Over on the O'Reilly Inside Aperture blog, there's an informative article about choosing a monitor if you're a photographer. Call me a nerd / geek / whatever, but I'm very much interested in all things colour (yes I still spell it the Queen's way) and thought I'd post a comment there to help out my peers. I've put my comment below - it might give you an insight into what goes on behind the scenes at Brown Photographic.

Josh talks about the variety of very confusing "technobabble" of modern LCD monitors and that all monitors are not created equal. I thought I'd weigh in on a couple of things, namely Apple cinema displays and high end, wide gamut monitors and the need for some benchmarking for the confused photographic community.

The cinema displays are indeed quite good for the money. One thing to note though is the consistency of such larger widescreen display panels; the colour / contrast / brightness on one side of the monitor can be noticeably different to another and this problem can get worse as the panel gets larger. If you create a good profile and then look at a flat colour full screen (like bright red) you can clearly see the inconsistency. So if you're after both highly accurate colour and also want a large display for Aperture, consider getting a cinema display and a CG-210N / CG-211. Cheaper than the $5K needed for a 30 inch Eizo 301! Don't get me wrong, you can get good colour from a cinema display, but you just have to be wary of its limitations (no LUT, brightness control only, inconsistency corner to corner).

You pay for what you get, but just remember that just because the monitor says Eizo or NEC on it, it doesn't mean that it is a good display. Some models in their lines don't perform that well. What I don't see very often is anyone consistently testing and benchmarking displays for photographers and it would be great if someone would step up and offer some detailed, no nonsense analysis. Just as Josh states, just because someone claims high specifications it doesn't mean that the display will actually perform that.

I almost bought a 23 inch Apple display until I saw it next to a used Eizo CG210 for just a few hundred dollars more; even though the Eizo is smaller, the difference is night and day and ultimately that translated to me being able to match what I'm seeing on my screen with the prints that are produced from Adobe 98 files. Since I'm able to actually see 90% of the colour gamut of Adobe 98 I can almost exactly determine how my prints will look before I get them made. If I'd gone for a cheaper, but larger cinema display I'd be guessing more and guessing costs money through mistakes.

So in summary, do your homework before you go out and buy that large wide screen display; it may not actually be what you really need. There isn't much material out there to be able to make such decisions, but maybe that will change. If you're forking out several thousand dollars on a camera and lenses it pays to do it justice by getting a display that can actually show you all that marvellous colour. If you make a living from photography it is worth paying attention to this.

Colour matters to me and that's why I've invested in tools that allow me to create products that match my vision.

Hi-Fi enthusiasts wouldn't got out to buy vinyl, an amazing amp and deck and then play it all back through some headphones they procured on a flight. Would they?