[Austinw]

Hello!

I’m in the market for a new monitor, leaning towards a 4k display. I’ve been doing some extensive research on Colour Gamut and Bit Depth to understand whats going on when I edit photos on my monitor. This monitor will be used primarily for photo editing in Lightroom/Photoshop and I will be using a laptop that uses native 4k P3.

So, I’ve been looking at this monitor (LG 27UL850-W) as its predecessor the UK650 seemed to be the best bang in all categories. Looks great on paper when diving in the specs although there is some confusion if its true 10bit or just 8bit +FRC. And I’ve recently understood that it only does 99% sRGB for the Colour Gamut.

Another monitor that I recently found was the Benq PD2720U that seems to have all 3 Colour Gamuts (Adobe, sRGB, and P3) but is almost 40% more expensive than the LG27UL850.

My questions are:

1). Since most devices are using P3 as their colour gamut, is it beneficial to look for a monitor that supports the same? Even though social media or web services stick with sRGB and printing is in the realm of CMYK. Essentially does it make sense to hound a P3 monitor as opposed to sticking with a 99% sRGB monitor with these in mind?

2). Is there a noticeable difference in practice between 10bit v. 8bit +FRC?

3). Is the increase of price justified for the two other Colour Gamuts? (considering that the bit depth is the same in these monitors)

If there is any other considerations that I’m missing definitely let me know as I’m completely new to these specs.

And of course, thanks for the help.

[PCM2]

Hi Austinw and welcome,

Thanks for such a well-constructed first post. I’ll get straight to your questions:

1) The choice of colour gamut ultimately depends on the purpose of your photo editing. What do you wish to do with the photos after editing? If it’s for your own enjoyment and you’re going to be viewing your works digitally, DCI-P3 can be a good gamut to use. The sRGB colour space is extremely restictive compared to a “real life” gamut (even DCI-P3 falls short, but captures more shades you’d find in nature). Depending on what you’re photographing, sRGB may be adequate. And if your work is going to be viewed digitally, it’s usually more appropriate to stick to sRGB as that’s all that most devices will support. That’s slowly changing, but DCI-P3 is still far from a standard for “internet content”. If you’re printing photos, most printers are capable of far more saturated output than the sRGB colour space provides. Adobe RGB has long been a preferred standard colour gamut for print matching, but getting a perfect match between screen and printer can still be challenging. The gamut also covers a lot more of the green to blue edge of the gamut and in general is the best gamut for covering the colours found in various ‘nature scenes’. Some users like to use DCI-P3 for print matching, this isn’t really my area of expertise though and not something I have much experience with.

2) As covered in our news piece, the 27GL850 uses 8-bit + FRC to achieve 10-bit. I know this from the panel used, but if I told users that it was true 10-bit they’d believe me. That’s because there’s really no practical difference between the two. The dithering is very finely handled and the end result very similar to if the monitor isn’t applying a dithering stage. You also need to bear in mind that dithering is a complicated beast as the GPU will often apply a degree of dithering even if the monitor doesn’t. This muddies the water somewhat and ultimately makes it difficult to assess what exactly the monitor itself is doing and what the GPU is doing. But it isn’t worth worrying about as the end result is very similar.

3) This really depends on your thoughts surrounding the first point. If you feel the extended colour space support is useful then I’d say it’s worth paying more for the PD2720U. If you feel sRGB is more appropriate for your workflow then it’s just really the styling, slender 4-sided bezels and metal stand elements you’re paying for with the BenQ. The OSD is also more feature-rich and the controller is a nice touch. But I’d assume you have a colorimeter device, so I doubt this extra OSD flexibility will be of much use (a broader range of gamma modes, colour temperature settings and presets etc.)

In general I recommend the Philips 276E8VJSB for all-round use including colour-critical applications, if the sRGB colour space is sufficient. The 276E8VJSB offers a somewhat smoother screen surface than the LG, offers a better factory calibration and slightly better pixel responsiveness. On the flipside, the LG offers a fully adjustable stand, greater connectivity options and supports Adaptive-Sync. I’m going to assume you’re attracted to the greater stand flexibility and ports and perhaps more solid build of the 27UL850 – and that you’d be calibrating the screen with your own device as per the previous paragraph. I’d also add that I’ve received a good deal of positive feedback about the PD2720U, so it’s a good choice if extended colour spaces are important to you.

[Austinw]

Hi PCM2,

Thank you for the response!

Personally, I shoot landscape photography and up until now have only worked with sRGB (mainly because I had no idea what colour depth is) so with these other profiles as options it can get a bit crazy trying to follow the path between monitor and printer. In saying that I would like to run it down by you if I have this correct:

Monitors can supports colour depths of sRGB, P3, and Adobe RGB. Makes sense, but then what’s with the “Display Profiles” that are found in typical settings? (such as HD 709-A/SD 170M-A). Are these what come out of the factory calibration for the screen and/or what’s calibrated using a colormeter device?

