New iMac Retina has 14.7 megapixel display!

[bradhusick]

What I have found with my Mac Pro is the blade drive (SSD) is SO much faster than any SSD in the MacBook Pro. It makes a difference in Lightroom and Photoshop. I am getting more than 1000 MB/sec performance.

I use an NEC monitor as my main display and a Dell 4K display as a secondary. They calibrate very nicely and match very close to each other.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

I use NEC wide gamut monitors. They profile just about perfectly and I bought high DR cameras and I want to see all of it. Plus if your printing in my case my monitor is exactly what my printer Epson 7900 prints out. I rarely ever need to make a second print.


Here is my bottom line I have to deliver images to clients and I can always say and I do I have a wide gamut monitor that's perfectly calibrated for color and what a offset printer will see and what you viewing on is a piece of **** monitor that's off and not representative of the file. I do say that much nicer than just said. But at some point someone will point the finger at me as the issue. I want to cover myself. Retina is nice on a IPad and iPhone but it ends there. They are very saturated and and just too punchy to be photo accurate, sure lovely to look at but it's not what your file is.

 

[fotografz]

The iMac 5K is off the table as a possibility now.

It dawned on me that I need to step up to a Mac Pro for one key reason … it is now so small I can easily transport it back and forth between both locations thus also solving the looming issue of replacing my aging Mac Pro here at home. 8 Core rather than Quad Core doesn't hurt.

This opens up the possibility of profiling monitors that match in both locations. Sharp, NEC, whatever … I'll look into it more deeply now.

Now I just need to sell some stuff to fund it all.

Thanks for all the great input everyone! This place is invaluable.

- Marc

 

[RVB]

I use NEC wide gamut monitors. They profile just about perfectly and I bought high DR cameras and I want to see all of it. Plus if your printing in my case my monitor is exactly what my printer Epson 7900 prints out. I rarely ever need to make a second print.


Here is my bottom line I have to deliver images to clients and I can always say and I do I have a wide gamut monitor that's perfectly calibrated for color and what a offset printer will see and what you viewing on is a piece of **** monitor that's off and not representative of the file. I do say that much nicer than just said. But at some point someone will point the finger at me as the issue. I want to cover myself. Retina is nice on a IPad and iPhone but it ends there. They are very saturated and and just too punchy to be photo accurate, sure lovely to look at but it's not what your file is.

Agreed,iMac is only about 70% of adobe RGB,why have high end sensors and then process on such a low quality panel,NEC and Eizo have close to 97% of Adobe RGB gamut..

In fairness the iMac panel wasn't designed for high end color accurate processing.

Rob

 

[Guy Mancuso]

No there not and outside of critical color for photographers, graphic designers and video they are really nice for viewing. But they are not color critical. Actually with my wide gamut monitor and my Sony A7r the DR is so good I actually have to add to my black point like 3 or 4 points to get that punch sometimes. You would not be doing that with other non wide gamut monitors. The point being I am seeing almost the full range coming off my sensor with regards to DR which in turn tends to make images look flat. In reality that's what really is going on with your files with this much DR in these cams or backs. This gives you full range in your shadows that you can actually see visually.

 

[Godfrey]

I don't really care all that much about color accuracy. I care about getting the color I want in a photo, and in making sets of photos that have the same/right look. That rarely need much accuracy ...

Absolute color accuracy is primarily an issue when doing movie work, where putting together clips taken at very different times and often with very different equipment can produce jarring effects if you don't have adequate color calibration and accuracy. Still photography is only very very rarely so demanding.

And since my principal love in still photographs is a print and/or a book, the dynamic range and color space of nearly any modern high-end display is FAR greater, which means I can calibrate and adjust most anything to make my prints.

G

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Sorry Godfrey I totally disagree as my printer just screwed up a printing job because he did not follow what my file was and made a fatal mistake. They had to reprint it at their costs. Color critical is paramount when going to press. Most folks don't go to press but most commercial shooters do. Can they get it right without it on our end, sure but that leaves decisions up to the printer. For graphics I want Pantone whatever and design that way and it better be that Pantone color. Is this for everyone no but most high profile photographers that are printing art are all on wide gamut monitors.

