Why should I choose a wide gamut monitor?

[osmaneralp]

Hello,

I spent several hours researching on the Web but can't find an explanation as to why one would choose the LCD2690Wuxi over the LCD2490Wuxi (other than the size). Can someone please elighten me? What type of images are better suited to each type of monitor (sRGB and wide gamut)?

Is the answer as simple as: saturated images are better suited to a wide gamut monitor; images with colors that fit in the sRGB color space are better suited to the LCD2490Wuxi?

I need to choose one of these monitors; I can't, as someone (Andrew Rodney, I think) suggested, get one of each!

Thanks in advance,
Osman

[Josh-H]

Hello,

I spent several hours researching on the Web but can't find an explanation as to why one would choose the LCD2690Wuxi over the LCD2490Wuxi (other than the size). Can someone please elighten me? What type of images are better suited to each type of monitor (sRGB and wide gamut)?

Is the answer as simple as: saturated images are better suited to a wide gamut monitor; images with colors that fit in the sRGB color space are better suited to the LCD2490Wuxi?

I need to choose one of these monitors; I can't, as someone (Andrew Rodney, I think) suggested, get one of each!

Thanks in advance,
Osman
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'If' you plan to output soley for the web - then an SRGB monitor is probably the best bet.

If you plan to output print then personally I feel the wider gamut is a much better choice.

[digitaldog]

Is the answer as simple as: saturated images are better suited to a wide gamut monitor; images with colors that fit in the sRGB color space are better suited to the LCD2490Wuxi?
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Yes. That's pretty much it.

[01af]

If image processing is your primary use of the monitor, then better get a wide-gamut screen. However, be aware that wide-gamut screens require a proper ICC monitor profile installed in your system, or the colours of your images will be severely off. With an sRGB monitor you can get away without having a monitor profile installed. With a wide-gamut monitor, you cannot.

A quirk that comes with wide-gamut monitors is this: sRGB images, viewed through a non-colour-managed application, will appear over-saturated. That's a bit awkward but does not out-weigh the positive points in my opinion.

-- Olaf

[Lisa Nikodym]

A quirk that comes with wide-gamut monitors is this: sRGB images, viewed through a non-colour-managed application, will appear over-saturated. That's a bit awkward but does not out-weigh the positive points in my opinion.

If part of your workflow involves checking the appearance of sRGB images though a non-color-managed application, you can easily get around this quirk by having a cheap non-wide-gamut monitor sitting next to your expensive wide-gamut monitor and use them in a dual-monitor setup.  You can then easily move an image over to the cheap monitor to see how it will look to others on the web.  Cheapo monitors are pretty much arbitrarily cheap compared with the good wide-gamut monitor.

That works for me...

Lisa

[digitaldog]

If part of your workflow involves checking the appearance of sRGB images though a non-color-managed application, you can easily get around this quirk by having a cheap non-wide-gamut monitor sitting next to your expensive wide-gamut monitor and use them in a dual-monitor setup.  You can then easily move an image over to the cheap monitor to see how it will look to others on the web.  Cheapo monitors are pretty much arbitrarily cheap compared with the good wide-gamut monitor.

Photoshop has always had the option to soft proof to sRGB on your display outside an ICC aware application (Customize Proof setup: Monitor/Windows/Mac RGB).

What the differences here are is the number of visible steps and their differences colorimetrically. Both displays should produce 16.7 million colors but the distances between them is different. For example, R12/G79/B129 and R12/G80/B129 have a greater colorimetric difference (deltaE) on the wider gamut display. So you get a wider gamut true, but you get less granularity between subtle colors you may wish to see.

[papa v2.0]

what type of work are you doing

 we need to know before we can' spek' a monitor

generally speaking you have two types of visual accurate monitors at the moment
1. sRGB that conforms to the Srgb colour space and
2. the new Adobe-rgb space.
these are the only visual colour space editing monitors available

if you wish to visual colour edit i would suggest  a monitor that conforms to one of these parameters

although i belive there is a new ISO color space that has just been passed

ECI SRGB