{"id":710,"date":"2008-02-02T00:20:33","date_gmt":"2008-02-01T15:20:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-02-02\/710"},"modified":"2008-02-02T00:20:33","modified_gmt":"2008-02-01T15:20:33","slug":"multiple-monitor-goodness-my-new-eizo-monitor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2008-02-02\/710","title":{"rendered":"Multiple-Monitor Goodness: My New Eizo Monitor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
<\/a>\nNikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55 f\/2.8 @ 19mm — 1<\/sup>\/<\/big>15 sec, f\/3.5, ISO 400 —\nfull exif<\/a><\/span>\nSchweeeee<\/i>t!<\/i><\/span>\nA bad photo of my new multiple-monitor goodness\n<\/div>\n\n

I found myself suddenly lusting for a second<\/span> monitor (Lightroom 2<\/span>\nsupports two monitors), and with visions of a tax<\/span> writeoff dancing in my\nhead, I opted<\/span> for the mid-level Eizo FlexScan SX2461W<\/a>,\na 24\"<\/span> widescreen that offers a 1,920 ×\n1,200<\/span> desktop in luscious relatively-wide-gamut color.<\/p>\n\n

(If I'd had visions of hitting the lottery dancing in my head, I'd have gone<\/span> for the $6,000 Eizo\nColorEdge CG221<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n

I had trouble setting up my XP box<\/a> for dual monitors until I installed<\/span> the latest\ndrivers for my ATI graphics card — ATI's new “Catalyst Control\nCenter” made it trivial to set up the two monitors to work in concert just\nas I wished.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

The new Eizo is in the center of the crappy snapshot shown above, with\nthe Dell running a pretty<\/span>-pictures slideshow on the side (currently showing\nan image from this\nCherry-Blossom post<\/a>), and my MacBook sitting in the lower center. The Eizo looks<\/span> much smaller than it actually is – it positively\ndwarfs<\/i> the tiny laptop – due to the perspectives of the\ncloser-quarter shooting that a wide<\/span>-angle lens affords (as seen here<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\nChromaticity Comparison<\/span>\n(Chromaticity-Diagram explanation<\/a>)\n<\/div>\n\n

Anyway, after getting things set up, I calibrated<\/span> and profiled the new\nmonitor with my GretagMacbeth Eye-One hardware spectrophotometer. I also redid<\/span> my old (and still excellent) Dell 2001FP, the 21\" 1,600 × 1,200<\/span> LCD I've been using for the last\nfour years.<\/p>\n\n

The difference in color quality between the two was immediate and shocking<\/i>.<\/p>\n\n

No monitor can display every possible color, so every monitor is\nnecessarily a compromise.<\/span> If you compromise<\/span> more on the budget, you can\ncompromise less on the quality, and so my mid-level Eizo (it cost about\n$1,300) can show a wider<\/span> range of colors than the lower-level Dell (which\nfour years ago cost $1,000, but now costs much less).<\/p>\n\n

The image at right is a false-color<\/b> representation of the\nchromaticities that each monitor can produce. “Chromaticity” more or less\nmeans “color without regard to brightness”, and the chart shows that the\nEizo can show reds that are a bit<\/span> deeper than the Dell can, and richer\ngreens. Oddly, the Dell actually has a slight<\/span> edge on the blues.<\/p>\n\n

(For those few of you actually inspecting the diagram, it's important to\nremember that it is a false<\/span>-color diagram – the colors shown are\nwildly<\/i> off – and by necessity they must be because the chart\naims to signify in part colors that no monitor in the world can reproduce.\nAlso, due to the mathematical nature of how the plot is derived,\ndifferences in the green area of the plot seem exaggerated. For more about<\/span>\nthese kind of shark-fin plots, see my writeup on\nchromaticity diagrams<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n

Many photos look exactly the same on the two monitors, because both\nmonitors can reproduce equally well wide swaths of the spectrum. It's only when<\/span> colors fall outside the Dell's ability – outside the black\ntriangle in the (false-color) diagram – does the Eizo show its stuff.\nHowever, it just so happens that the flowers in my previous post<\/a> have some\nof those rich colors, and so they look glorious<\/b> on the Eizo.\nAbsolutely Glorious. My Dell pales<\/span> in comparison, and now the LCD on my MacBook seems\ndownright dull.<\/p>\n\n

The diagram shows only a small difference in the red area covered by the\ntwo monitors, but the practical difference is huge. The Eizo can<\/span> produce\nreds that I've not seen on a monitor<\/span> before... deep, rich, intense reds\nthat burn into the retina. I'm not talking<\/span> about “brightness” or\n“saturation”... I could<\/span> turn both controls on my Dell to their maximum and\nit still won't be able to produce colors that it can't produce. This is a\nwhole<\/span> new flavor of “red”.<\/p>\n\n

Most photos don't have these deep rich reds, but one odd byproduct of\nthis is that non-photo reds (such as the Yahoo!<\/a> logo) almost dance off the screen to sear your\neyes. It's a bit<\/span> of a simplification<\/span> to explain it this way, but basically,\nthese kind of reds translate into “the reddest red your monitor can\nproduce”, and so I see<\/span> these glorious colors everywhere.<\/p>\n\n

The “gloriousness”, of course, is that I'm not used to seeing them on my\nmonitor, and so its the novelty that's most wonderful. I'll eventually get\nused to it, but it's important to remember that these (and better) colors\nare all around in real life. Perhaps I should<\/span> check it out sometime \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found myself suddenly lusting for a second monitor (Lightroom 2 supports two monitors), and with visions of a tax writeoff dancing in my head, I opted for the mid-level Eizo FlexScan SX2461W, a 24\" widescreen that offers a 1,920 × 1,200 desktop in luscious relatively-wide-gamut color.<\/p>

(If I'd had visions of hitting the lottery dancing in my head, I'd have gone for the $6,000 Eizo ColorEdge CG221)<\/p>

I had trouble setting up my XP box for dual monitors until I installed the latest drivers for my ATI graphics card -- ATI's new \"Catalyst Control Center\" made it trivial to [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}