Monitors and Calibration Systems For Digital Photography

Digital photography is painful and messy without a trustworthy calibrated monitor. I urge you to spend the extra money and get yourself an accurate professional grade monitor right away. The money that you spend here will save you so much time and frustration in the long run.

Monitor calibration is not difficult, and it does not have to be terribly expensive, but it is an essential part of the whole digital photography process. Remember though that the screen is only one part of the equation. No matter what model or brand of display you choose you will also need a calibration system.

A monitor calibrator is a little USB gizmo that you attach to your screen and then you use its software to true up the display. You are going to need to use this little device to re-calibrate your monitor about once a month. Once you have the software all figured out the whole calibration process will take you less than twenty minutes and it is really not very hard. Sure, its a chore but good software makes it pretty painless.

For really good step-by-step directions on how to calibrate most any monitor using a variety of different calibration programs, I recommend reading Color Confidence: The Digital Photographer's Guide to Color Management (Tim Grey Guides.) You can even download one of the book’s best chapters for free here.

For those seeking more technical information about the whole science of Color Management, I suggest that you get a copy of Bruce Fraser’s book Real World Color Management (2nd Edition.)

Here are my recommendations for monitors and calibration systems to consider. Let me just add that that most photographers do not need to spend extra money on calibration systems that create profiles for anything other than the monitor. Don’t let them up-sell you on these devices! Most of us have no need for a device that can make printer profiles, calibrate a scanner, or true-up a video projector.

Monitors:

DELL UltraSharp 2408WFP 24-inch Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor**

Eizo ColorEdge CG221 22.2” Widescreen LCD Display

LaCie 526 25.5” Widescreen LCD Display

LaCie 324 24” Widescreen LCD Monitor

NEC MultiSync 2690WUXi 25.5” Widescreen LCD Monitor

Calibration Systems:

Xrite Eye-One Display 2 Colorimeter Monitor Profile Solution**

ColorVision Spyder3Pro Display Calibration System

** Indicates my current equipment.

I am very happy using a Dell 2407 Widescreen Flat Panel UltraSharp monitor with both my Mac and my PC computers. I think that these monitors are a fantastic value and they are easy to calibrate using the Xrite Eye-One Display 2 System. Sure, they are not the most accurate monitors money can buy but you get what you pay for and these are good enough for my needs.