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Budget monitor for color grading

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Álex Montoya

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Hi there, people.

Right now I'm looking for a budget monitor for grading at home. I'm using After Effects 5.5 for that and need at least 24 inches and 1920*1200 resolution, 10 bits not necessary for the moment.

Here ( http://nofilmschool.com/2012/09/complete-guide-setting-up-home-color-grading-suite/ ) they recommend the 24″ ASUS ProArt LCD, but some people state in the comments that it is difficult to calibrate and not reliable in color consistency.

Don't know, do you have any preferences? What are you using?
 
In my experience there aren't any reliable budget grading monitors. Thats like asking for a cheap Space Shuttle.

The most reliable and reasonably priced monitors for grading can be found here. Lost of folks rave about them. Be sure to read the descriptions since they will say what applications (i.e., film or tv) the product is suitable to do grades for.

http://www.shopfsi.com/
 
expect to spend at minimum $3k up for what you are asking. There just is no other solution for color grading monitor. You can get fine computer monitors for $500 to $750, but no matter what they claim you are not getting a color grading monitor. BUT that said, color grading monitor is one thing. How are you grading? what software, what I/o or video card out of your computer etc.....Personally i found all of this out over the course of a year and going from Dell monitors to HP Dreamcolor to 50" plasma and finally to a 10bit sdi monitor
 
Ok, let me rephrase it then: I'm looking for a good 24 inch, 1920*1200 computer monitor whose color can be manually tinkered.

It's for my own stuff. I compare what I'm seeing in the monitor with the BD I burn on my Panasonic 50'' plasma and try to match both by eye. I know it's far from optimal, but at this point that's all I can afford.
 
I'm not aware of any computer monitors that have manual control of RGB that can be counted on like you are looking for...what you might consider is just a good monitor...i hear many on this forum that like and say the Apple cinema displays work and match color well. I'd probably go that route before any Dell, HP etc....and probably your 50" plasma is best way so far....monitor out from that if you can via HDMI....that's something i do, but i do it with 2 other monitors when grading so i can take a "down the middle approach"---me NOT a colorist by the way. Merely color much of my own work.
 
Álex Montoya said:
Ok, let me rephrase it then: I'm looking for a good 24 inch, 1920*1200 computer monitor whose color can be manually tinkered.

It's for my own stuff. I compare what I'm seeing in the monitor with the BD I burn on my Panasonic 50'' plasma and try to match both by eye. I know it's far from optimal, but at this point that's all I can afford.
Click to expand...

Once you settle on a good computer display, like Jake says, you can help yourself immeasurably by purchasing a color calibration tool. I use Color Munki, but there are many available. This gives a much greater level of confidence that, while your monitor may not be a true reference monitor, it's at least in the ballpark.

In addition to my GUI display, which is an Apple LED display, I have a Flanders monitor. The Color Munki gets the Apple Display fairly close to the Flanders, which is reassuring.

Tim Eaton
 
You can get acceptable results by finding a monitor that can display 99% sRGB, and then make sure you calibrate it with a good colorimeter. That will at least get you pretty close to sRGB and acceptable quality for web work. rec.709 has the same primaries so that also gets you real close for blu-ray deliverables as well.

Avoid any wide gamut monitors as you will play hell trying to get it back into sRGB color space.

If you're going to be delivering something to the cinema, I would suggest doing a lot of work at home with that similar setup, and see if you can buy time into a properly calibrated studio to do a final tweak. It's not ideal, but it's a poor mans solution if you're trying to do some indie job.
 
Timothy Eaton said:
Once you settle on a good computer display, like Jake says, you can help yourself immeasurably by purchasing a color calibration tool. I use Color Munki, but there are many available. This gives a much greater level of confidence that, while your monitor may not be a true reference monitor, it's at least in the ballpark.

In addition to my GUI display, which is an Apple LED display, I have a Flanders monitor. The Color Munki gets the Apple Display fairly close to the Flanders, which is reassuring.

Tim Eaton
Click to expand...


We use apple led cinema displays trough out and they are quite consistent and you can adjust them with a 16 step grayscale etc.
 
Alexander Mejia said:
You can get acceptable results by finding a monitor that can display 99% sRGB, and then make sure you calibrate it with a good colorimeter. That will at least get you pretty close to sRGB and acceptable quality for web work. rec.709 has the same primaries so that also gets you real close for blu-ray deliverables as well.

Avoid any wide gamut monitors as you will play hell trying to get it back into sRGB color space.

If you're going to be delivering something to the cinema, I would suggest doing a lot of work at home with that similar setup, and see if you can buy time into a properly calibrated studio to do a final tweak. It's not ideal, but it's a poor mans solution if you're trying to do some indie job.
Click to expand...

That's what I'll do.


Thanks a lot, guys.
 
What setup did you settle on Johnny?

Johnny Friday said:
expect to spend at minimum $3k up for what you are asking. There just is no other solution for color grading monitor. You can get fine computer monitors for $500 to $750, but no matter what they claim you are not getting a color grading monitor. BUT that said, color grading monitor is one thing. How are you grading? what software, what I/o or video card out of your computer etc.....Personally i found all of this out over the course of a year and going from Dell monitors to HP Dreamcolor to 50" plasma and finally to a 10bit sdi monitor
Click to expand...
 
How are the iMAC 27" sCreens Compared to the 27" apple led Cinema - are they identiCal? I tried to do some searChing but didn't get anywhere with that. THX. Thommes
 
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