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Thread: Is 27 inches enough for a 4k monitor?

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    Lifetime Member Mike Poole's Avatar
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    Default Is 27 inches enough for a 4k monitor?

    Hi all,

    I'm due a computer upgrade, and would like something that ideally will last me a good few years. However, its the monitor side of things thats got me going round in circles.

    Currently I have a 2 screen setup. Both 24 inch 1920 screens. The main one is calibrated and when editing I always have the shot full size on my main screen and photoshop panels on the 2nd screen

    I need to at least try and future proof a new monitor a little, so am considering a 4k screen but there is that much conflicting advice on the web its difficult to know where to start. I keep hearing about scaling issues for text, but I'm thinking if I had the new 4k screen as my main editing screen, then an older 1920 screen as the 2nd screen for the panels, wouldn't the text on the 1920px screen still stay at the site I currently have it?

    I'm not sure I can afford a 32 inch 4k screen, so if I'm going to have problems with this proposed setup the only other viable option may be an iMac 27" 5k, which seems to divide opinion on its quality for editing purposes.

    3rd option would be a 27" 2560 screen

    I'll probably stick with a mac as I like the simplicity. Never used a windows 10 machine but could be tempted if I don't keep having to faff around with doing updates

    Cheers in advance, hope this makes sense to those of you who know what you're talking about!

    Mike

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    Super Moderator arash_hazeghi's Avatar
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    for 27" 2560 is better, there are 4K ones too but the fonts will be small to read unless you run it with scaling like the iMac's which defeats the whole purpose
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    Lifetime Member Mike Poole's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by arash_hazeghi View Post
    for 27" 2560 is better, there are 4K ones too but the fonts will be small to read unless you run it with scaling like the iMac's which defeats the whole purpose
    Thanks Arash, I'm a bit thick on this subject (!), so even if I ran all the text on a 2nd, 1920px screen I'd still run into small text problems? I'd want to use the new screen purely for the editing.

    If I went with 27" 2560 is it much of an upgrade against my current 24" 1920 monitor (Dell ultrasharp 2414).

    The new monitor would be a decent brand such as eizo or benq.

    Cheers

    Mike

    Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

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    Super Moderator arash_hazeghi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Poole View Post
    Thanks Arash, I'm a bit thick on this subject (!), so even if I ran all the text on a 2nd, 1920px screen I'd still run into small text problems? I'd want to use the new screen purely for the editing.

    If I went with 27" 2560 is it much of an upgrade against my current 24" 1920 monitor (Dell ultrasharp 2414).

    The new monitor would be a decent brand such as eizo or benq.

    Cheers

    Mike

    Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
    the font size depends on the DPI of the screen so fonts on a 4K 27" screen are much smaller than a 2560 27" screen. the ideal size for a 4K screen is 32" or bigger unless you use rez scaling which is not ideal. I don't know anything about the brands you mention. I have NEC

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    Lifetime Member Mike Poole's Avatar
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    Thanks for your input Arash, I might need to stick to the lower res screen then

    Cheers

    Mike

    Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

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    Super Moderator arash_hazeghi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Poole View Post
    Thanks for your input Arash, I might need to stick to the lower res screen then

    Cheers

    Mike

    Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
    I have a 32" 4K NEC and a 27" 2560 NEC also both are excellent for editing images, I bought the 27" for less than $1000 which was a great price
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    I am in the same boat, Mike. Have looked closely at the offerings from Asus, Dell, and BenQ in the 30~32 size 4k... each more affordable than Eizo or NEC but with inferior quality or at least inferior quality control. What makes the issue even harder is that NEC doesn't seem to offer 4k adobe RGB monitors in 32" any more, and Eizo's 4k 31.5 is $6,000. It really does make one want to spin the wheel and try for the cheaper among them, hoping for the best. Even then, does a monitor even display all the colors it claims too if you are not running a 10-bit GPU (Quadro or Radeon Pro)? From what I understand, and I could be wrong, Macs don't offer 10-bit output. So confusing! Please let us know what you decide on, because I need some guidance on this, too.

