Who needs wide gamut???

[Mr_Badger]

Maybe everyone else already understands this, but I'm trying to decide whether getting a wide gamut monitor is a good idea or not. I gather that you need one if you're producing images for "professional" printing (say you work for a magazine) however if you just use ordinary consumer print services for your pictures and order products from Vistaprint, is there any advantage?

So far I've used a CRT monitor, Windows XP and Photoshop Elements with no thought about colour space and everything has turned out fine. I will be upgrading to a new PC in the next few months (with Windows 7 unless I wait for Windows 8) however I get the impression from comments on the Internet that Windows 7 doesn't actually look great on a wide gamut and you need to use sRGB emulation to avoid some colours looking over saturated.

I was assuming wide gamut would be best, but now I'm not so sure and it seems a bit pointless to buy one and then only use it in an emulation mode. Or is there some other advantage here that I'm now missing?

Thank you.

 

[ssddx]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut

a wide gamut monitor will allow you to see color options which you wouldnt on a standard screen.

does the average user need this? no. usually the only people who require this are people in graphic design, the printing field, website design or other visual fields which require exact accuracy of colors.

i normally use a tv as my primary screen but i have had my vp201b 8bit ips wide screen, with wide gamut, hooked up before and i noticed nothing wrong. i'm running windows 7 hp.

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quick answer: no you dont need one, but its not a bad thing to have one. i think they are great monitors.

however i would suggest an 6bit e-ips panel if you are on a budget over a tn or va because you get a wide viewing angle (just like you do on 8bit ips panels) but without the wide gamut.