Nec Spectraview 3090 monitor in real life…

[nicolas claris]

When I went to Photokina on the Sinar stand (the stand I came directly to at first entrance;-) I've been happy to see some people from Nec and basICColor doing demonstration of some Nec monitors and of course their flagship, the Spectraview 3090.
It was a good surprise as I had already stated here in OPF, that this monitor was on my wishlist…

So it was not difficult for Markus Hitzler to convince me, especially with Photokina special rates. That "thing" was to big for me to bring it back, but I received the box (more than 20 kilos!) a few days later as it had been promised…
Unpack was fast and easy (one can easily guess!).

After removing the 3 years old Nec 2180UX, I just plugged the new monitor and this was it!
The cover all around brings a very good protecton from lights around and I've never been ennoyed by reflections or any glares…
I already had an i1Display 2 so profiling the monitor with the Spectraview software profiler was very simple and … accurate!
My settings:
Hardware calibration: Pre-press
Whit Point D50
Tonal curve: L*
Liminance: white 130 cd/m2 - Black neutral minimal
Profiling: LUT - 16 bits, v4

The monitor is plugged to the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT of my MacPro together with the second "ordinary" monitor (for palettes and emails window.)

The 3090 displays 2560 x 1600 pixels. What you see on the snap below is my new set-up. The image displayed by the Spectraview is a little less than 50% of a 1Ds3 file…

The only little downside of this monitor is, at it displays the Adobe RGB color space, you will see images and thumbnails quite "bizzare" within any software not color managed… but as pro we all use only color managed software, so who cares!

Later I'll post my findings with the camera calibrator (basICColor "input" creates ICC profi les for scanners and digital cameras) I bought in the same time…

Image edited on my MacBookPro not color managed…

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Nicolas,

This looks great. I am saving for a 30" myself but this NEC won't be within my budget I'm afraid considering the fact that I am also saving for a 5D Mk II ;-).

Why do you calibrate/profile using D50 and not D65, if I may ask? Just curious.


Cheers,

 

[nicolas claris]

Hi Cem
whatever size, if you go Nec, go spectraview: in my short review I forgot to write that, on the contrary to my previous monitor (a Nec but not Spectraview), the colors and brightness are consistent from left to right and from top to bottom… very important on a large monitor!

Re D50:
I previously used D65 and always found the monitor a little too blueish, and I always had to correct a yellow cast when printing on the press (offset). Now the monitor and the print do match.
AFAIK the Spectraview software do select D50 when you choose the "pre-press" setting.

Kind regards

 

[Asher Kelman]

Nicolas,

I'd love this monitor too. right now I'm looking at what I own and might sell to pay for what I need most. This now has moved front and center!

I saw it is sold at Buy.com for $2,000 but Resellerratings.com does not have them listed. This, in spite of having an enormous number of positive "ratings" on amazon.com.

In any case congrats. But one point, why L*?

Asher

 

[Ken Tanaka]

I'm interested in following your experiences with, and impressions of, this monitor, Nicolas. My pleasure with my 30" Apple Cinema monitor makes it hard to imagine switching it out for something else. But I can sometimes get imaginative when given enough inspiration.

Somewhat separately, I noticed that the lighting around your monitor might need revisiting, as peripheral light can have a dramatic impact on your color perception. I recently changed my desk lamps to Koncept's Z-Bar LED lamps (daylight). They're terrific, putting 5500K light onto a rectangular area (for only 9 watts). The dimmer makes them particularly handy for desk work near a photo editing station.

 

[nicolas claris]

Nicolas,

I'd love this monitor too. right now I'm looking at what I own and might sell to pay for what I need most. This now has moved front and center!

I saw it is sold at Buy.com for $2,000 but Resellerratings.com does not have them listed. This, in spite of having an enormous number of positive "ratings" on amazon.com.

In any case congrats. But one point, why L*?

Asher

Hi Asher
when comparing prices, beware not to confuse MultiSync and Spectraview.
The later are manually chosen/selected at the factory… hence a lot more expensive…

I chose L* simply because it is recommended by both the manufacturer (Nec) and the SW engineers (BasiCColor/Spectraview)…

 

[nicolas claris]

I'm interested in following your experiences with, and impressions of, this monitor, Nicolas. My pleasure with my 30" Apple Cinema monitor makes it hard to imagine switching it out for something else. But I can sometimes get imaginative when given enough inspiration.

Somewhat separately, I noticed that the lighting around your monitor might need revisiting, as peripheral light can have a dramatic impact on your color perception. I recently changed my desk lamps to Koncept's Z-Bar LED lamps (daylight). They're terrific, putting 5500K light onto a rectangular area (for only 9 watts). The dimmer makes them particularly handy for desk work near a photo editing station.

