If you're serious about the photo or video editing you need to have a very good monitor. But what exactly should you be looking for as a content creator.
Now in today's post, I'll be going over some of the basic specs and features that you should keep in mind as an aspiring or even a professional creator, and I'll be doing that with the help of an Asus that was, you know, kind enough to sponsor this post and send a couple of monitors from their professional ProArt lineup, to help me explain all of this in the best way possible, but it didn't stop there.
I mean it is a holiday season and it just cannot go without a presence at the end of this post. So stay tuned and let's begin.
Best Photo or Video Editing Monitors
Build Quality & Ergonomics
The first thing to look out for is the build quality of your future monitor, and this goes for all PC users, not just creators, you should always go for a good sturdy standard that is height adjustable.
Now the sturdy part will minimize the annoying wobble of your monitor, especially if your desk is not as sturdy either and height adjustment is actually really important for your posture.
Especially if you spend a lot of hours in front of your monitor, it will keep your neck and your back, comfortable, which is very important in the long run.
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Resolution
The next step would be the resolution of your screen and it's a very important one as that is the amount of workspace you have.
And when it comes to productivity more is always better now having more pixels means that you can fit more things on your screen.
And if you're doing anything creative, you really want that extra sharpness, that extra detail that the higher resolution monitors have to offer.
So you should completely avoid lower resolution 10 NDP screens, a quad HD, or a 1440 p monitor is a great place to start.
But if you can, you should aim for an ultra-wide or a 4k resolution, and ultra-wide will give you those extra horizontal pixels which are great for video editing timeline for example, but a larger 16/9 screen like a 32-inch 4k monitor for example will also benefit your video editing.
But it will especially be an upgrade for photo and other image-related work that takes advantage of vertical pixels, as well.
Panel Technology - IPS, VA or TN?
Now the next thing would be the panel technology where you have to make a choice between a TN, VA, or an IPS panel.
Now you should completely ignore TN panels, they make sense if you're just gaming. But in terms of color reproduction, viewing angles, and the overall image quality, TN panels are just the way behind and you should know.
They should not even be considered in any kind of creative work in my opinion. Now, a choice between a VA or an IPS panel is very much a personal preference, IPS monitors usually have a slightly better color reproduction and the best viewing angles, but a bit lower contrast and they're usually more expensive.
Now VA panels, on the other hand, are a bit more affordable.
They have superb contrast, but like a tiny bit on the color side and the viewing angle, so I would say unless you already have a clear preference for VA and you really just want that contrast, IPS panels are usually the safest way to go for content creation,
Color Gamut - sRGB, Adobe RGB, DCIP3
But they're also very good and very bad IPS NVA panels, so the next step would be to make sure that the monitor you're looking at offers a good range of colors that is also known as a color gamut.
If you look at the specifications of your monitor there will usually mention a percentage of sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI p3 color gamut, which is pretty much the number of colors, a monitor can display for any kind of creating work you should get at least close to 100% sRGB coverage.
And if you're only creating content for the internet to use like YouTube videos or any kind of social media. This will be enough as most web browsers and devices are just limited to that sRGB color space.
Anyway, now for another type of productions, especially print or product design, you'll want a wider color range so that you know exactly what colors will look like on the end product, so you also need to look at Adobe RGB and the DCI p3 color gamut.
They're a bit larger than the sRGB range with Adobe RGB leaning more towards blues and greens and p3 more towards yellows and reds.
So if you're already working at this kind of high level you pretty much know which of the two fits your use best, but if you don't know and you just want to get more color out of your screen. You should get something that offers a nice amount of both.
Factory Calibration
Now you also need to look into your monitor calibration. If you already are a professional content creator, you know that you know in a perfect world, you want to calibrate your monitors every few months, but that just isn't an option for everyone.
So if you have an eye one display pro for example which is considered to be one of the better affordable calibration tools, it still costs around $200 so if manual calibration is not an option for you, you do need to make sure that your monitor is factory calibrated and good to go right out of the box.
So do check some reviews about it and do make sure that the color accuracy is good enough to just plug it in and start working.
Some Secondary Features
Now there are a couple of secondary features that you need to consider as well as the USB hub in the back, higher refresh rate, or adaptive sync if you want to game a bit HDR that features audio.
Making sure that your monitor has all the connections you need, and so on, so all these things will depend completely on your personal preference and your personal use.
Entry Level Creative Monitor, ASUS ProArt PA278QV(299$)
There are different categories of creative monitors as well that come with very different price tags. And here I have some of the examples of what you should be looking at as a very basic model or an entry model as you would say, I have the Asus ProArt PA278QV.
