I read something about your monitor setting and what they should be for photos but dont know about all that yet. I will google it up sometime though as the plan is to have a separate computer to keep most of my photos on...well thats the plan anyway.

I do use the manual, but only occasionally - I like to try things out myself, and learn that way, and I read a lot in books and online

xx

Right let's get a few things sorted.

Histograms are a representation of the amount of information in an image. For an 8 bit image the histogram is made up of 256 bars which can display 256 shades of darkness/lightness, 256 red, 256 green and 256 blue.. An image with a lot of dark in it (perhaps a small white flower against a black velvet background) then most of the information will be to the left of the histogram with a peak (the flower) at the right hand side.

It is very rare to get the histogram mentioned in the OP.

Next, the histogram on the rear screen of the camera is derived from a jpeg image that has been produced by the camera to show on the camera screen, even if you are shooting in Raw. The histogram is therefore not a true representation of the information captured by the sensor because it has been manipulated by the algorithms within the camera.

When loaded into PS or similar it does not matter two hoots what monitor your are viewing it on as far as the histogram is concerned. The histogram is calculated from the image file and not what it looks like on the monitor. The same image on two different monitors will look different but the histogram will remain constant as it does not reflect the colours displayed by monitor.

I really think that if you want to learn about true histograms you should do a search in Google as there is a lot of info out there "most" of which is good but one has to watch out for the garbage.

Steve

Dell Ultrasharps are good monitors but are nowhere near the holy grail of monitors.

If you really want to go for class monitors then you are looking at something like Eizo's at prices approaching £3000. Iiyama & NEC are other proper photographic monitors.

But without calibration, it would be a waste of time spending all that money. Not software calibration but hardware calibration.

Steve

I dooo..they always left the milk on the radiators

Seriously..good comment Steve.

thanks for the info Steve, its good to know a bit more about how that histogram works.

With monitor settings I was thinking if you set your screen resolution etc etc a certain way your photo would show closer to how it would be printed (btdt, sent off for beach photos, going to have to edit and send off again..)

3grand for a monitor, Ive still not got a tripod yet

Pretty cool that you can get specific monitors for photographic work though, you could take out a mortgage and spend the lot on photography stuff/hobby I think

Zoundz, I hardly know my camera at all, just knew today that I didnt like the SP's/Auto, so had to sit with the manual to do what I wanted...got my pics then had a half hour of sun out the back though I'll get a photo of the dog for good measure, knowing what I was going to use (in my head) then couldn't remember the controls

I think the monitors you mentioned are well outside the price range of all but the highly successful photographers. So lets get back to reality and talk about monitors within the price range of people like ourselves. We can all talk about the most expensive this or that,even dream about them but thats about all.

The monitor I happened to mention as an example is around the £170 which although not the most expensive is still outside the realms of a lot of people.
This just happens to be the one I shall be getting next month when my new computer is built. As it is going to be a dedicated computer for photographic work I want a monitor just that cut above the norm.

You mentioned quote " For an 8 bit image the histogram is made up of 256 bars which can display 256 shades of darkness/lightness, 256 red, 256 green and 256 blue " unquote
Which the "ordinary" monitors work to and project an image colour the closest to a mixture of all three on each pixel.

The IPS monitors from what I understand work differently, they project the exact colour onto a pixel as they have a larger colour range to work with , hence more expensive. At least that is how its been explained to me. There are other differences as well regarding lines which is beyond me really but they go differently so can be viewed from any angle. I do stand to be corrected on this I have to say.

link worth watching to see the difference

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWXcNlh85Ps

Bazza

You are correct Baz regarding IPS Panels in as much as they are preferred by photographers for image work. This is because they have a better colour rendition across the whole screen.

We have all worked on laptops where you only have to move the screen slightly for the image being displayed to alter dramatically in colour and in lightness.

But even an IPS panel needs calibrating with hardware calibration, which can be something like a Spyder or Colour Monkey. It is possible to spend more on calibration hardware than us mere mortals would consider splashing out on a monitor.

Calibration cannot be done well with the eye even though Adobe used to supply a program which, if I remember correctly, was called Adobe Gamma. Better than nothing but only just.

Monitors, calibration and matching to printers via profiles is a dark art and image companies will hire experts to set their's up and re-calibrate every month as hardware drifts.

I personally use a Datacolor Spyder3 Pro and calibrate every 4 weeks.

Steve

This is taken from from the site TFT Central and is very well worth reading the entire site.
http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles...ng_content.htm

Panel Technologies - Their Influence on Colour Accuracy
Panel technology does come into play to a degree when we discuss colour accuracy. There are some common misconceptions however which need correcting. Just because a screen is based on a particular panel technology, does not automatically make it the best for colour accuracy. It is often thought that an IPS panel will offer much better colour accuracy than a TN Film panel, but this is not necessarily a hard and fast rule. Things which do come into play though include:

• Viewing angles. For professional colour enthusiast displays, IPS is the most popular choice by manufacturers. This is because the technology offers very wide viewing angles, more so than TN Film and VA matrices. It also doesn't suffer from the off-centre contrast shift anomaly which you can see on VA panels when moving away from a central field of view. It is also free of the pretty severe vertical contrast shifts you will see from TN Film panels.
  
• Colour Depth - For the best colour reproduction you probably need a panel capable of a full 8-bit colour depth, or perhaps a modern 10-bit panel. An 8-bit module offers a true 16.7 million colour palette without the need for FRC technologies used in 6-bit panels. IPS and VA panels typically offer this, whereas TN Film panels do not. Modern 10-bit panels are becoming more widely used, and most use FRC to increase the colour depth from 8-bit (8-bit +FRC) giving rise to a colour depth of 1.07 billiong colours. There are very few 'true' 10-bit modules available but there are some out there, usually at a very high cost. Some models offer further enhancements such as a extended internal Look Up Tables (LUT's) where an even wider colour palette is available to choose from. These can help improve gradients and colour rendering capabilities and are often used in higher end profressional grade monitors.
  
• Colour Gamut. This describes the range of colours which the monitor can produce compared with that which the human eye can detect. You can read more about gamut here, but typically the more expensive screens feature enhanced gamut backlighting. As such, it is normally the models featuring IPS and VA panels which feature the wider gamuts. Modern LED backlighting is being more widely used as well, read more about that in this article.
  
• Colour Accuracy Potential. It is true that IPS panels are capable typically of very good colour accuracy, but often you will need to carry out proper calibration with a hardware calibration device to get anywhere near this. However, VA and TN Film panels are certainly capable nowadays of reaching excellent colour accuracy if calibrated correctly. If you look through our reviews, you will see some TN Film panels perform very admirably here, despite the assumption that it is an inferior technology by many people. You will also spot that default colour accuracy really does vary from one model to another, and so you may even find some screens with better default colour accuracy with a TN Film panel, than you see at default for an IPS panel (e.g Acer AL2216W vs NEC 20WGX2). All technologies can offer decent colour accuracy once calibrated, it is the other factors discussed above which normally lead people to chooce IPS if they are doing any colour critical work.