Hi Ken
I can't compare with the apple Display 30"… but what I can say that this NEC is absolutely fantastic!
IMO the only way to compare it to put one of your image on a USB key (or a CD/HD etc.) and bring it to your local favorite shop to see how your image look on that screen. That's something you can't do on the Internet, and that's why we should cherrish (meaning buy to them) brick and mortars shops! (It is also nicer to have a photo store at the corner of the street than one more bank!)

I knew someone will notice the bad lighting area! Bravo Ken you won!
Seriously you're pretty right, but this is not the lighting I use when working on images. ahem…
Aside of that, the protection around the screen are really effective, and cherry on the cake, there is a small door on the top, to let the profiling Squid go to the monitor surface. Cool!

BTW the lamps are beautifull, I'll have to check if I can find one or two around…

 

[nicolas claris]

In any case congrats. But one point, why L*?

According to http://www.colormanagement.org/en/workingspaces.html

LStar-RGB.icc is a visual equidistant working space for media-independent storage of print data. LStar-RGB is a RGB matrix profile based on the color gamut of the ECI-RGB working space with a different tonal response curve - instead gamma 1.8 the L* tonal response curve is used.

Following the advises given by Markus Hitzler (basICColor Gmbh) I use the entire ECI profile system within my worflow. No more "Adobe RGB 1998" (unless asked by magazine's prepress people) as primary RGB space but "eciRGB_v2_ICCv4.icc"," ISOcoated_v2_eci.icc" for eurostandard inks and "SWOP2006_Coated3_GCR_bas.icc" as well for swop inks.
Hence I am fully compatible from the beginning to the offset print. I just keep the "old" "sRGB IEC61966-2.1.icc" for posting in OPF or when I send images to people who I guess are color management ignorant (yes the're still many around)…
I may say that since I follow these requirements, I get much happier with all the prints…

 

[Andrew Rodney]

I chose L* simply because it is recommended by both the manufacturer (Nec) and the SW engineers (BasiCColor/Spectraview)…

Maybe BasiCColor, not NEC (who's software in the USA is different).

Couple points about Lstar. Its a "big deal" in Europe, but the color geeks I know and respect in the US seem to think its half baked (or over sold). One of the best posts on this was from Lars Borg, the chief color scientist at Adobe (and later Chris Murphy) on the ColorSync list.

Lars:

L* is great if you're making copies. However, in most other
scenarios, L* out is vastly different from L* in. And when L* out is
different from L* in, an L* encoding is very inappropriate as
illustrated below.

Let me provide an example for video. Let's say you have a Macbeth
chart. On set, the six gray patches would measure around L* 96, 81,
66, 51, 36, 21.

Assuming the camera is Rec.709 compliant, using a 16-235 digital
encoding, and the camera is set for the exposure of the Macbeth
chart, the video RGB values would be 224,183,145,109,76,46.

On a reference HD TV monitor they should reproduce at L* 95.5, 78.7,
62.2, 45.8, 29.6, 13.6.
If say 2% flare is present on the monitor (for example at home), the
projected values would be different again, here: 96.3, 79.9, 63.8,
48.4, 34.1, 22.5.

As you can see, L* out is clearly not the same as L* in.
Except for copiers, a system gamma greater than 1 is a required
feature for image reproduction systems aiming to please human eyes.
For example, film still photography has a much higher system gamma
than video.

Now, if you want an L* encoding for the video, which set of values
would you use:
96, 81, 66, 51, 36, 21 or
95.5, 78.7, 62.2, 45.8, 29.6, 13.6?
Either is wrong, when used in the wrong context.
If I need to restore the scene colorimetry for visual effects work, I
need 96, 81, 66, 51, 36, 21.
If I need to re-encode the HD TV monitor image for another device,
say a DVD, I need 95.5, 78.7, 62.2, 45.8, 29.6, 13.6.

In this context, using an L* encoding would be utterly confusing due
to the lack of common values for the same patches. (Like using US
Dollars in Canada.)
Video solves this by not encoding in L*. (Admittedly, video encoding
is still somewhat confusing. Ask Charles Poynton.)

When cameras, video encoders, DVDs, computer displays, TV monitors,
DLPs, printers, etc., are not used for making exact copies, but
rather for the more common purpose of pleasing rendering, the L*
encoding is inappropriate as it will be a main source of confusion.

Are you planning to encode CMYK in L*, too?