You may not believe in it but ask any accomplished landscape shooter doing their own printing and they are on NEC or Eizos

 

[Godfrey]

Sorry Godfrey I totally disagree as my printer just screwed up a printing job because he did not follow what my file was and made a fatal mistake. They had to reprint it at their costs. Color critical is paramount when going to press. Most folks don't go to press but most commercial shooters do. Can they get it right without it on our end, sure but that leaves decisions up to the printer. For graphics I want Pantone whatever and design that way and it better be that Pantone color. Is this for everyone no but most high profile photographers that are printing art are all on wide gamut monitors.

You may not believe in it but ask any accomplished landscape shooter doing their own printing and they are on NEC or Eizos

Guy,

It's all right to have a different opinion; needs and sensitivities differ. I don't have to 'ask any accomplished landscape shooter' because it isn't really all that relevant to my photography what other people do. I'm not primarily a landscape photographer, although some folks classify some of my photos as landscape. Most of what I do is more in the street, culture, and fine art domains, very little in commercial or other domains more demanding of color accuracy.

As I said, color accuracy isn't that important to me, but getting the color I want is. I don't wander about my scene with a color meter and then check my work for accuracy of reproduction. I check my work, and the prints and books produced from it, for whether they are the color I expect them to be, consistently, and make adjustments if they're not.

There's a great deal of difference between color accuracy and getting the color right (pleasing, 'what I want', etc). Very few people's eyes see color in exactly the same way... Accuracy is rarely that important in fine art, editorial, and event photography. It's more important in forensic, documentarian, scientific, and product photography.

I sold a lot of work when I was a pro running my photo business, printed all my work myself too, and I never once found I needed a wide-gamut display to do my image processing.

G

 

[robertwright]

the question might be how much worse is the gamut than the bog standard apple 23" cinema display? or 27" led cinema display.....

 

[RVB]

Sorry Godfrey I totally disagree as my printer just screwed up a printing job because he did not follow what my file was and made a fatal mistake. They had to reprint it at their costs. Color critical is paramount when going to press. Most folks don't go to press but most commercial shooters do. Can they get it right without it on our end, sure but that leaves decisions up to the printer. For graphics I want Pantone whatever and design that way and it better be that Pantone color. Is this for everyone no but most high profile photographers that are printing art are all on wide gamut monitors.

You may not believe in it but ask any accomplished landscape shooter doing their own printing and they are on NEC or Eizos

Guy,Lloyd just post this on his blog and it provides visual clarity in the Eizo vs iMac panel comparison.. diglloyd: Apple iMac 5K: Gamut and Display

 

[fotografz]

Guy,

It's all right to have a different opinion; needs and sensitivities differ. I don't have to 'ask any accomplished landscape shooter' because it isn't really all that relevant to my photography what other people do. I'm not primarily a landscape photographer, although some folks classify some of my photos as landscape. Most of what I do is more in the street, culture, and fine art domains, very little in commercial or other domains more demanding of color accuracy.

As I said, color accuracy isn't that important to me, but getting the color I want is. I don't wander about my scene with a color meter and then check my work for accuracy of reproduction. I check my work, and the prints and books produced from it, for whether they are the color I expect them to be, consistently, and make adjustments if they're not.

There's a great deal of difference between color accuracy and getting the color right (pleasing, 'what I want', etc). Very few people's eyes see color in exactly the same way... Accuracy is rarely that important in fine art, editorial, and event photography. It's more important in forensic, documentarian, scientific, and product photography.

I sold a lot of work when I was a pro running my photo business, printed all my work myself too, and I never once found I needed a wide-gamut display to do my image processing.

G

It is interesting to read different experiences and correlate them to my own.

While I understand the desire to "see" as much as the high end cameras can capture to do PP work, the reality for me is that most commercial work is translated into CMYK Printer's PDFs and sent to the publications on a deadline. Theory and reality make for odd bed-fellows.

Frankly, I cannot recall any Art Director or Advertising Designer that was working on a high-end monitor, and they frequently are the ones determining what something is going to look like when it gets printed.

Even the more critical product work I do like General Motors Fabric samples for printed dealer selection catalogs are less critical than I ever assumed. At first I busted a hump shooting Xrite charts in the first round of shots so there would be something to match to, shot with a 60 meg MFD, PP in ProfotoRGB, and used an OttLite to evaluate the material color under constant light source. The Production Manager told me not to bother … just get it close and they would evaluate the CMYK final file against the fabric standards so the printed representation would be as close as it is ever going to get.