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    Super Moderator arash_hazeghi's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Matt Sutherland View Post
    I am in the same boat, Mike. Have looked closely at the offerings from Asus, Dell, and BenQ in the 30~32 size 4k... each more affordable than Eizo or NEC but with inferior quality or at least inferior quality control. What makes the issue even harder is that NEC doesn't seem to offer 4k adobe RGB monitors in 32" any more, and Eizo's 4k 31.5 is $6,000. It really does make one want to spin the wheel and try for the cheaper among them, hoping for the best. Even then, does a monitor even display all the colors it claims too if you are not running a 10-bit GPU (Quadro or Radeon Pro)? From what I understand, and I could be wrong, Macs don't offer 10-bit output. So confusing! Please let us know what you decide on, because I need some guidance on this, too.
    You don't need the quadro series video cards to get 10 Bit output. Any modern GTX series video card can output 10 bits per color. I have a GTX 1060 which is set to 10 bits. Apple computers cannot output 10 bit color as they generally use cheap/inferior ATI video cards and their monitors are only 8-Bits any way. I think a new wave of reference 4K monitors might be coming out soon, thus the older NEC models are discontinued. The nice thing about a reference monitor is that you don't need to buy one very often as the display tech is very mature and doesn't advance much in the professional segment. A Pro monitor will probably last you 5-10 years easily. I would personally opt for a 27" 2.5K NEC over the cheap consumer 4K's from Dell, BenQ etc. having used both the decision is easy for me. The NEC monitors I have are both made in Japan the other brands are made in china and just don't have the kind of quality control for professional users.
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    Hi Mike, I had the same decision to make a while back regarding a new display for editing photos. I did a lot of research ruling out displays by Dell (I was using the same Dell display you mentioned in your post), BenQ and others. Only displays from NEC and Eizo were made for editing photographs. Budget a consideration I purchased a Eizo CS2420. It has 99% of Adobe RBG, other monitors did not. I chose to stay with a resolution of 1920 rather than 4K. If I had moved up to a 27" display I would have chose 2560 for a resolution. The most noticeable improvement from my Dell Ultrasharp display is that tiny changes in color and tone can be seen on the display. For the money I am very happy with this display.

    https://www.eizo.com/products/coloredge/cs2420/
    Joe Przybyla

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    Quote Originally Posted by arash_hazeghi View Post
    You don't need the quadro series video cards to get 10 Bit output. Any modern GTX series video card can output 10 bits per color. I have a GTX 1060 which is set to 10 bits. Apple computers cannot output 10 bit color as they generally use cheap/inferior ATI video cards and their monitors are only 8-Bits any way. I think a new wave of reference 4K monitors might be coming out soon, thus the older NEC models are discontinued. The nice thing about a reference monitor is that you don't need to buy one very often as the display tech is very mature and doesn't advance much in the professional segment. A Pro monitor will probably last you 5-10 years easily. I would personally opt for a 27" 2.5K NEC over the cheap consumer 4K's from Dell, BenQ etc. having used both the decision is easy for me. The NEC monitors I have are both made in Japan the other brands are made in china and just don't have the kind of quality control for professional users.
    Thanks, Arash. That makes me feel better hearing someone as knowledgable as you say it, although my understanding was that while the more modern GTX and RTX cards do indeed output 10 bit for DirectX applications, only Quadro and Radeon Pro output 10bit for OpenGL apps, namely Photoshop. I have learned so much from folks like you on this site and that is why I am migrating from Lightoom and ACR to Photomechanic and CaptureOne Pro for my Nikon workflow. Your own guides have been great and it was on your advice that I went on the 4k search to begin with. I sure do like the idea of futureproofing my editing for when 4k is more mainstream. But if you think a 27" NEC 2560 will do, I would be quite happy that my search is over and that I won't be having to deal with tiny UIs and upscaling nightmares. I assume 27 would be a more appropriate size if the 30-32" option is not 4k, then?

    This is a huge help because not only am I entrenched with finding a photo editing monitor, but also putting together a new system that could handle 4k output (which my current laptop cannot). Take away the 4k variable and things get a lot easier and less expensive on all fronts!

    Something tells me in the back of my mind I will always be wondering what I am missing out on, of course...

    Thanks!

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    Hi Matt, thanks for your kind words. I think you will do just fine with the 27" 2560, save the 4K for 32" +

    best
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