Chris (below responding to someone about this topic), makes the statement that I think is telling, that is, ECI hasn't published anything to back up the claim that L* is all that useful:

I have no problem with research and testing these ideas. My complaint
is the grandiose language used in unproven statements, and the
premature establishment and recommendation by the ECI and others for
real world workflows that are not, and should not be, test beds for
research. I find it inappropriate.

It is in exactly the wrong order of the way things are to be done in a
scientific manner. Research, hypothesis, test, refinement, theory
development including beta test. Then publish a recommendation for end
users, while working on making the recommendation an ISO standard.

I'm quite frankly mystified how eciRGBv2 became an ISO standard and
what the point is, absent any semblance of compelling information on
why yet another flavor of the year RGB color space is necessary, and
that the goals it wishes to achieve are relevant and also not possible
any other way.

My complaint is primarily about the process followed thus far,
although increasingly it is based on what is being presented (i.e.
what is not being presented) to back up grandiose claims. Case in
point from the ECI web site:

"'conversion losses' between data and the human eye are thus a matter
of the past"

"substantial advantages in the shadows"

"risk of posterization effects – is significantly reduced"

"Errors caused by colour space conversions – are minimized as much as
currently technically feasible"

These are not proven. There is slim to no context given. No test
parameters have been published so people can reproduce the test and
the findings. And there appears to be no metric. These grand
statements, are based on what empirical data?

The obvious conclusion most end users will read into this is that the
opposite must be true with respect to eciRGBv1 and that is:

There are conversion losses that are visible
There are substantial disadvantages in the shadows.
There are significant risks for posterization.
There are errors in color space conversions.

Now these are obviously not true with respect to eciRGBv1 workflows.

It is confusing whether L* based intermediate space advocates are
talking about 8bpc workflows, 16bpc workflows, or both. The arguments
would naturally be different, but advocates seem to flip flop on this
and just say it's great for both, missing the relevance of bitdepth in
the entire discussion.

I also have seen tools for LFP printer calibration based on equal
L*a*b* steps before the profiling testchart is printed. I haven´t
seen tools for calibrating a printer to a Gamma of 1,8 for
profiling...

While it's not exactly like a gamma function, and I don't know anyone
who said print has a TRC that is exactly like a gamma function, but
rather similar to it, you aren't actually linearizing a printing press
in terms of absolute luminance. It has been done with a densitometer.
So a logarithmic function is applied in the course of using the tools
that have been traditional used for controlling presses.

Chris Murphy

 

[nicolas claris]

Hi Andrew
Thank you for your contribution.
Frankly, even in French this is too technical language for my poor little head…

As you may have noticed, the title of this thread is "Nec Spectraview 3090 monitor in real life…"

Real life… that means for me that not being scinetist enough, it happens to me, when I feel I need to go further, to ask to the guys "in the know".
For example, in the precise case of CM: you or the guys you have quoted, or more easily the persons who have sold me the Nec monitor (Markus Hitzler from BasICColor in presence of one person of Nec Germany)
Wether he was wrong or right, the process/system he did suggest is working very fine for me. From the Raw dev to the final print in offset.

BTW ECI is vastly supported my many Europeans industrials such as Heidelberg who is one (if not THE) offset press builder. In their requirements for preparing the files to be sent to the RIP they state to use ECI CMYK profiles…

I don't think Heidelberg is a color geek, but a company who needs to have their clients (the printers) happy with what they print on million Euros machine.

Yes, real life…

Thanks again for your time!

PS this post from me doesn't mean that other CM processes aren't good or even better, I just followed people I chose to trust (like a dentist or a doctor) and verified "in the field" that I have no toothache with my work. Maybe my work just don't need more precision!

PS2 I remember that Markus explained me to use for the best practice L* when going for Eurostandard ink, but Adobe rgb when going to swop…

 

[nicolas claris]

Maybe BasiCColor, not NEC (who's software in the USA is different).

You're certainly right (and I know you're right regarding US/European versions), but to avoid any confusion, the software distributed by NEC in Europe with their Spectraview monitors is called "SpectraView Profiler 4.1" though it is (or seems to be) exactly the same as "basICColor display 4.1" which I owned already. With the same features, including hardware calibration.

 

[Ralph Eisenberg]

More prosaically, that looks like a very fine monitor - which is being put to very good use.
It is a bit of a shame that for some reason Nec doesn't not distribute their full range of monitors in France. Following Sean Reid's review of one of these displays, which highlighted their excellent quality (and if I'm not mistaken, Andrew Rodney had also recommended them earlier on this site), I looked into the Nec displays only to discover that the model reviewed by Reid could not be purchased here.

 

[nicolas claris]

Bonjour Ralph
Yes it is a very fine monitor!
What Nec Display are you talking about?