What To Look For In A Photography Monitor - BenQ's Top Tips

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Investing in a high-quality photography monitor should take just as much consideration as your new lens or camera. Why spend thousands on your shooting equipment, to then edit on a subpar screen, ending up with more than lacklustre images, only eliminating the quality that you’d gained from your considered camera purchase? Thankfully, there is an abundance of quality monitors out there.

Your monitor is what you spend your day looking at, so it makes complete sense to find one that’s suited to your workflow and your lifestyle. Moreover, if your monitor (and printer) produces accurate colour, then the results ought to be predictable, even though the images are not identical. The device independent solution? To buy a monitor with an accurate colour profile. 

Get the best out of your creative workflow

Here’s what you should be considering in order to get the best out of your creative workflow:

Monitor Size and Resolution

Whether you work in a studio or in your home office, there are quality monitors from BenQ that suit all surroundings; ranging from 24” to 32”, all with the highest quality resolution options between QHD and 4KUHD. 24″ and above will help you comfortably edit your images. If you are searching for something really productive, then you can never go wrong with a dual monitor setup either.

Colour Gamut

When looking for the best monitor for photo editing, you need to consider its colour gamut. Just in case you’re new to this and wondering what colour gamut is? Well, it’s the set of colours that the human eye can see; the broadest range of hues of colour; however, monitor technology has come a long way so that colours can be seen in different ranges. The average monitor should be capable of showing all colour in the sRGB range. Higher quality monitors such as BenQ’s Photographer Series go beyond that with their own colour space that supports 99% AdobeRGB and 100% sRGB. This will allow your photos to look closer in tone to what you see in real life, and your prints and uploaded photos will match those you see on the screen in front of you. BenQ monitors also use a 14-bit (3D) LUT, giving you a wider colour gamut, and include High Dynamic Range (HDR 10), which increases the overall dynamic range between black and white, so that the resulting image appears closer to what your eyes see in the natural world.

Hardware Calibration

Hardware calibration allows you to adjust the image processing chip in the monitor without changing the graphics card output data. It keeps images consistent with your original copies, without being affected by graphic settings. Each BenQ monitor is hardware calibrated upon production, thus what you pull out of the box is pretty accurate. However, as a plus, they’re compatible with X-Rite i1 Display Pro to further calibrate the colour. Utilising the X-Rite i1Display Pro hardware calibration device allows for direct adjustment of the 3D Lookup Table without interference from systems graphics settings. These calibrated settings are then stored directly in the monitor under one of the preset modes.

Panel and Screen Type

Ideally, you should be looking for a matte screen with IPS panels to reduce glare. Only IPS panels allow a very wide viewing angle (close to 180°) without seeing the image appearance change in contrast and brightness. Fortunately, BenQ cover both of these features and 10-bit HDMI pixel depth for even finer detail.

Connectivity

Making sure that your monitor has the latest and suitable connectivity for your needs might not spring to mind as something crucial to look for, but you don’t want to spend hundreds of pounds to then not even be able to plug in your devices. BenQ uses the latest USB Type-C port to transmit video and data with only one cable, smoothly displaying brilliant 4K and QHD content. You will also be able to connect via USB 3.0, Mini DP and DVI-D, where the relevant cables all come with the monitor itself.

Shading Hood and Ergonomics

A shading hood prevents work environment lights and reflections from affecting on-screen content; a must for photo editing! In addition, a swivel mount offers both landscape and portrait orientations for superior ergonomics and functionality.

OSD Controller

BenQ’s OSD controller is a remote controller that comes with three preset buttons, each set up with a customised display setting such as Adobe RGB, sRGB, Black and White mode. This allows the user to switch effortlessly between presets without going through complicated settings and using fiddly on-screen buttons.

BenQ SW series: precise detail in image reproduction

The BenQ SW Series are built to reproduce your images with the same precise detail in which you captured them. Here’s a closer look at the range:

Find out more about BenQ products