need suggestions

[sxyrhoose]

I'm not sure if I'm posting this on the right forum or not. I am a newbie to this place.

I just started shooting events and portraits. I bought a Dell laptop to work with the photos. I just heard/realized that no one edits on laptops as their coloring is off from a regular monitor.

Now, I plan on buying a monitor to hook on my laptop when I edit these photos. Are mac monitors capatible with dell laptops and if so which would you recommend? If not, I'll be getting a dell monitor, and was wondering which one would be the best going that route?

Thanks so much for your insight
Eydie

[TPF Sponsor]

[bazooka]

Your MAC monitor should have a VGA input and your laptop probably has VGA output, so yeah, it should work.

[flenhellis]

Yes, he is true. Thanks for suggest us...

[williambarry]

For those that have claimed laptops are off for color, this isn't always the case. I've checked mine against the calibration of several macs in the campus fine arts lab and my laptop is about the same. Based on proofing or just comparing the screen, there isn't a noticeable difference.

[KmH]

For those that have claimed laptops are off for color, this isn't always the case. I've checked mine against the calibration of several macs in the campus fine arts lab and my laptop is about the same. Based on proofing or just comparing the screen, there isn't a noticeable difference.

The problem with laptops is the screen doesn't allow a lot of latitude for viewing angle. They are usually also very limited as far as calibration adjustments that can be made to them, like gamma.

Move your head just a little bit or tilt the screen to much and your perception of the colors change. You edit a bunch of photos and then wonder why the prints you get from the lab look like crap.

More important than the brand of the monitor is the electronics that make up the display.

(The following is sourced from Wikipedia.org and personal experience)

Twisted Nematic (TN) displays are the least expensive displays.

TN displays, like laptops, suffer from limited viewing angles, especially in the vertical direction. Colors will shift when viewed off-perpendicular. In the vertical direction, colors will shift so much that they can invert past a certain angle.

TN panels represent colors using only 6 bits per color, instead of 8, and thus are not able to display the 16.7 million color shades (24-bit truecolor) that are available from graphics cards.

In-plane switching's (IPS) name comes from the main difference in them from TN panels, in so far that the crystal molecules move parallel to the panel plane instead of perpendicular to it. This reduces the amount of light scattering in the matrix, which gives IPS its characteristic wide viewing angles and good color reproduction.

Because of its wide viewing angle and accurate color reproduction with almost no off-angle color shift, IPS is widely employed in high-end monitors aimed at professional graphic artists, although with the recent fall in price it is being seen in the mainstream market as well.

Last I checked Dell had a nice 22" IPS monitor for under $300.

Patterned vertical alignment (PVA) super patterned vertical alignment (S-PVA) monitors offer the best black depth of all the LCD monitor types and are a viable alternative to IPS monitors because they also have wide viewing angles.