Using dual monitors is becoming a more common occurrence over the last few years, especially since video card manufacturers are now making cards that have two monitor ports on them.
As for me, I have been using two monitors on my computer set up for over ten years. As if that wasn't enough, I used a three monitor set up for several of those years as art director of an ad agency. But even on my home set up I at least had a two monitor darkroom and for the last four years, they have been LCD monitors.
Well that was until last Christmas when I acquired a Max Displays MD-318, which is three 18" LCD screens built into one unit. The right and left panels tilt inward if needed and the overall height off the top of the desk is adjustable. Overall the unit gives me 46" of desktop to swing across with my small 4x5 Wacom tablet. The display set is just like three separate monitors (well at least on a Mac) with each one having it's own DVI interface cable to hook up to the computer. I replaced one of my video cards with a ATI Pro dual monitor card and already had a second card since I was using two monitors. The Max Displays unit has two power supplies, so you will need to make sure you have additional outlet space on the back of your UPC back up. Or even if you don't have your system running through a back up, you still need two outlets no matter what.
No Assembly Necessary
The Max Displays unit comes in one long box already put together, actually I had it out of the box and on my desk in a matter of minutes. I plugged in the cables to the video cards and the power supplies to their outlets and was ready to boot up.
As the start up screens came on I could see that the Max Display was a quality piece. All three screens were an identical match in the blue color of my startup screen and in the neutral grey desktop pattern color. Since I was eager to see how much room I had to play with now, I opened a Photoshop image, then launched Photoshop, Flash, FreeHand, Mail, FontAgent and several other programs that I usually run every day.
I began to rearrange the tool palettes and windows to make use of every inch of monitor space. With each screen set to 1280x1024, I would have an entire screen devoted to just the image in Photoshop, or the page layout program I would be using plus a window just for tool pallets.
Now that I had fell totally in love with all this monitor space and arrangement, I wondered how good the color would be. I knew from my previous experience that both monitors I had required two separate profiles to get them to match the prints from my lineup of Epson printers. But before I tried to calibrate the new Max Displays system I needed a fresh print from the current batches of ink in my printers. I proceeded to print out a 8x10 glossy of several images to get a good all around overview of the calibration needed.
What?... Don't Touch A Thing
You heard correctly... I heavily scrutinized each print with what I saw on the screen, only to find that I didn't need to change a thing. The blues were more accurate than any monitor I have previously used. Blues had always been the color that was the hardest to get to match my prints to the screen. Even the pastel blues were extremely close to as being exact as I could imagine.
Looking at the specifications of the Max Displays in comparison to a Mac LCD display I found that both offered the standard 16 million plus, color spectrum. The Mac has a contrast ratio of 400:1 and the Max Displays was a bit higher at 600:1. With a dot pitch of 0.258 on the Mac and 0.294 on the Max Displays. By just looking at the numbers it would seem as if the Max Displays would appear much brighter and not as sharp. While the contrast difference is slightly noticeable, the sharpness is not quite as evident. But then you would have to have the two monitors side by side to be able to tell such a difference.
What I really found the most impressive about the Max Displays unit was the accuracy of each of the three monitors matching each other. I could open the same image on all three screens and not be able to tell a difference in any of them.
Not only am I overly impressed with this system, so are a lot of visitors to my gallery, as they sometimes will stop and remark more about this amazing monitor more so than my art hanging on the walls.
If you are thinking about upgrading your digital darkroom, you may want to ponder the possibilities of adding a Max Displays unit. They are available in 2, 3 and 4 screen setups. One big advantage is that all three screens take up just a little more room than the desk top space I needed when utilizing two separate monitors. Be warned that you may not find them in stores, so look to their web site to find a re seller near you. You will not be disappointed, since you can't buy three Mac Cinema monitors for the same price.
Using dual monitors is becoming a more common occurrence over the last few years, especially since video card manufacturers are now making cards that have two monitor ports on them.