It's currently being sold for around $299 in the US, or 360, euros in the Netherlands, so it's not a very expensive monitor but it does take all the important boxes, I mentioned earlier, it is ergonomic. It has a quad HD resolution.
It's an IPS panel with 100% sRGB coverage, and it is factory calibrated, which means the colors will be accurate enough right out of the box for most types of content creation as a little extra, it also has adaptive sync and a refresh rate of 75 hertz.
So it's a nice little all-around or it would be perfect for people that want to start their content creating adventure, but also run a game or two in the meanwhile,
High-end Professional Monitor, ASUS ProArt PA329C(1199$)
And as a perfect higher-end professional example, I have the A Soos for arts pa 329, see right here, that does offer a bit more.
This is a well-built 32-inch monitor with a 4k resolution and an IPS panel that actually offers both 100% Adobe RGB coverage and 90% DCI p3 coverage.
And it includes factory calibrated profiles for each of them as well which is very nice.
Unfortunately, I can't really show you know what that looks like as this video goes through YouTube, and basically gets squished down to that sRGB space. So you'll just have to take my word for it.
Step 7 (for Professionals)-Hardware Calibration
It also comes with hardware calibration, which is a very important, and a very interesting feature for serious professionals that already have a tool to calibrate a monitor.
So usually when you calibrate a monitor you create something that is called an ICC profile in your operating system on your PC, which then gets used by applications like Adobe Premiere like Photoshop, and so on.
However, not every software handles this, as well as Adobe, does, and hardware calibration solves this by skipping the operating system on your PC and saving the calibration settings on the actual monitor instead, which means you will have perfectly accurate colors in every application.
But also when you plug it into a completely different system, for example, you will get the perfect colors, showing when you work on your PC, but also when you connect your laptop to the same monitor as well.
Some extras on the proArt PA329c
And as some little extras, you get the HDR six photo features that can be really nice for some content consumption and a nice amount of connections in the back that include a USB type C connection with the ability to connect your laptop to it and charge it at the same time via that same cable.
So these are some nice extras that not everyone will end up using, but it's nice to have an option to do so, in my opinion, but the monitor is a bit more pricey it costs $1100 in the US or around 1200 euros here in the Netherlands.
But I actually don't think that is an unreasonable price for professional monitors that you will use for your work.
Example 3-HDR Creation Monitor, ASUS ProArt PA32UCX-P(3999$)
And keep in mind, there is always another step up, especially if you need something that's extreme that serves a very particular niche or pushes some boundaries, even more like the ProArt PA32UCX-P, which will cost you around $4,000.
Now obviously it includes everything I've talked about so far. And it even comes with a tool to frequently calibrated display.
But what makes it really special is the fact that it has a mini LED backlight that allows it to go extremely bright over 1200 nits according to specs, but it actually went over 1400 nits in my own testing, which is a lot.
And unlike an OLED TV that can do, high brightness in a flash or just on a small area of the screen.
This monitor can do an even higher brightness and then across the entire screen and then all of the time which, along with a bunch of HDR related options, makes it one of the few monitors that you can actually use to properly create HDR content.
And even though it cost 4000 euros. It's not that much when you compare it to all the camera gear and everything else that you need to record HDR properly, so I would say, you know, it's all about perspective here.
So as long as you follow the basics above, and then combine them with your budget and your specific needs, you will end up with a monitor that will be good enough for all your creative needs, this fits you perfectly,
What makes a "Creator" PC
But for serious creative work, you also need a proper PC as well as the one I have here. And generally speaking, a good creative machine is actually very similar to a good gaming PC.
Now, most creative apps benefit from a fast multi core processor, as well as a fast graphics card. And if you work in Adobe Premiere for example, and video GPUs with the N bank encoder are the right choice for a professional setting, I do like to keep the system looking clean and quiet. So skipping RGB is the way to go, and picking a proper CPU cooler, and a GPU with a proper cooling design will do the trick here.
And there also motherboards, so with some creator's specific features that you can consider, especially when you know things become a bit more serious. So in this build, I use the A Suzy 490 ProArt motherboard.
That includes 10-gigabit networking, as well as a Thunderbolt connection which is really worth looking into.
If you work with huge files and external storage, and these are the things that you usually won't find on, you know gaming-focused motherboards in there, I have an Intel I 910 900 k CPU, a very quiet, knock to an NH you 12 s cooler 32 gigs of RAM and an RT x 3070 graphics card from a Seuss.
So this is a very, very nice little system that will complement these monitors, just right in my opinion.
I guess all there is left to say is thank you so much for watching.
I hope this post was useful to you. If you like content like this, please let me know in the comments down below.