I do a fair amount of prints both internally on my Epson, and at the lab/binderies who print my wedding albums. My main supplier has repeatedly told me that no one provides such well corrected files and as the ones I give him. We have not once had to do a re-run of album pages due to color issues, including critical skin tones. Granted, this application is far less color critical, however consistent skin tones in sequential images can be pretty important.

Not saying' that we should't strive for craftsmanship, just that our experienced eyes can be a pretty decent tool in the scheme of things.

- Marc

 

[docmoore]

... our experienced eyes can be a pretty decent tool in the scheme of things.

- Marc

Hard to find any physical device that has the ability to discern subtle differences in light/color/contrast that the eye/brain loop has when trained and engaged.

Still a profiled Adobe RGB monitor allows a deeper look ... whether it is needed or desired is a personal choice...I know where it falls out for me. And this is not a commercial professional choice just personal satisfaction.

Regards,

Bob

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Example go shoot for the company called Coke. If you can't get a Coke red color in your photography going through offset printing and that color is not Coke color someone maybe looking for a new job or lost a client. Many companies have products that are a certain color, if not carried through to the printed piece someone failed along the way.

This is not about how you work. This is about industry standards that get followed from shooting to offset to even the paper a piece is printed on to be accurate. Many catalog shooters go through this processs every day. It's not about some art director either. It's about accurate color on the printed piece that has to represent a product.

This is all about limitations of monitors and reading the full gamut or close to it of your files a wide gamut monitor sees 97 percent of a Adobe RGB 1998 profile. A iMac cannot get see that type of gamut it cuts it off and drills your file down to its spec. Which basically is cutting off your full gamut of your file.

Be it you need it or not does not make any difference these are just facts and limitations.

 

[Godfrey]

Whatever do photographers do when shooting film, which can't even approach sRGB for accuracy of reproduction?

I worked for four years at a pro lab/photofinisher, so the question is rhetorical. Answer: they did the best they could, the pro lab did the best it could, and the goal was to please the art director. Nothing more, nothing less. Coca Cola took the results as input and tweaked it in the offset lab to meet their exacting demands. Just like they do today.

(Note: one of my clients was Red Bull in Austria. They bought, on two occasions, ten image spreads of my work made with a Panny FZ10 and used them to illustrate two feature length articles about the Isle of Man and Laguna Seca Raceway in their sports magazine. They didn't even want Adobe RGB or Tiff files, just high Rez JPEGs. And seemed quite happy with the results...)

G

Example go shoot for the company called Coke. If you can't get a Coke red color in your photography going through offset printing and that color is not Coke color someone maybe looking for a new job or lost a client. Many companies have products that are a certain color, if not carried through to the printed piece someone failed along the way.

This is not about how you work. This is about industry standards that get followed from shooting to offset to even the paper a piece is printed on to be accurate. Many catalog shooters go through this processs every day. It's not about some art director either. It's about accurate color on the printed piece that has to represent a product.

This is all about limitations of monitors and reading the full gamut or close to it of your files a wide gamut monitor sees 97 percent of a Adobe RGB 1998 profile. A iMac cannot get see that type of gamut it cuts it off and drills your file down to its spec. Which basically is cutting off your full gamut of your file.

Be it you need it or not does not make any difference these are just facts and limitations.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Godfrey you always put things as what you do. Not sure when you will ever learn but it's NOT about you. It's industry standards and limitations that you can't change. Seriously i give the **** up.

 

[Godfrey]

Godfrey you always put things as what you do. Not sure when you will ever learn but it's NOT about you. It's industry standards and limitations that you can't change. Seriously i give the **** up.

You're right, it's not about me.

I participate in the same industry you do, Guy. I've been in and out of the photography industry for 50+ years. I sell my photographs, jobs, licences, etc. to clients just like you do. I go about it quite differently from you, I address different market interests and areas, but I feel my experiences are just as valid as yours.

I didn't say I was "right." I agreed that you are welcome to hold different sensitivities, perspectives, and opinions. What I have done in this business has been perfectly acceptable, satisfactory to both me and my clients. Why do you insist on disparaging me, rather than accepting that perhaps the industry is broader than your perceptions of it? I don't disparage your methodologies, why disparage mine and tell me I'm wrong?

