Please try printing these pictures on calibrated monitors and printers. I have. You will find your comments about glossy are 100% incorrect.
Not a very solid argument. When people calibrate printers and monitors they usually do that so they match each other. That means whatever you see on your monitor will look nearly the same when printed on your printer (you can't get it completely right but you can get really close). This does not mean colours are accurate, it simply means your setup matches each other so when you print something it looks like you expected it to look. For example: you can get a monitor with a TN-panel to colour match your printer so whatever comes out your printer will look nearly the same as what's on your monitor. Everybody knows TN-panels are rubbish when it comes to displaying colours correctly. And there's another problem which is a rather big and very difficult one. Not everybody prints it at home, most will have it printed for them by a specialised company. This creates problems because you and they need to match so that things come out the why you wanted/intended. They have come up with standards to make it a lot easier but they don't guarantee it will work 100% (e.g. certified pdf).
However, the biggest problems are with the calibration. You need to follow a strict procedure before even calibrating the monitor/printer. You also need to ensure that the circumstances (lighting in the room, paper, ink, etc.) is the same. If anything is off you'll need to recalibrate (which is why a lot of calibration tools have a special function that continuously monitors the lighting in a room so they can change the calibration accordingly). A lot of those tools for calibrating monitors come with warnings about wide gamut and glossy monitors. They warn you that there might be some issues and that they cannot guarantee colours are correct. With some products the calibration process is simplified which can cause some problems. In this case the person you're replying to is indeed correct (but not always). The calibration software does not always come up with a correct colour profile. Sometimes they have too much red or green in them which can be easily seen. In other words, having a calibrated monitor does not mean it has been done properly. Calibrating the same monitor with various colour calibration tools can give you a lot of different calibrations. You absolutely need to know what you're doing and what it all means.
I find it quite strange people seem to think that matte/glossy are the only things that determine colour in monitors. This is completely incorrect because there are a lot more things that come to play (panel technique, backlighting, environment, etc.). It's the entire package that determines how well (true) colours are being displayed. There is some truth to it though. Most screens with glossy coatings use TN-panels. Apple is currently the only exception to this that I know of: they are the only ones producing glossy screens with a PVA or IPS panel in them. Every other colour accurate panel out there uses something like PVA or IPS and they are matte. Some people also look at it differently. Most people have crappy matte panels so using glossy might cause problems. Glossy makes colours pop out, a bit too much. When using glossy you might end up using less bright colours which in turn causes it to look washed out on most screens. This also brings up the question: what defines accurate?
I read someone stating leds are whiter and thus more colour correct. Unfortunately this is nonsense. When we measure colours we always compare them with natural light. Natural light from the sun isn't white, it's warmer than that (yes, I'm talking about colour temperature). Some find it has a bit of a yellow tint to it. In other words, due to the cooler light emitted by leds colours aren't accurate since they are too cool. In this case accurate means natural.
Does it all matter in the end? Nope, not a single bit. It all comes down to liking or disliking glossy. When you want to create beautiful pictures it really doesn't make a difference whether you use glossy or matte because it is all about skill. The 27" ACD is not a cheap monitor but it isn't expensive or overpriced. I think it's quite a good competitor for something like the Dell U2711. If you want an affordable 27" display for your Mac these two are definitely worth looking at.
My 30" ACD has a resolution of 2560 pixels by 1600 pixels. or a 16:10 aspect ratio. The new 27" ACD has a resolution of 2560 pixels by 1440 pixels, or a 16:9 aspect ratio. It just seems as if the resolution is 10% lower for the new display. But then I learned my math back in the days before the new math that is used these days.
Slightly lower resolution on a quite smaller surface. I think the ppi on the 27" is higher compared to the 30" ACD and that in turn means crisper fonts and images which is a bonus. There is more to it than just the resolution.
I stand by my statement because I've had this demonstrated to me, and I've demonstrated it to many other friends. The prints on glossy screens are more color accurate then matte. Matte scatters light. Glossy doesn't. If your colors are looking oversaturated then you need to calibrate with a good colorimeter and if color accuracy is important, its never a good idea to use a laptop screen. Laptops are nice and convenient, but any color accurate work should be done on a desktop monitor.
Glossy might not scatter light, it will reflect it and that can cause problems when doing image work as well (not seeing everything due to reflections and making mistakes because of that...I've seen it happen often). Calibrating a monitor that looks like it has oversaturated colours is pointless since it will not have any effect. It's something a person sees, not something that can be measured. When these people have to do some work where colours matter things can go wrong, they'll have differences between the printed work and what's on screen. Even if everything is calibrated properly.
It also helps if you also know what colours and colour calibration mean. There's a lot to it, things aren't as simple as you seem to think. Having somebody show you something says absolutely nothing since you need to know what they're using, how things are calibrated, etc. You might also want to sent your file off for printing and see what they come up with. Don't be surprised it looks differently from how it looks on your screen.
Btw, there are quite a lot of desktop monitors with TN-panels in them... You're advice should've been: use a proper monitor with something like a PVA or IPS panel, avoid TN panels (they can't display colours properly).
Kudos to RobBookPro for summing it up
I doubt that sincerely. When the MacBook Pro came out with glossy screens, all of the "matte" people were freaking out over it. Now that Apple has a matte option available, my impression is that they haven't sold many. I've never seen one.
You might want to leave your house, there are many other people out there on this planet
Meaning, because you haven't seen one doesn't mean there aren't many in use. I personally haven't seen many iPhone 4's (about 5) but Apple sold an enormous amount of them (millions)... Mind you, the default configurations which are the cheapest and very easy to get your hands on all have the glossy display. You need to equate the people who go out and buy the cheapest mbp that is in stock at the store. Some of them don't have the money for the matte version, some of them didn't know they could choose, some of them simply wanted a laptop right now without waiting for it and some of them wanted glossy.
@w00tini: nice!
