Choosing the Best Monitor for Photo and Video Editing

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SW Series Photographer Monitors
PD Series Designer Monitors
PD Series Monitors for Mac^® Devices

Professionals in creative fields like design and photography have come to depend on quality monitors for the most accurate and reliable workflow results. When choosing a monitor, three primary factors stand out front and center. First, image fidelity in the final stage of your workflow. Then, compatibility. That means the range of devices the monitor works with and maintains image accuracy when connected to. Finally, there’s personal preference. This could mean monitor size, design, brand loyalty, and many other subjective considerations.

BenQ PD and SW series professional monitors offer the ideal display companions for image professionals and designers. In this article we’ll look at both series, explain the differences between them, and outline why they’re so good for creative work.

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About BenQ Professional Series Monitors

For both PD and SW series monitors, BenQ uses the best panels available. Each panel undergoes strict quality, accuracy, and durability testing at the factory far beyond the norm for the average monitor, including so-called professional screens from competing brands.

This ensures unwavering color accuracy out of the box, with a calibration report included. There is no need for you to spend time calibrating PD or SW monitors, as all of that is done for you by BenQ for each individual monitor, and not just a sample selection, as is often the case with other manufacturers.

We’ve compiled a quick table to show the various aspects of PD, SW, and PD for Mac devices. The main difference between PD and PD for Mac is the inclusion of a Thunderbolt connection:

	SW PhotoVue Series	PD DesignVue Series	PD Series Monitors for Mac
Color Spaces	SW PhotoVue Series Adobe RGB, sRGB, Rec. 709	PD DesignVue Series sRGB, Rec. 709, DCI-P3, Display P3	PD Series Monitors for Mac sRGB, Rec. 709, DCI-P3, Display P3
Calibration	SW PhotoVue Series Hardware - factory	PD DesignVue Series Factory calibration	PD Series Monitors for Mac Factory calibration
Connectivity	SW PhotoVue Series USB-C – select models	PD DesignVue Series USB-C – select models	PD Series Monitors for Mac Thunderbolt
Work great with	SW PhotoVue Series DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, Lightroom, Lightroom classic, Photoshop	PD DesignVue Series After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Dreamweaver, Final Cut Pro, Illustrator, InDesign, Maya, 3Ds Max, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Lightroom, Lightroom classic, Photoshop	PD Series Monitors for Mac After Effects, DaVinci Resolve, Dreamweaver, Final Cut Pro, Illustrator, InDesign, Maya, 3Ds Max, Photoshop, Premiere Pro

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BenQ SW Series: Hardware Calibration and 99% Adobe RGB

BenQ’s SW series monitors have been famed among professional photographers around the world for years. They’re widely considered the best and most accurate monitors for photography workflows.

While SW monitors are primarily designed for photographers, they’re great for anyone who needs dependable and uncompromising color consistency and accuracy, from camera to monitor and then to hardcopy. Both SW and PD models are factory calibrated for color accuracy. The SW series goes beyond that to include a 16-bit hardware 3D LUT (look up table) for more sophisticated and professional color calibration and tweaking. Advanced users often get a lot of benefit from such advanced features. BenQ exclusive software Palette Master Ultimate offers a convenient but powerful toolset for user color calibration on the SW series, helping professionals fine tune displays to match their needs.

SW series monitors further have the ability to store 16-bit 3D LUT calibration results on the hardware level, or on the monitor itself. That frees calibration profiles from PC graphics hardware, creating greater consistency, as graphics cards and chips often affect color profiles.

Another difference is wide gamut, with the SW series offering 99% coverage of Adobe RGB, which is still the most popular color space in photography. However, as you can see in the table above, the PD series has strong coverage of DCI-P3, making it very suitable for Mac devices, including the MacBook Pro^®, MacBook Air^®, Mac Studio^®, and the Mac mini^®.

The SW series with its 99% Adobe RGB coverage offers excellent support for workflows that emphasize printing, because hard copies come out looking nearly identical to their display versions. This prevents unwanted surprises when producing prints of projects. In addition to Adobe RGB, the SW series supports 100% sRGB and has dedicated modes like black and white. SW series models also work with BenQ Paper Color Sync, which is a free download. The software ensures the right image parameters are used for specific printers and even paper types, and offers previews so professionals know exactly what to expect. Currently Paper Color Sync works best with BenQ SW321C monitors, as they use premium Fine-Coated panels that were developed specifically to simulate the look and texture of paper on the screen. These are by far the best monitors in the world for people that want to ensure an image goes from monitor to print in the most “what you see is what you get” way possible.

BenQ PD Series Monitors

PD series monitors are aimed at designers and other professionals that focus on digital work and have little need for extremely accurate printouts. Also, it’s fair to say the PD series is great for a wider spectrum of professionals who focus on diverse projects but may not need color accuracy as much as photographers. We recommend PD series monitors for graphic designers, industrial designers, video editors, visual effects and CGI artists, and animators. In fact, PD series monitors have dedicated modes for animation, CAD, and CAM to make things easier for professionals in those fields.

BenQ PD Series Monitors for Mac Users with Thunderbolt and P3 Color

Top of the line PD series models have been crafted to meet the needs of Mac users. They are optimized for a great match with Mac color and other display aspects. In other words, what you view on your MacBook screen appears with utmost precision on the bigger PD series monitor. So, if you’re a Mac user that wants a bigger display for more desktop real estate and easier viewing, the PD series is for you. Monitors that aren’t specifically tailored for Mac use may cause major discrepancies between the two screens, but not with the PD series.

With 95% P3 color gamut coverage, the PD series makes sure your Mac feed maintains consistency and accuracy on the monitor. And connectivity couldn’t be easier thanks to the inclusion of Thunderbolt on PD series monitors for Mac users. PD series monitors provide Thunderbolt with power delivery, so you only need one cable, saving you the hassles of a cluttered workspace. We have more info about BenQ monitors for Mac users if you’re interested.

Mac^®, MacBook Pro^®, MacBook Air^®, Mac Studio^®, and the Mac mini^® are trademarks of Apple Inc.

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