Matt screens on iMacs?

[eclipse]

Hi all,
we've been avoiding the shiny iMacs because we want colour correct monitors with no glare. So my wife currently gets by on an old Mac Pro with a matt, non-reflective screen to cut back on window light reflection issues etc.

1. I heard a rumour that imacs are coming out with matt screens?
2. Would any graphic designers be happy maxing out an iMac to work on all day every day for years, or would you all go mac pro?

 

[paulryp]

Hi, I work in a studio with 20-30 other creatives for 10 years and at no point has this been an issue. Maybe 15-20 years ago with CRTs you would have hoods to stop reflection. But a modern iMac or studio monitor with an IPS display is absolutely fine. Obviously don't sit next to a window with the sun streaming in.

 

[eclipse]

Thanks for that!

Did you guys buy the $30-ish matt screen cover?
How does your studio find the iMacs, are they powerful enough?
Do they have enough physical ports for everything you want to do?

 

[paulryp]

iMacs are great if they have SSD's. We don't do a lot of large format stuff but for regular work a modern iMac with an SSD is a good "Pro" machine. If you do light 3D or Video go with i7 and more Ram. If you are professional 3D or Video then you should know what machine to use 😉 (probably a PC workstation)
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iMacs are great if they have SSD's. We don't do a lot of large format stuff but for regular work a modern iMac with an SSD is a good "Pro" machine. If you do light 3D or Video go with i7 and more Ram. If you are professional 3D or Video then you should know what machine to use 😉 (probably a PC workstation)

PS. I'm looking to upgrade personally and i would go for i7 with 580 and 512SSD. This is more than enough power for any Graphic design project. It might struggle in High end 3D simulation, but thats it. Also the new iMacs 2015> have amazing IPS retina screens. Best way to judge colour is probably an Epson Proof anyway and we've never had an issue.

 

[fde101]

Thanks for that!

Did you guys buy the $30-ish matt screen cover?
How does your studio find the iMacs, are they powerful enough?
Do they have enough physical ports for everything you want to do?

I have one of the Mac Pro towers and at least two USB hubs hanging off of it to give me more ports. Not sure that iMac vs. Mac Pro (or whatever) is going to make a huge difference on USB, which is how most things connect now - the more important question is whether or not it has all of the types of ports you need (or there is a feasible adapter solution).

 

[fig]

Unless you're doing some sort of insanely large files or 3d/mograph, a modern iMac is more than enough to handle a day to day designer workflow.

 

[eclipse]

Can anyone confirm if they're coming out with matt screens?

 

[kevoo]

I honestly can't see apple releasing an iMac with a matt screen.
I would suggest buying a macbook pro and hooking it up to an external monitor, that way you get the best of both worlds.

 

[fig]

Can anyone confirm if they're coming out with matt screens?

If they were planning to make that change I imagine they'd have announced it, so wouldn't expect it.

As others have said, I've rarely had any sort of issue with a non-matte screen on a Mac (and that's a sitting with back to the window in coffee shop type scenario). If it's that big a deal for you, you can always get a matte screen film for your display.

 

[BJMRamage]

I have used iMacs and MacBook Pros for print/graphic design (and mixing in web design).
the screens have been fine for me...but any Matte screen i have used in the past has always had a reflection...just more subtle and if you have a shiny screen you know it has glares at times when you need to get a better color view and adjust accordingly, whereas a matte screen makes you think there is no glare where there actually is.

I am happy with the port selection on the iMac or MBP...well, the new MBPs I don;t like with the dongles you'd need with USB-C

 

[MacGizmo]

Can anyone confirm if they're coming out with matt screens?

Matte screens are dead. Apple is never going to release one again. You can get a really nice Dell UltraSharp fairly inexpensively though. Pretty much every manufacturer is switching over to glossy screens.

Much of my work is color critical print design and image retouching. I've been using an iMac w/glossy screen for years with no issues at all.

And the iMac is more than enough for any print or web designer. The MacPro is so overkill that it's not even worth considering... Just get the 27" iMac with a pure SSD drive (NOT the Fusion Drive) and max out the RAM. Get the best video card option if you can. It can't hurt to upgrade to the Core i7 if you can afford it, too.

 

[pixelatedscraps]

Obviously don't sit next to a window with the sun streaming in.

Haha, my studio is exactly this. We've got big wraparound windows running a good 15m down one wall so all the computers pretty much have the glare and reflection bouncing off their screens. For retouching purposes, our EIZOs have their hoods attached and we are gradually moving away from the glossy iMacs to either MacBook Pro + EIZO (or Dell UP) or reclaiming our old classic Mac Pro towers and pairing them with all matte screens. To each their own...

 

[Xowi]

My studio is tiny maybe seven or eight displays and the glossy ones are the ugly sisters in the room. I would hope Apple would create more high end product for long term creative users especially those who need the matte for eye comfort.

