# From 2 monitors to one larger monitor for photography



## JPlendPhoto (Jan 2, 2016)

Hello and happy new year to all!

I am a photographer and I currently have two Dell U2412M monitors which I bought a few years ago but I am finding I only use one of them while the other is turned off. I use the second one occasionally for Photoshop and Lightroom but I could easily manage with one monitor, maybe I should have gone with one larger monitor in the first place.

So I have been looking at 27” monitors and I am leaning towards the Dell U2715H, which I believe is an upgrade over the U2412M in terms of spec and not just size, I have looked at other’s but I seem to come back to this Dell which gets very good reviews. My budget is £400 and I was wondering what people’s thoughts on this Dell are or if you have any other recommendations for me.

Your help would be much appreciated!


----------



## TexPhoto (Jan 2, 2016)

One big monitor beats 2 small ones any day of the week. I would not invest too much $$ in any monitor that was not t least 4K resolution or better.

My preference is one big color accurate monitor, side by side with a smaller vertical monitor. The vertical monitor is primarily for email, but can also handle pallets and extra windows from photoshop or something. If I am composing a document on the main screen, the reference documents can be open on it. if doing something new in photoshop, the vertical monitor can host the how-to video.


----------



## Canon Rumors Guy (Jan 2, 2016)

There's nothing wrong with a Dell monitor, I think they're the best selling brand on earth.

That's a solid choice, but why not the P2715Q, which is 4K?


----------



## eyeland (Jan 2, 2016)

The 2715Q looks like a solid choice to me. Only thing holding me back is the fear that 27' is too small for single monitor 4K in the long run. As the step up to 32' adds a heavy premium I ended up looking at the BenQ BL3201PT as well.
If budget allows, Dell UP3216, and Eizo EV3237 look pretty sweet to me for entry into the 4k segment of pro-features for working with color.
Still didn't manage to choose myself yet..


----------



## privatebydesign (Jan 2, 2016)

In my experience the best use of two small monitors is when you are working on portrait orientated images and can rotate the screen to that orientation, even comparatively large screens don't display portrait orientation images well in their native orientation. 

I have switched between the two choices but have ended up, at this point, reverting to the single large screen, it just feels better.


----------



## eyeland (Jan 2, 2016)

Yea, the advantages of single vs multi monitor setups seem to be very workflow-dependent.
At home, for lightroom and design work, I rarely use my second monitor even when it is connected.
At my part-time job using After Effects and premiere (as well as for 40 page+ writing), I could not live without a multi-monitor setup.
For me, it works MUCH better when all screens are identical or similar in terms of actual pixel quality and brightness, ie. when I connect my Retina Mbp to my big old phillips ips, I get so annoyed at the difference in quality and acuity that I start developing "counter-habits" to avoid using the bigger external display


----------



## unfocused (Jan 2, 2016)

I guess it is personal preference. I use a second, smaller monitor with virtually all my Adobe programs, so I can put the various floating panels (layers, history, plug-ins, etc. on the smaller, second monitor and keep my larger monitor for the work product. I don't worry about calibrating the second monitor because it's only used for panels. 

Useful not only for Photoshop, but for Dreamweaver, In-Design, Premiere Pro and even for Word (allows me to have the document I'm working on open on the main screen and reference documents open on the second screen). I will also drag a browser window over to the second screen when I need to refer to a website when working on a project.

For me, I would never go back to a single screen.


----------



## Zeidora (Jan 2, 2016)

A 32" 4K display produces pretty small menu and tool bar lettering. I would not go smaller with 4K. I have a NEC UHD322 (a tad more than the OPs budget), plus a 27" Apple Cinema. I agree that the different screen sizes is a bit cumbersome, but dual NECs was a bit much. With color management & display profiling, I have no issues with the two screens being rather of different types. Re 4K at $400, you get what you pay for.

I use the 4K display for QuarkXPress and Affinity Photo work for 5DsR images and LF scans, on the small screen databases, text documents, dreamweaver and alike.

At work I have a 27" iMac, and it's ok for clerical stuff and simple imaging.


----------



## Sean C (Feb 15, 2016)

I'm using an HP ZR30w. It's a full Adobe color space wide gamut monitor with great color. At 2560x1600 text is about the sames size as a 24 inch 1080p monitor. It's and IPS panel with great viewing angles. Earlier I used an HP 3065 which was nice too, but with a smaller color range. (about half way between sRGB and Adobe) I used an old Dell 21 inch 1600x1200 4:3 screen in portrait mode as a side panel as it almost exactly matches.
It's got a fairly fast updating screen, and no scaler so it passes as a reasonable screen to game with too. Without a scaler though, there are no onscreen menus. You do all of your adjustment with the settings in Windows/OS-X except for brightness.

