How good are the new iMac´s displays (20 and 24" specifically)? Can they be calibrated in any way? Hardware calibration? If you don´t play that much games but do much graphics, what use is a video card with 256 Mb?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Can iMac´s dipslays be calibrated?
- Thread starter Scanwolf
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Scanwolf said:
All Apple displays can be calibrated, OS X includes a calibrating utility in the System Preferences. It's limited though as it uses the eye to do the calibrating, some standard profiles are also included.
For professionals you can get a Calibrating tool (looks like a thing you put on the monitor and it plugs in via USB to do all the calibrating work.
A 256MB card isn't probably going to do much if you're not gaming but it's a little bit of future-proofing for your machine.
nVidia vs. ATi
Is there any difference between the videocards in 20" iMac and 24"? Our IT-specialist (Certified Microsoft and gaming freak) claims that ATi is superior in 2D while they´re about equal in 3D. Since we work with graphic arts (and don´t play games while we work) it points to 20" iMac and its ATi. And is there any difference between the cards when it comes to calibration? By that I mean with an EyeOne or the like and not visual.
Is there any difference between the videocards in 20" iMac and 24"? Our IT-specialist (Certified Microsoft and gaming freak) claims that ATi is superior in 2D while they´re about equal in 3D. Since we work with graphic arts (and don´t play games while we work) it points to 20" iMac and its ATi. And is there any difference between the cards when it comes to calibration? By that I mean with an EyeOne or the like and not visual.
Not really qorth it, IMHO.
My entire workflow is in Adobe RGB, and most spectromers I have put onto any of my displays, even the expensive ones, mess this up.
The calibration tool in System Prefernces is not bad, but...well yeah.
My entire workflow is in Adobe RGB, and most spectromers I have put onto any of my displays, even the expensive ones, mess this up.
The calibration tool in System Prefernces is not bad, but...well yeah.
Scanwolf said:
Well, your IT guy's pretty dumb. Sure, if you compared the top end chips from both ATI and NVidia they'd be pretty close. If you compared ATI media decoding chips (they have several designed just of media work that find their way into PDAs, upscaling DVD players, OTA HD tuners, etc) to whatever NVidia offers (not sure they have anything specialized like that) it would probably show the ATI to be superior.
However, you can't really compare the ATI x1600 and the NVidia 7300/7600GT in the 20"/24" respectively. They're not aiming for the same target market, not do I think they are even of the same generation of design. There's some debate as to what is superior, the x1600 or 7300GT (I think the GT wins out by a bit, but there are probably cases where the x1600 out performs the 7300), but there's no doubt the 7600 is a superior piece of hardware.
In the end, it of course depends on what you are doing. If your not gaming and not using Motion then it probably doesn't matter to much. If you are, you may want the 24" for the more powerful GPU option. What it sounds like for you, though, is color accuracy is more important, and if that's the case it going to be the LCD panel you want to be concerned about. Early reports indicate that the 24" is a "lesser" technology that the 20" or the ACDs (20", 23", and 30" displays), so the 20" may be a better choice, but not for the reason your "IT-specialist" asserts.
Scanwolf said:
Hm, right here on this forum. I don't have the link handy, but there's a post explaining the differences between the SPIS and SPVA (or something like that) LCD panels. The 24" LCD panels only come in one of those varieties, where as the ACDs are the other, and while there's not a huge difference for "casual" use (my 19" Dell uses the same type of tech as the 24" and it looks great to me, but I'm not trying to do color matching pre-press stuff either) color and gamma, etc are supposedly better on the LCDs in the ACDs and 20" iMac as opposed to the 24" iMac.
This is all based on the type of panel the 24" is likely to have, not real world reports. Sorry I didn't make that clear. My point is that you should probably do a real world check of both if color accuracy is the #1 priority for you, since, IMO, the LCD will have more to do with it than the GPU.
mrgreen4242 said:
I think that the jury is still out. I too read what that guy said, but the Samsung 24" display, which I'd be very surprised if it doesn't use the same panel as the 24" iMac, received pretty good reviews. Even Eizo make a 24" display, and they most certainly would not use crap. Also, the specs published for the machines do seem to say that the 24" has similar contrast and better viewing angles. Response times are still a mystery, but I doubt that anyone would make a display this size with a particularly slow one.
David
orangezorki said:
Didn't say it would be crap - said that the rather expensive ACDs use one sort of panel and the iMac uses another. I personally find my Dell 19" LCD to be exceptional, but I'm not doing color print matching or anything an I'm slighlty color blind, so I'm not the best judge.
The OP seems to working on some kind of graphic design where very precise color matching could be an issue. In that case, I would do exactly what I said - wait and see if you can get some real world info on the display from someone who knows what they are talking about.
On my 17,1 iMac, running 10.13.3 macOS, calibration consists of White Point alone. There is no color calibration, unless using a third party clip on device can somehow, but the old Apple calibration we once used on monitors does not exist any longer. My screen recognizes setting from old calibration profiles I saved somehow, but there is no way to adjust rgb settings on my 27" iMac screen.
Hold "Option" and then click Calibrate. This will take you to the expert mode which can actually calibrate the colour (In Apple way, not simple RGB slider).
Whoa, that's new, or maybe I have forgotten option key the old way. It's been several years since I saw the need to calibrate my displays. Hey thanks for the tip, should I need it down the road.