Johnny,
I work with a PC with a Samsung 240T monitor that is now about 4
years old. Recently, I replaced the PC. When I replaced the PC, I
researched video cards. With my previous Video Card, which was a
Radeon I had very good control of the colors and and could easily
use Adobe Gamma and so forth. I had bought the PC and Radeon Card
prior to becoming seriously involved in digital photography.
However, I found that the 240T monitors size, ability to retain its
color profile (now even better with the new Adobe Gamma Software and
Windows Free Software), for more than a week to be to my advantage.
The Radeon video card works great for dual monitor capabilites and
works very well with graphics, even though it was only a 64 bit card.
When I bought the new PC, I upgraded to a Radeon All-In-Wonder X600
with dual monitor capabilities. This card,has 256 Mb of memory with
a 400MHz engine. The Radeon drivers allow me, if I wish too, to
manually change Gamma, brightness, and contrast, using the monitor
properties. I have set my monitor to use Adobe RGB 1998 profile when
I am using color and Gray Gamma 1.8.icc when using black and white.
I have the GM i1 Photo calibration system. Now, I use it in a
limited manner for monitor profiling because my monitor maintains it
calibration very well. I check it from time to time. Also, I have
found that software calibration is works very well for me.
Especially, for my black and white pictures.
The i1 is still valuable for me for purposes of printer profiling,
densitometry, and so forth. Because of the arcane nature of printer
profiling and densitometry and the like, I am still learning and do
not feel that confident about using the i1 Photo in that manner.
So to me the type of video card is important, especially since I do
very little monitor profiling with external devices and I depend on
my eye and print results. Along with good hardware, the monitor,
good software is important. Good software, in this instance is
software drivers for video graphics cards. I find Radeon's Catalyst
driver set, which comes with the Radeon cards to be a very good set
of drivers that work well with graphics intensive software, such as
Adobe systems software. The Radeon products are meant for PC gamers,
but gamers require good graphics cards. If you shop wisely, you can
match these cards quite well with the needs you have in photoshop
and other software requiring hardware capable of producing good
graphics, and at a decent price. Price a high end graphics card and
compare the price and performance using a cost/benfit analysis and
it is obvious which way you go, especially if cost is an important
measure.
So a good video card is imperative to getting a good image to the
screen. It saves me monitor profiling time and increases the time I
have for work output. I did not initially start buying my hardware
strictly for photography or graphics work. My purchases were to
obtain products that in general are useable for all types of work.
However, I find that this setup works very well and I am sticking
with Radeon until someone demonstrates a more cost effective product
that provides the benefits that my Radeon card provides.Incidentaly,
I also use, as a 2nd monitor, an old 17 inch compact color monitor
on which to rest my tool pallettes. That monitor was given to me
because someone thought it was just time to get a new monitor.
I feel I am knowedgeable regarding computer hardware an software and
how they inter-act. I read the Internet writings of Clayton Jones,
Paul Rouarke, Scott Kelby, and others who are extremely
knowledgeable about digital photography and try to combine their
knowledge with my needs and experience and I seem to be developing
an acceptable ability to get it right when I shop for computer
hardware and software.
In my case, the quality of my finished product has vastly improved
and now I consistently know when the print is acceptable to print
prior to printing it.
Luther Hert
--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Johnny Eades"
<jeades1@s...> wrote:
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>
> There is one subject I haven't seen discussed very much on this
> group, and that is the importance of the video card in the
> production of the finished product--the fine art print. Does the
> quality of the finished product improve with the better quality of
> the video card or not?