I'm looking for a 50 inch 4K panel that can do double duty like this but haven't found one yet. (viewing angle/color/delay) At that screen size, the pixels will be about the same size as my 30. The OLED panels LG was showing off look really promising. The 8k 98 inch panels were amazing.


----------



## tpatana (Feb 15, 2016)

Sean C said:


> I'm using an HP ZR30w. It's a full Adobe color space wide gamut monitor with great color. At 2560x1600 text is about the sames size as a 24 inch 1080p monitor. It's and IPS panel with great viewing angles. Earlier I used an HP 3065 which was nice too, but with a smaller color range. (about half way between sRGB and Adobe) I used an old Dell 21 inch 1600x1200 4:3 screen in portrait mode as a side panel as it almost exactly matches.
> It's got a fairly fast updating screen, and no scaler so it passes as a reasonable screen to game with too. Without a scaler though, there are no onscreen menus. You do all of your adjustment with the settings in Windows/OS-X except for brightness.
> 
> I'm looking for a 50 inch 4K panel that can do double duty like this but haven't found one yet. (viewing angle/color/delay) At that screen size, the pixels will be about the same size as my 30. The OLED panels LG was showing off look really promising. The 8k 98 inch panels were amazing.



I'm almost same boat, I have the Dell U3011 with same resolution, and 24" Dell U24something in portrait. And I've been keeping eye on some bigger 4k panels, but can't seem to find anything that would have good color and all other needed stuff.


----------



## pwp (Feb 15, 2016)

You can't have too much screen real-estate in my view, so long as you stay within reasonable neck-twist dimensions, and it is easily calibrated.

My two identical workstations each have a Dell U3011 (30 inch) and a Dell 2007FP (20 inch) rotated to vertical. When rotated the 20 inch is a perfect match in physical dimension and pixel dimension. In PS CC I keep the image full screen on the 30 inch and all the tools/palettes etc floated out onto the 20 inch. This is also a perfect setup for PremierPro CC projects. 

If you're price conscious, the little 20 inch panels are usually all over eBay for next to nothing as they were a massive volume seller into the corporate sector. 

-pw


----------



## berger (Jun 23, 2016)

I was in a similar situation these days, and I want to go for the Dell Ultrasharp models.


----------



## Mt Spokane Photography (Jun 23, 2016)

unfocused said:


> I guess it is personal preference. I use a second, smaller monitor with virtually all my Adobe programs, so I can put the various floating panels (layers, history, plug-ins, etc. on the smaller, second monitor and keep my larger monitor for the work product. I don't worry about calibrating the second monitor because it's only used for panels.
> 
> Useful not only for Photoshop, but for Dreamweaver, In-Design, Premiere Pro and even for Word (allows me to have the document I'm working on open on the main screen and reference documents open on the second screen). I will also drag a browser window over to the second screen when I need to refer to a website when working on a project.
> 
> For me, I would never go back to a single screen.



Yes, a second screen is going to be almost a necessity for heavy duty users, but many will not make good use of one. Since the OP falls into that second category, a larger screen might work best for him.

I have a single 27 inch screen, and want larger. I'd get a second smaller screen, but have no space for it, and do not need it badly enough to make space. Every time I buy a new monitor, my old one goes to one of my other computers, I have 4 of the Dell 24 inch monitors in use, they are workhorses.

If I were getting a 27 inch, I'd look at the BenQ. Its low cost and has good reviews from serious photographers.

https://www.amazon.com/BenQ-SW2700PT-Photographer-Monitor-Management/dp/B012UNOCJY


----------



## RGF (Jun 26, 2016)

I have two monitors, a NEC spectra view 27 (2560x1440) and 24" (1920 x 1200). The resolution on the 27 is rather high so text is small and hard to read at times. 

For PS this works well, I really find it helpful to have all the menus on a second display. For regular work, the text on higher resolution monitor is borderline too small. When working in Word I increase my zoom to 150%.


----------



## 3kramd5 (Aug 2, 2016)

Mt Spokane Photography said:


> If I were getting a 27 inch, I'd look at the BenQ. Its low cost and has good reviews from serious photographers.
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/BenQ-SW2700PT-Photographer-Monitor-Management/dp/B012UNOCJY



I have one, it's pretty nice. My only complain is that it's only QHD; UHD would be nice for working on high-resolution images (like those from my Sony A7R2)


----------



## hovland (Aug 2, 2016)

I use this myself, and is quite happy with it.

ASUS PB279Q 27" 4K UHD (3840 x 2160), IPS, 100% sRGB, 10-bit color 
https://www.asus.com/Monitors/PB279Q/


----------



## lw (Aug 2, 2016)

I am using a Samsung LS32D850T 2560x1440 which abounds with awesomeness 

32" means the character size etc is not too small. Similar to typical 1920x1200 27" monitors


----------