 

[Chancha]

Hoods + ambient light management is the ultimate way to go. If your setup is straight opposite to a East facing balcony, even the "most" matte screen is still a coating with thickness that reflects some light instead of refracting it to the side like you want it to. Also do not use an after-market matte screen cover as you get unknown amount of changes to the colors and contrast from your display, or worse, uniformity issues.

That said, I would still prefer matte out of the box, the manufacturers like Eizo and NEC uses some obviously top class coating material and method which gives noticeably unreflective surface while maintaining excellent color accuracy.

I am using the new iMac 5K 2017 along side, and while the iMac anti-glare glossy coating is already the best I have seen, it is still way too reactive to even the slightest light source in the room. And being a 27" if I sit close enough to it, it is literally a black mirror of my entire studio. For color critical work this is only useable at night with all ambient light sources off.

 

[paulryp]

Storm in a tea cup. Seriously most professionals will understand the colours values from the 4 colour breakdowns.

 

[pixelatedscraps]

Storm in a tea cup. Seriously most professionals will understand the colours values from the 4 colour breakdowns.

Not entirely true. Most professionals wouldn't be using iMacs in the first place. Mac Pros or high end PC + calibrated EIZO / NEC / Dell - in that order.

 

[paulryp]

Not entirely true. Most professionals wouldn't be using iMacs in the first place. Mac Pros or high end PC + calibrated EIZO / NEC / Dell - in that order.

Ive never met a Graphic Designer that works on a PC in the UK.

 

[opeter]

Ive never met a Graphic Designer that works on a PC in the UK.

Well, it is quite opossite here. Most designers use PC primarly nowadays. I have friends and know a bunch of people - freelancers and others - who works in design fields, some of these do illustrations for living and most do use (almost exclusively) PCs.

Yes, you will see some Macs here an there, especially in printing houses/shops, museums etc. were they did digitalizing etc., but they are quite old now (average is somwhere 5-7+ years old) somewhere sitting in the back and they get rarely used anymore. Macs were once the primary platform for design (in the time of QuarXpress, Aldus Freehand etc., when the Windows counterparts of these applications were mostly a joke), but since most of the Adobe CC and other bigger and smaller apps are availabe for the Windows OS, you get the same results on both platforms etc, there is simply no need for Macs anymore.

Some weeks ago I asked a girl, who just did her degree in design field, what will she invest and she said that it will be a PC, because she can buy/choose whatever configuration she wants.

...

Our TV and radio stations use mostly PCs with PC video/audio editing software, Macs are very rare.

Most Mac users here are:
- the veterans, who know and love the platform since decades or because they cannot/wont switch for whatever reason (they have invested much into the Apple platform)

- some students, but this is only a small proportion compared to pc users

- younger and older people, who are middle/higher class with good income and they (or they parents) can afford it.

- some DJs and some musicians and/or sound recorders/technicians in sound/recording studios (but also these aren't really that many)

- others like some bosses in companies, because the Mac has/is still somehow a status symbol (as is the iPhone), so you look cool if you have one, even if you can't use it. But it looks good on the desk 😉

BTW, so that I wont be off-topic:
You can always invest into a self-adhesive matte film for the iMac if the glossyness bothers you. Or just connect a secondary (matte) screen and use that as primary.

 

[paulryp]

OK then. I better tell DesignBridge, BulletProof, seymourpowell, coleyporterbell and the rest to Stop what their doing because apparently the whole world is now on PC. 😉

 

[opeter]

OK then. I better tell DesignBridge, BulletProof, seymourpowell, coleyporterbell and the rest to Stop what their doing because apparently the whole world is now on PC. 😉

It doesn't matter what you use. What does matter is/are the result/s.

 

[fig]

Not entirely true. Most professionals wouldn't be using iMacs in the first place. Mac Pros or high end PC + calibrated EIZO / NEC / Dell - in that order.

I think you grossly overestimate the number of designers on Mac Pros, not to mention the number of designers doing precisely calibrated print work.

 

[MacGizmo]

Not entirely true. Most professionals wouldn't be using iMacs in the first place. Mac Pros or high end PC + calibrated EIZO / NEC / Dell - in that order.

I don't know any graphic design pros who DON'T use an iMac or a MacBook Pro. And I've worked for a lot of agencies, design firms and whole bunch of companies on a freelance basis. I've never seen a MacPro in any of the offices... only iMacs and laptops.

 

[Chancha]

A maxed out iMac 27" is siginpificantly outperforming the Mac Pro except in multi-thread tasks. Also there is nothing stopping anyone to use an Eizo alongside an iMac, the question is when doing dual screen, how to make the most out of the iMac screen, even if you only use it as an interfacing display for palettes and culling you would still want it to not be that much off from the soft-proofing Eizo next to it.