I don't "give the **** up" on you. I suspect you are a bit too proud of your own methodologies and practices, claiming them to be "facts" and "the only right way" when it is perfectly obvious from the examples I'm stating that other ways work well too.

I'm not the only photographer with a long history of work in the industry who feels and works the way I do, but I don't cite that as proof of my 'rightness' only as testimony that there are other ways of approaching this business. Let's just disagree on this trivial point of what g•••••m display system you use to tweak your photographs and move on.

G

 

[fotografz]

How do I do this without getting banned … :ROTFL:

I have a bit different take on this than Guy, and shrink at countermanding his obviously successful approach. Yet, there are different ways to see all this.

I worked at an Offset Printer, then became an Art Director, then started doing my own Photography for some of the printed pieces I created. This is my skew on all this:

All four color offset printing is done in CMYK color gamut.

Whether it is Coke red, or Ford Oval blue, or FedEX Indigo/Orange , or Breast Cancer Pink … all of them must be extracted from the CMYK color gamut. Nothing can be offset printed outside of this gamut.

CMYK isn't anywhere near the Gamut of the Adobe RGB 1998 profile. Almost any modern monitor has a wider gamut than CMYK.

There are two schools of printing prep for photographic reproduction. Those that provide it as Adobe 1998 and leave it to pre-press to make the conversion, and those who prefer to make the CMYK conversion at the ad or collateral piece prep stage then adjust it during pre-press evaluation. This is why here are a zillion CMYK profiles in PS.

Color Printing 101: the RGB & CMYK gamuts

A vast majority of photographers provide as faithful an image as they can manage using Adobe 1998. So a monitor that mostly gets you there is desirable to cover your behind. If color repo goes bad, then someone afterwards screwed up.

However, it doesn't alter the fact that any image will be converted to the truncated CMYK color space.

The full gamut of an Adobe 1998 photo file will never be reproduced in offset printing, only approximated during the CMYK pre-press evaluation process.

Having made thousands of press runs to evaluate four color proofs and progressives on the actual paper stock to be used, or working with an ad agency Art Director and/or Production Manager to do that, I now make the conversion myself to make sure the color reproduction is closer to the reality of CMYK … (even though I still may provide the larger gamut Adobe 1998 profiled image because the printer can occasionally rip a bit more than I can).

Since my involvement is inception to fulfillment, this process has considerably simplified the pre-press evaluative process, and the reproduction of the photos has taken less pre-press work to approximate the original intent.

I still do advertising concepts, layouts & copy and often photograph the content myself. Now days, most of the Printers my clients use require that I provide the reproduction piece as High Quality Printer's PDF files in CMYK color space … so it all best best be right in CMYK.

Different strokes for different folks.

- Marc

 

[f8orbust]

You may not believe in it but ask any accomplished landscape shooter doing their own printing and they are on NEC or Eizos

Joe Cornish seems to get by on an iMac ok.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Yea and I can name 20 that use wide gamut monitors. You all missed the point. I never said you can't work with a monitor coming from Apple or any other SRGB monitor. What I am saying is if you want to see and use the full range of your raw file which BTW has a even bigger gamut than Adobe 1998 than a wide gamut monitor has the biggest gamut. As far as offset printing yes things are converted to CMYK and the presses can only handle so much color. But in the same vein this is also changing for the better. These are multi million dollar machines and are color managed and the industry standards are much higher than your SRGB monitors and from I read this monitor can't even be calibrated. Really what's the point of shooting high end color if your not using a color managed system. It makes zero sense. No one said you can't get by and we been getting by for years but now with these higher gamut monitors you can actually see the full range of your DR and color. Frankly when I spend 40 k for a back I want to see that range. I had both at the same time a Apple cinema 30 inch and a NEC 30 inch the diffrence is huge and I could not sell that Cinema Display fast enough. My Epson printer a 7900 is a perfect match for these monitors .

Do want you want folks but you can't escape the facts. That's all I'm putting down. Look at the gamut Lloyd posted. Those are facts that can't be changed. You can work around them like many do but if I'm spending 1200 on a monitor I'm buying a wide gamut. I see no value than seeing less than what my raw file can do.

With that Im out of this thread. My words obviously have been twisted enough to fit someone else's agenda.

 

[bradhusick]

This thread went in interesting directions. My original post was intended to say, "Isn't it cool that we can now display so many pixels of our photos."

I still think that's cool. Even if the gamut isn't super wide.