As for the rest of your reply, it makes sense. As I said previously if I’m looking to have all 3 profiles most monitors like the BenQ come in at 2x more than the LG with one profile, yuck! Also as you mentioned the adaptive-sync, for gaming, seems ideal if I use it for some light gaming that I’d certainly do.

All in all what I’m considering is that I’ll soon have a laptop that uses P3 on a 4k native display, and then possibly the monitor with sRGB with 4k as well. Covers most of the spectrum if I were to edit for internet/monitor and printing/laptop display.

My last question is: does the jump from 2k to 4k make a big difference? I suppose with [fake] 10bit it helps with banding mostly. Reason I ask is with 2k displays I could get more display profiles with a 2k screen at a fairly reasonable price, I’d think.

Appreciate the help!

[PCM2]

Monitors with extended colour gamuts, particularly those with colour-critical work in mind (such as the BenQ PD2720U), often have a range of presets available. These usually include a gamut emulation element and perform other tweaks to bring colours into line for a particular standard. So as you say, they’re different factory calibrated modes. This is all done on the hardware level, on the monitor itself.

If you have a colorimeter and are profiling by the usual method (creating a software ICC profile, which adjusts what the GPU outputs), then various ‘transformations’ and corrections are performed. Which includes information related to the monitor’s colour gamut so it can be used appropriately. However; these ‘transformations’ require colour-aware applications, otherwise the native gamut of the monitor (or whatever gamut applies for the monitor preset you’re using) applies. If you own a colorimeter and are using colour-aware applications then I wouldn’t worry too much about what the factory calibrated presets do or don’t do. You can use the full native gamut of the monitor and it will be used appropriately for you due to the profiling. The presets are really just there for non colour-aware applications (games, for example) or if you don’t have your own calibration hardware. There’s some related reading on this thread.

I have to correct you on the use of ‘2K’ as it’s a pet peeve of mine. Refer to this post. There is a significant and noticeable difference between the 2560 x 1440 (WQHD) resolution and 3840 x 2160 ‘4K’ UHD resolution, yes. Unless you have poor eyesight or are sitting particularly far away from the monitor, this is quite easy to appreciate. WQHD models are still decent, though, they do still offer a nice pixel density which still lends itself well to photo editing.

[Austinw]

Hi, sorry to bring this post up again, but I’d like a little bit more clarification since you’ve been very helpful thus far.

So as it currently stands I have the LG 27UL850-W monitor (sRGB) with a macbook pro laptop (P3) display. What I’m seeing is that the LG has a display profile named “LG 4K.icc” and the macbook pro has “Colour LCD.icc”, and when I take the same image and show it on both displays, the colours on the LG seem more saturated and the ‘shadows/blacks’ seem to be darker.

What confuses me is following how everything is calibrated from the device to the end result. So correct me if I’m wrong; there’s Colour Space/Bit depth, then theres the calibrated display profiles solely because not one machine is manufactured the same when displaying ‘sRGB/P3/Adobe’. Once that’s calibrated (with spyder or manufacture software) then both displays should show the same colours and gamma? Or is this caused because of a photo on a P3 screen versus a sRGB? And to clarify this photo has been exported out of Adobe Lightroom using their settings for colour space ‘sRGB’

Ideally I’d like to edit from my monitor, but I’m having trouble understanding what tells me true to life colours when P3 could show a difference space than sRGB. Logically I would think that an exported sRGB will look the same regardless of P3 or sRGB display since one encapsulates the other. As for the shadows/darks being lighter on the P3 display, I’ve read that has to do with the gamma differences between the calibrated display profiles, is that true?

Thanks for the help!

[PCM2]

Don’t rely on profiles created by the manufacturer. They’re often there to set things back to Windows defaults, though some rudimentary gamut corrections may be added into the mix. They aren’t specific to your unit, they’re far more general and the accuracy is questionable and potentially even counter-productive. If you’re using colour-aware applications and have correctly profiled both screens using your own colorimeter then they should match much more closely. Otherwise the output is going to differ, possibly substantially.

[Austinw]

LG has a “truecolourpro” software that calibrates the monitor, but I’ve yet to use a colorimeter and I’m trying to figure out if it makes sense to purchase in the end. Even after both monitors are calibrated, everyone else’s isn’t and it won’t be correct for printing purposes. So I’m navigating the rabbit hole haha.

[PCM2]

This is a popular thread so I’d just like to add to it by posting a few relevant resources that have been added to the site more recently:

1) An article on sRGB emulation.

2) A bit more information about the colour gamuts discussed in this thread. The article also covers bit depth and LUT processing.

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