Also, the term "designer" is getting diffused every other day, the destination medium can be so vast, that a singular creative professional often finds himself needing to deliver to multiple color spaces. I myself have had formal print/press training some 20 years ago, know from the back of my head what CMYK value should correspond to what shows up on paper, but that knowledge translates to nothing when color grading a reel for BBC.

Color management is full of compromise, you never get exactly where it should be, just good enough for your given task.

 

[pixelatedscraps]

A maxed out iMac 27" is siginpificantly outperforming the Mac Pro except in multi-thread tasks. Also there is nothing stopping anyone to use an Eizo alongside an iMac, the question is when doing dual screen, how to make the most out of the iMac screen, even if you only use it as an interfacing display for palettes and culling you would still want it to not be that much off from the soft-proofing Eizo next to it.

Also, the term "designer" is getting diffused every other day, the destination medium can be so vast, that a singular creative professional often finds himself needing to deliver to multiple color spaces. I myself have had formal print/press training some 20 years ago, know from the back of my head what CMYK value should correspond to what shows up on paper, but that knowledge translates to nothing when color grading a reel for BBC.

Color management is full of compromise, you never get exactly where it should be, just good enough for your given task.

To each their own regarding use of computer hardware, but every major agency or commercial lifestyle brand I've worked for or been signed on as a contractor, walking through their studios, design or production floors, our team has never seen anything other Mac Pro towers, trashcans or souped up Lian Li / Silverstone PC boxes coupled with the aforementioned EIZO, NEC or Dells. The iMacs are usually sat at the front reception desk 😉

That said, with the rise of smaller, more compact start up studios and digital agencies, we are seeing more and more iMacs. There is plenty of work out there that is not print colour critical - a huge amount of imagery and design work these days appears on either 5.5" or computer screens, and who doesn't love a bit of gloss on their sRGB photos?

Off topic here, one thing I did notice was the use of Philips and Ilyama monitors for less critical work - that was a new one for me. I still remember my Ilyama Vision Master Pro 17 CRT, that was a beaut...
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I think you grossly overestimate the number of designers on Mac Pros, not to mention the number of designers doing precisely calibrated print work.

Like I said, everyone has their own experience with agencies, design and photography studios. All we can talk about is our own experiences so I guess let me rephrase that to: in my experience, I don't know many professional studios or agencies working on anything other than Mac Pros/PC and EIZO/NEC/Dell.

I can count a number of small digital studios that seem to get by just fine on iMacs. Great for them, they save a chunk of cash and desk space.

 

[Chancha]

To each their own regarding use of computer hardware, but every major agency or commercial lifestyle brand I've worked for or been signed on as a contractor, walking through their studios, design or production floors, our team has never seen anything other Mac Pro towers, trashcans or souped up Lian Li / Silverstone PC boxes coupled with the aforementioned EIZO, NEC or Dells. The iMacs are usually sat at the front reception desk 😉

That said, with the rise of smaller, more compact start up studios and digital agencies, we are seeing more and more iMacs. There is plenty of work out there that is not print colour critical - a huge amount of imagery and design work these days appears on either 5.5" or computer screens, and who doesn't love a bit of gloss on their sRGB photos?

Off topic here, one thing I did notice was the use of Philips and Ilyama monitors for less critical work - that was a new one for me. I still remember my Ilyama Vision Master Pro 17 CRT, that was a beaut...
[doublepost=1501821761][/doublepost]

Like I said, everyone has their own experience with agencies, design and photography studios. All we can talk about is our own experiences so I guess let me rephrase that to: in my experience, I don't know many professional studios or agencies working on anything other than Mac Pros/PC and EIZO/NEC/Dell.

I can count a number of small digital studios that seem to get by just fine on iMacs. Great for them, they save a chunk of cash and desk space.

Yes the argument is then why be inclusive only to "top agencies" when the media landscape is so rapidly "flattening" as of late. You can have a top of the line photographer or colorist working independently, probably not even having decades of experience and thus having the "benefit" of building a studio with all recent gears. And then you can have a 60 year old film photographer finding himself needing to deliver video now, so his sub-4k Adobe RGB monitor is not exactly up to task. In some ways, choosing a trashcan Mac Pro is more of a retro-fitting in large studios since it only physically only replaces the Mac Pro tower before it, so they can keep using whatever monitors that's already on that desk. If I were to add a Mac to my studio right now, it would be silly to not get a maxed iMac 5K, regardless if I am going to plug a CG248-K to it.

Don't get me wrong, I know the full benefits of a fully modular setup, the flexibility grants you choices to find the best specific component for each part of the chain. I guess since my experience is more on the diverse side, I started out in analog print house, worked in packaging, then later on music recording and associated multimedia like video editing and still photography, so I have used and seen many many different combinations of tools, each with its own optimization and even more so its own compromises.