Years ago the color management monitors of choice were monitors from Radius, Miro Displays and Barco. Today IBM T221 is the world's top monitor. Next come US Electronics, then LaCie and potentially Sony FD Trinitron and Mitsuhishi monitors

The IBM T221, Apple 23" Cinema HP display, monitors from US Electronics (Totoku) are taking headlines where Barco, Miro, and Radius monitors used to reign supreme.

Today Miro and Radius monitors have gone the way of the dodo bird. Barco has been challenged by the much lower priced LaCie ElectronBlue series. But the true Rolls Royce of monitors in the last few years has been the T221 from IBM. Subsequent model numbers have come out in 2003 and 2004.

If you are scanning for subsequent professional output, whether on a Durst Lambda, Cymbolic Sciences Lightjet, or wide format inkjet, you need a professional monitor as the foundation of your color management system.

The Sony FD Trinitron CTR that I would prefer for my own personal use is the Sony PremierPro series 24" GDM-FW900. E-mail timh@provarllc.com.

With their Reference Calibrator V monitor, Barco used to be the Rolls-Royce of color management monitors. But in sheer quality (and cost), IBM has taken over the heritage of Rolls Royce of monitors. Apple's 23" Cinema HD LCD display is the Bentley, and Apple's 22" cinema display is the BMW of graphics monitors. Unfortunately the 22" cinema displays were faulty. Everyone I bought had problems, all of them. When I tried to repair them Apple pretended there was nothing wrong and that obviously I had maltreated them. But I don't mistreat my monitors. I also found out that other people had problems with the 22" Apple monitors too. Besides, Apple discontinued them, which is all the more suspicious that the design was flawed. So far my 23" HD Apple display has not disintegrated as fast as the Apple 22" monitors. So if you see an Apple 22" Cinema Display on eBay, used, beware.

Collapsing prices everywhere have made it awkward for purchasing managers to specify a Barco when other competitors are much less price. Even Barco has now introduced an "entry level" monitor, Personal Calibrator V Wave II, a 21" monitor.

We don't have a Barco, but we do have a LaCie and three Apple 22" cinema displays.

LaCie offers their Electron 19blue III and electron 22blue III. Both are CRT monitors. The "22" provides 20" viewable area. All have hoods.

The LaCie blue eye hardware calibrator enables you to calibrate your LaCie monitor with your Macintosh G4.

LaCie also offers a photon18blue, an LCD monitor. 18" is the bare minimum for graphics work but an LCD at any size is better than flicker and bad color on lesser models of monitor either LCD or CRT.

Mitsubishi is now evidently coming out with monitors coupled with color management tools and software to calibrate their monitors. We don't have any of these yet.

Mitsubishi also has a 21.3 inch MultiSynch LCD2110 monitor. I have unfortunately not seen nor used this monitor. We have 22" Apple Cinema displays.

First Apple came out with its HD cinema HD display with 1920x1200 resolution, but then IBM came out with their T221 LCD with twice the resolution of the best Apple monitor. 3,840 pixels wide by 2,400 high. Just be sure your graphics card can handle the DVI-I digital specs. These are true digital monitors.

The final HD monitors of note are those of US Electronics, Inc. USEI is the US office for Totoku, in Japan. The monitors of theirs we have seen at tradeshows are awesome quality. E-mail monitors@UselectronicsInc.com.

Now that color management is the big issue of 1999 all kinds of books on color management are becoming available.

But no matter how many books you read, sooner or later you will want or need some assistance from FLAAR to help you overcome the learning curve. So we offer several opportunities:

1. Our course, DP 201, features how to generate ICC profiles and general color management for digital photography (and for printing your images on inkjet printers).

2. Our helpful publications on color management. A training course costs between $2,300 and $3,000+. The FLAAR Reports on Color Management are a bargain in comparison, so check out what FLAAR offers on www.wide-format-printers.NET.

FLAAR Reports, and the FLAAR course, each provide comprehensive lists of everything you need to get started on learning (and mastering) color management.


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