I asked the same question some of my friends, and what I learned is there is almost no good laptop screen when we talk about PC laptops. But they said only good things about Macbook Pro laptops. Later I found similar info in internet. Everyone says Macbook pro family is great for photo editing...

I asked the same question some of my friends, and what I learned is there is almost no good laptop screen when we talk about PC laptops. But they said only good things about Macbook Pro laptops. Later I found similar info in internet. Everyone says Macbook pro family is great for photo editing...

Thanks __ that confirms what I thought. I didn't know about Macbooks being better but they are so horrifically expensive (in the UK) for a decent-sized screen that it wouldn't make economic sense.

The review says this: "The horizontal viewing angle on this thing is insane.  It's practically 180 degrees, although it is kind of hard to see anything on the screen at that point.  The vertical angle is not quite as good.  It has about a 15 degree sweet spot with the picture losing brightness and inverting white and black too far beyond that."

It's the vertical angle that is the problem. It's easy enough to sit in the middle for horizontal positioning but the angle of the screen in relation to your eyes is much more difficult.

Does your viewing angle make no difference on a fixed-position monitor?

I was a photojournalist before becoming a stock photoghrapher.  I've used a laptop for many years, knowing that it is not the best option.  I also shoot most of my stuff in jpg, with some RAW when using studio lighting.  I avoid the temptation to adjust contrast and saturation in the post processing.  My acceptance ratio is not the greatest but, if you travel, there has to be some tradeoffs -- unless all your processing will be done after the journey.

PS:  there is a thread available about processing power in the Video Stock Forum of this site.  There is plenty of power available in Laptops using the i7 Processor and an 18.4" screen/graphics card, starting at about $1700 US.

After a while, you will "Know" your best viewing angle.

Thanks for that. Interesting.

Viewing angle (and largely ambient light) makes little or no difference with a CRT monitor.

Whilst I'm sure I could get to "know" my best viewing angle, and achieve some passable results, it would be a world away from carefully crafting optimised images as I do on my home set-up. Photojournalism of course has very different requirements and the images can always be adjusted at the offices that receive them. Using such a crude method could end up being a real waste of quality stock so it would probably be better to wait until the job could be done properly.

Maybe check out the Dell Studio XPS 16. It has the i7 processor, up to 8gb of ram, and a 1gb graphics card for under $2000. Not sure on the viewing angle.

Keep your eyes at monitor level so that the angle from your eyes to the screen plane is 90 degrees. That's for a correct image contrast / brightness. However, LCDs have some other interesting "feature", due to the above mentioned bug. If you're cleaning up studio shots isolations over white, is kinda easy to tilt your screen to face slightly upwards - you can see then the problematic areas of your isolation

I use my HP 17" brightview laptop for all my processing, and I stuck my Spyder 2 in the closet after the crappy orange cast it put on everything.  Now I just turn off the lights and eyeball it to calibrate.  Of course, I don't do a lot of really fancy PS wogk.

Interesting __ thanks. I agree with the Mk 1 eyeball for calibration too. I don't do any fancy PS work either so maybe I'm being over cautious. If it works for you then it obviously ... works.

I have 2 laptops I use for editing all the time ... neither are Macs. I also think the eyeball calibration method is the best one. My screens are calibrated to be a precise match of prints coming from the lab. My primary income comes from portraiture where I'm dealing with the clients in person so they are being exposed to an onslaught of products .. books, prints, DVD slideshows, etc. all of which must match the sales presentation with exact precision. All it takes is a tilt of the screen and I'm good to go. Even if you did have slight variations, microstock clients don't have anything to compare it to anyway .. there's no product options or presentations so chances are if one screen is slightly off from another nobody is going to ever know.

Does anyone use a laptop for image processing and uploading to microstock? If so how?

I really don't like laptops for image processing, feels uncomfortable.

Eventually, I buyed an Asus eee netbook and use it for uploading only. Great also for web/email while travelling.

I read the the unibody macbooks / pro had dropped the quality of the screen and were quoted from somewhere as saying that graphics industry isnt their big market anymore and that education is (it was a while back and personally I couldnt see much difference). We have 4 in the house and they have a nice screen for a laptop but I wouldnt say it is amazing or anything better than a good pc laptop offers. When i looked about a year ago only the 17" was available with a matt screen (personal preference for gloss / matt).

I used quite a number of laptops, personally i find above 15" is really bad for viewing angles, non led screens (dont know if their is any still) are dark, led screens are often too bright (even after calibration). I have samsung x360 13" ultralight that I use for downloading and basic checking but it is too slow even for that really (but good weight for carrying/travelling) and will be replaced later in the year. I am thinking either the 14 or 15" dell precision laptop (heavyish but known for its graphics, the 15" has option of adobe rgb gamut screen) or one of the high end sony 13"s (supposedly also have a good screen)

Quote from: cascoly on April 04, 2010, 13:36

i use a laptop as my main computer so i have everything available when i travel, but at home i also add another monitor for more consistent photo results.

when traveling i try to limit my image work to captioning, etc that doesn't rely on the monitor
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Thanks. Looks like I will have to go down the seperate monitor route if I want to get any worthwhile work done. I was under the impression that laptop screens were all brilliant nowadays but it seems that the main issues remain, if perhaps not as badly as before.

This is what I do too. I have worked on images with the MacBook Pro laptop screen when traveling, but for everyday work I have a 22" monitor to use. My opinion is that the laptop screen is more than adequate to do the job, I just like to see things much bigger on the bigger screen.

I have a 17" MacBook Pro, with an LED back-lit matte screen.

It's not my primary editing set-up, but I do use it for editing when traveling.
Images worked on the MBP and then viewed on my main workstation are not appreciably different from images that were only touched on the desktop.
It works fine.