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millerrh

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 14, 2005
463
32
Going to be buying a new MacBook Pro shortly and am curious what everyone seems to think of the difference between glossy and matte screens for photo editing. Seems to me, the matte screen would more accurately let you adjust the colors to what would be on print and most other people's monitors. So matte is the direction I am leaning. Any reason to go glossy?
 
millerrh said:
Going to be buying a new MacBook Pro shortly and am curious what everyone seems to think of the difference between glossy and matte screens for photo editing. Seems to me, the matte screen would more accurately let you adjust the colors to what would be on print and most other people's monitors. So matte is the direction I am leaning. Any reason to go glossy?
You're on the right track, matte is the way to go for PP work.
Even though I do like the Glossies (Mmmm Glossy):D
Post some pics when you get it.
 
I prefer the color saturation of a glossy monitor although I have no complaints about the matte iMac screen.
 
If you're printing, stay with matte. Otherwise the colors will look totally different on your monitor and on the paper. Learned this the hard way, wasted quite a bit of ink too.
 
extraextra said:
If you're printing, stay with matte. Otherwise the colors will look totally different on your monitor and on the paper. Learned this the hard way, wasted quite a bit of ink too.

That's exactly what I was thinking would happen. Ideally I want my screen and prints to match exactly so I know what I'm seeing on the screen is what I'll be getting on the print. Worried that the glossy would make things too contrasty and saturated such that when printed out or viewed anywhere else, they might look flat.
 
Chundles said:
Matte + USB Colour Calibration tool (good one) = image editing bliss.

Yup, I've already got a Pantone Huey. Not the best one out there, but it makes a huge difference already.
 
My vote: matte.....easier on your eyes under all lighting conditions, more accurate representation of what will be printed or show on other people's monitors. I've seen matte and glossy side-by-side in the Apple store and I definitely prefer the matte. However, to be fair, trying to assess the glossy in a store is not great because they've got their overhead lights and their spotlights and so on....only when you get the thing home and can view it under your own lighting conditions can you really accurately evaluate the performance. I don't think that the glossy screen works well with the current line of calibration tools, and that is important if you're trying to do a lot of extensive printing and selling of your images.
 
It doesn't matter. You'll be fine either way; my dad (who uses Photoshop at least a couple hours a day) had no problems switching to his new Macbook from his Powerbook G4, and he has no problems editing images at work on an Apple Cinema Display, bringing them home and editing it on his Macbook screen, and bringing it back for more editing on the ACD the next day. If you keep all of your displays correctly calibrated, you shouldn't have any problems.
 
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