27 inch 1440p vs 24 inch 4k (PHOTO EDITING)

wunkley · 20 Aug 2015 at 15:52

I know we're primarily gaming monitors on here, but I'm Looking for opinions specifically for photo editing usage.

I have a couple of potential screens I'm pondering over, but before I get way deep into details I want to keep it simple and ask - would you rather edit photos on...

1.) A 27 inch 2560 x 1440p screen ?

2.) A 24 inch '4k' (UHD) screen ?

Remember, photo editing only. And let's assume both monitors are a similar price. Software used will be Lightroom along with Photoshop CS6

Brian18741 · 20 Aug 2015 at 19:14

I don't know much about photo editing but will the extra real estate of the 27" not be an advantage?

Legend · 20 Aug 2015 at 19:27

24" 4K will be tiny! I wouldn't want to be photo editing at that size, or much else to be honest, but particularly that. Real estate is going to be more useful for that purpose. A larger 4K would be worth considering, but not 24" in my opinion.

wunkley · 20 Aug 2015 at 20:35

I'm not sure people are quite grasping this.

Brian18741 said:
I don't know much about photo editing but will the extra real estate of the 27" not be an advantage?

You've missed the point by a country mile there dude

4k has way more 'real estate' as people term it, than wQHD, regardless of physical dimensions of the monitor.

Legend said:
24" 4K will be tiny! I wouldn't want to be photo editing at that size, or much else to be honest, but particularly that. Real estate is going to be more useful for that purpose. A larger 4K would be worth considering, but not 24" in my opinion.

4k will be tiny on a 24 inch panel, if you left windows scaling at default. BUT, I'm hoping the scaling in Windows 10 is now much improved (I've not upgraded yet, but from what I've read it has).

The ppi for actually viewing and editing photos will be immense though!
IF the surrounding interface/ menus/ text of programs like Lightroom and photoshop can be scaled up in Windows 10, whilst leaving the native res and ppi of a 24 inch 4k screen, I would be in heaven.

Minstadave · 20 Aug 2015 at 20:37

Will the 24" 4k panel be TN? In that case I wouldn't touch it.

Just get a Dell U2515H or U2715H, you'll be happy - Unless you need 10 bit colour then you're going to need some more dollar

wunkley · 20 Aug 2015 at 20:42

Minstadave said:
Will the 24" 4k panel be TN? In that case I wouldn't touch it.

Just get a Dell U2515H or U2715H, you'll be happy - Unless you need 8 bit colour then you're going to need some more dollar.

No fella. The 24 inch I have in mind is an NEC, and one of the best you can get in terms of image quality for photo ediitng (quality IPS, wide colour gamut, full Adobe RGB and sRGB). I don't want to go into minute details but I'm going the full proper 10 bit workflow for image editing - monitor, GPU, software etc etc.

It's going to be expensive naturally, but I want to keep it under about £900 for the monitor. Prices have started coming down for really good wide colour gamut monitors. I want to keep the discussion on screen size only

Minstadave · 20 Aug 2015 at 20:45

Ok that makes more sense. That makes the choice a little harder. I'd think 4k at 24inch would be a bit too small to be comfortable just in terms of physical size, id probably still go 27" 1440p to avoid scaling issues and a bigger screen.

wunkley · 20 Aug 2015 at 20:49

Cheers dude.

Thing is I've yet to even see 4k in person. My gaming screen is a Rog swift at 1440p. That's 27 inch and is noticebaly sharper compared to my current work screens for photography which are 2 Dells, one 1200p, one 1080p superwide. Both are great but 'only' sRGB and it's time to up my game, and I figure I may as well dip into 4k for work seeing as I won't have to be hitting silly framerates as I won't be gaming on it. Just need/ want great image quality/ colour repro (commercial photography is my career now).

But, as original post I don't know whether to go....

- 1440p 27 inch such as the Dell Ultrasharp U2713H

- or 24 inch 4k, such as the NEC EA244UHD

Both are quality IPS, Full Adobe RGB, wide colour gamut.

The NEC is about £250 more expensive than the Dell though. Its a smaller panel, but is 4K.

Dell also do a 24 inch very similar specs (Dell UP2414Q) to the NEC but you cannot buy it in the UK, and it's not much more than the U2713H. Really really annoying, why is it not sold here anymore?

jasonsony735 · 21 Aug 2015 at 08:30

If you go 4K then you want to have 27" or above !

You can't go wrong with this model for Photoshop

Asus PB279Q 27" 4K 60Hz Professional Widescreen LED Monitor & its also good for gaming if you should need too.

wunkley · 21 Aug 2015 at 17:02

jasonsony735 said:
If you go 4K then you want to have 27" or above !

Not necessarily for what I will mainly be working with.

My new 'work' desk will have 2 monitors. My current Dell u29 superwide which is 2560x1080 and my new, lets say for sake of argument, 24 inch 4k screen - the NEC MultiSync EA244UHD (currently my hot favourite to buy).

I use Lightroom 90% of the time for my photography work, only dipping out into Photoshop CS6 for critical stuff. In lightroom I can have the grid view of thumnailed images and menus on the Dell 1080p, nice and easy to read, but nice and wide to display many. If I set lightroom to Loupe view then the thumbnail you click on opens up full screen on your second monitor - which in this case would be the 24 inch 4k. So I'll get full screen super DPI res to work on each image properly. At that resolution/DPI and physical size, in theory the clarity is sooooooo good and sharp, it should be like working on an A3+/ even bigger print in front of your face, which is no doubt amazing.

Also, in terms of form factor, on a smallish desk in a smallish home office, a 24 inch screen at about 1.5 to 2 feet from you is fine and plenty big enough no?

Also, far as I understand it windows 10, which I will be upgrading to when it's all set up, allows for independent scaling of monitors.

i.e. you can do this for each monitor on your desktop, independently of one another:

So I could set the 24 inch 4k to 150% for example, and leave the other screen as is. Therefore it *should* be great to have one 4k 24 inch, and one 2560 x 1080 screen as a working 2 screen desktop, and a photo/ video editing platform. In fact I've read a few articles that suggest it's good to have a 1080p screen alongside ANY 4k screen when editing photos, so you can proof on both types of display ie you need to remember most people won't be viewing your images on a 4k scrren.
Also, tied to this, the NEC 24" 4k has full Adobe RGB/ wide colour gamut factory calibrated mode. It also has sRGB factory calibrated mode, that you can physically switch between. However I think it will be much more use friendly to simply slide a window over to the 1080p sRGB dell to quickly and easily check and proof images.

I'm rambling now, good night.

RussD · 22 Aug 2015 at 16:23

Remember this..If you got two different monitors you are going to get two different calibrations on them. You should be using two of the same monitors for Lightroom & photoshop, so you get the same or dam nearest the same calibration.