Originally posted by Paul the Sunman Thanks Tas. As I said, my cameras are set to sRGB, but I shoot Raw exclusively, so if I understand stevebrot correctly, it makes no difference. I too use ON1 Photo Raw, so am interested in your perspective.
The reason I am asking these questions is that I am researching to buy a new monitor. Does anyone have any suggestions for a 27" photo-monitor that doesn't cost the Earth? A couple of the BenQ offerings seem good.
You understand correctly shooting raw exclusively it does not really matter if you set sRGB or Adobe RGB. Although I expect not It may have an effect on how you see the colours on your camera LCD. My guess is that the LCD may only cover the gamut of sRGB, if you are lucky.
Assuming you want a quality monitor for photo editing and colour matching for print then the following points are important to consider, otherwise there are many good and cheap monitors to be had:
For a photo monitor the best are seen to come from Eizo and NEC but usually these do 'cost the earth' at least in comparison. I have heard good things about some of the newer BenQ, but have had little exposure to the mark.
Should your budget not stretch far enough then have you considered buying a 24" quality monitor from the likes of the main players? Not sure what is available and pricing at the moment but it may be that you can get into Eizo or NEC 24" at a similar price to the BenQ offering?
Also consider colour gamut and resolution which can be of aid when printing in particular - wider gamut allows display of colours outside of smaller gamut of sRGB. Note some printer and ink combinations can exceed Adobe RGB gamut in certain areas. Higher monitor resolution e.g. 4k is desirable but unlikely to fall within budget, instead firmly in the 'costing the earth' category.
Advantages should include being able to view closer to actual print size when images seen on screen at 100% (helpful for printing evalutation), increased image resolution/sharpness compared to 100ppi monitors and noise appearance reduced. The latter most helpful when evaluating images for sharpening and noise reduction prior to printing.
You should also budget for a monitor calibration device. X-Rite and Datacolor are the usual options. X -Rite should be favoured and the i1Display is highly recommended or the slightly cheaper and less capable ColorMunki Display.
Factory pre calibrated is rather meaningless unless it is stated to what aim points and even then in the unlikely event that the calbration aim points match yours for viewing and print matching. The monitor profile that you create during the calibration/characterisation process will be used by colour savvy applications to display your images correctly (within the limitations of the monitor) and this process needs repeating as over time monitors will drift and a new profile needed to continue getting accurate colour