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I have an Acer laptop, like most laptops the screen isn't brilliant for photographic editing use.
Does anyone have any good things to say about any external monitors, at around a £100?
Was looking at this .
Packard bell viseo 233dbd
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Anyone have any good experiences with anything
I just used a Samsung LED TV when I worked with a laptop.
Windows can be configured to use twin screens fairly simply. Some screens will self detect the resolution, others won't but it's only a matter of changing a few figures in control panel , display section.
It's also easy to say which screen is the main one and which is the other one as this sort of dictates the left and right screens.
The only annoyance really is if your new screen is larger (which I'm guessing is the point) as the mouse "opening" from the larger to smaller screen is only as big as the smaller screen so the mouse ends up in the upper corner of the big screen whilst you're expecting it to be in the smaller one but you missed the "gate"
Other than that and about 30 minutes sorting resolutions out, it's fairly easy.
Just make sure you're new screen has the right sort of sockets for running as an external monitor and the laptop has similar. Also, the TV settings may need to be set as I found superb resolution when I set it to PC but it was pants on the others, for computer use.
Just bought the kids one of these each. Really good picture through the Xbox and built in freeview. Comes with some pc/laptop leads also. Extra 30 quid I think gets you the next size up.[url= http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/tv-dvd-blu-ray/televisions/small-screen-tvs-up-to-32/samsung-lt22c300-22-led-tv-21311364-pdt.html ]Samsung tv/monitor[/url]
At that budget any half decent monitor from dell, LG etc will do if it's for looking at sRGB snaps on Flickr
For colour critical work most photographers use an eizo CG class or NEC spectraview as they show most of the Adobe1998 colourspace and use 16bit Luts (panels are still 8bit though) and have panel uniformity circuitry/self calibration
If you double your budget you could get a colouromiter to calibrate the screen properly which will make a massive difference, some monitors can't go low enough to the reccomended 120lumens/m2 though but if you like having the monitor cranked up to max brightness thats not going to be an issue.
For colour critical work most photographers use an eizo CG class
Just had a Google... clearly, as usual, I have an unrealistic budget... 🙄
Considering I'm no professional, perhaps an improvement over a laptop can be had for much less?
Regardless of how much you spend on a monitor, you won't get the best from it unless it's calibrated correctly, and for that you'll need something like the Huey Pro calibration tool. This ensures that what you see on the screen matches industry standard colours, so what you see on screen should be what you get when it's printed
Yes as most laptop screens have a small colour gamut and are 6bit dithered to 8bit so any half decent screen is going to be an improvement. (I don't know of any for £100 though)
The dell IPS ones are very highly regarded, but a bit more than your optimistic budget.
What cheesy feet says. You don't need all singing and dancing monitor (although most will be an improvement on the Laptop screen) but spend some money on a calibration device.
I just recently bought a dell p2414 from eBay new refurb for 90 quid without stand. You can get them for 120 with stand.
It is surprisingly good for colour for such a cheap monitor.
Perfect for your needs.
In the end I got an [url= http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/desktop-pc-monitors/monitor-projectors/pc-monitors/acer-s240hlbid-full-hd-24-led-monitor-21433233-pdt.html ]Acer S240HL[/url] from PC World for £130.
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It had good reviews and seemed pretty good for the money.
Problem. My text on the second monitor is a bit fuzzy. I've played with all the settings, set the resolution to recommended settings, refresh rate is 60hz, but still, my text is not sharp.
Anyone have any ideas?
It's an Acer Aspire 5733 laptop running Win7 by the way...
Problem. My text on the second monitor is a bit fuzzy. I've played with all the settings, set the resolution to recommended settings, refresh rate is 60hz, but still, my text is not sharp.
Anyone have any ideas?
It's an Acer Aspire 5733 laptop running Win7 by the way...
Anyone have any ideas about this? It's hurting me eyes!
Some good advice here...though it's for a Samsung http://www.samsung.com/us/support/howtoguide/N0000140/6515/44132/N/1/M/LS20B350HS/ZA
Fuzzy text - VGA connection by any chance?
You'll not get something "good" for £100, maybe a bit better.
Look for an IPS panel dell for under <£200, significantly better colour than cheap TN panels, even without calibration etc.
DisplayPort / DVI rather than VGA?
spend some money on a calibration device
Is that something you could borrow and return? Seems a lot of money for something you'd use once?
Fuzzy text - VGA connection by any chance?You'll not get something "good" for £100, maybe a bit better.
It is a VGA connection yes. I'll have to check to see what other connection types my laptop can do..
Edit; Pretty sure it only supports VGA...
I realise I won't get the latest Retina-type display for £130, but I at least thought it might be fairly sharp, at least as sharp as the laptop screen I was trying to improve upon.
Might have to go back if not resolved as it's pretty useless for photo-editing otherwise.
Have you tried a different VGA cable, or the one from your other monitor?
Cheap VGA cables have given me horrible ghosting in the past.
What resolution are you running for the monitor ? Should be as high as possible, Macs allow different settings depending on what's connected, I would image Windows can do the same. After setting resulting high you will probably need to zoom the text/windows to get nice clean text.
I've just got a Mac mini, and so the monitor will now be my main one,not a slave.
I'll see how it goes but early conclusions are that it's better.
It seems to have a warm-up time almost.
I can't remember the make, now, but when I started using a Mac for photo-editing, I had a 21" monitor, a bloody great big grey plastic cube, that cost as much as my G3 Mac. Around £2000... 😯
How times have changed.
Indeed!
Using a Mac is going to take some getting used to. The eejits put all the buttons in the wrong place!!!
Anyone have any cool little tips Macs can do I might have missed coming from Windows?
I bought an Asus IPS screen, from memory it was about 150 quid
Ran it on VGA for a while until I got a new PC, now connected via HDMI
Use it mainly for photo editing and found it to be very good, monitor calibrator is also a very worthwhile purchase
Anyone have any cool little tips Macs can do I might have missed coming from Windows?
Cost you more money? 😉
True enough... 🙂