonably saturated sRGB image viewed in a non-color aware app will be garish, and even more garish.

 

I'm still very happy with this monitor, but reference my earlier statement about this being primarily an image editing and viewing system. Most of my image viewing apps are color aware. But if you don't use FF 3 as your browser, you could well be unhappy. Note that even Safari color management probably won't help, as my understanding is that it does not adjust graphics, and it does not use monitor profiles, but rather assumes the monitor is in sRGB space. If I'm wrong on this, someone please correct me, but I do know that FF 3 works very well.

 

As I mentioned before, it's early days for me with this monitor, so I'm still on a learning curve. But I think its safe to say that if you aren't color managed - and that means everything from a good calibration tool and well-built profiles to color managed applications - you may not be happy.

 

Scott

[pascalb]

Thank you for your answers. I think I will buy this monitor. But will I really have to buy a Spyder3? What are these issues with Spyder2 you are talking about? Can they be overcome? Has anyone tried to use Spyder2 on a wide gamut monitor?

[scott_turner]

Pascal,

 

Note my quote from NEC relative to the Spyder 2. NEC tested the Spyder 2 for use with their wide gamut monitors and determined that it delivered inaccurate results specifically due to gamut issues. As a consequence, they specifically recommend not using it.

 

Like you, I've been using a Spyder 2, but I'd intended on getting an Eye1Display2 when I bought this monitor. It was after a fair bit of research that I decided the Spyder 3 was probably the best choice.

 

Still, nothing says that you can't get the monitor, try the Spyder 2 with it and decide for yourself whether you think the color accuracy is good enough.

 

Best of luck to you,

 

Scott

[phat_photographer]

<p>So I bought a HP LP2475w for many of the reasons cited here. I happen to have the Spyder2Pro already and calibrated the monitor and subsequently thought the colors were off. So I borrowed my friends Spyder3 and have to say, while the results are different, it's not widely so. In fact, the difference I see between the Spyder2 and Spyder3 are about the same as re-calibration differences between the Spyder3. So if you're buying a new colorimeter then definitely go with the Spyder3, if you already have the Spyder2 it isn't terrible</p>

[sebastien_barre1]

<p>Problem here with Wide Gamut display too...<br>

I'm using a Dell C22W (Crystal) Wide Gamut. I can't find any profile for this monitor, but I calibrated it using Huey Pro, and the resulting profile seems to be v4. I had no success with either FF 3.0.15 or 3.5.2 or 3.6beta (3.5.2 only supports v2 though). <br /> <br /> I opened a RAW (DNG) photo in Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop CS4 on Win64, then created two JPEG, one with a sRGB embedded profile, another in Adobe RGB. All 3 of them look pretty much identical when displayed in Lightroom / Photoshop, i.e. color managed correctly. Good. Both sRGB and Adobe RGB JPEG files look oversaturated in FireFox or Safari. Ouch. If I disable color management, only the sRGB is oversaturated, the Adobe RGB looks fine, which is expected since it is sent unmanaged to my wide-gamut monitor.<br /> <br /> My feeling is that even though FF claims to support v4 profiles, they might not be supported correctly (bugs happen, it's fine, and that's why we report them). If Lightroom or Photoshop can do it, then there is a way to do it, right? I think maybe it has to do with LUT based profiles, but I don't think Huey Pro has the flexibility to create different kind of profiles...</p>