Today I finally did a planed upgrade to may PC, on which I edit all my photos. This time, it was time to upgrade the monitor. For the last 7 years I used the Dell UltraSharp 2405FPW, a 24 inch full HD monitor. It was, and still is one of the best monitors I ever seen. And for how much I used it, it still works great. But after such a long time, it was time to replace it with something new :)

21:9

I always liked widescreen monitors. Even when I bought the first one, most people at that time only bought 4:3, and very few wide-screen ones. So when looking for a new monitor, I was immediately drawn to this ultrawide aspect ratio. But since first monitors that had it were just 29, I felt that that was just too small of a step up from a 24. So I waited, and now, the 34 inch versions are available, so I got one.

Here you can see my workspace with my old 24 inch, vs. the new 34 inch.

Old setup

New setup

LG 34um95

So the monitor I just got is the LG 34um95. It’s a 34 inch 21:9 screen, with a resolution of 3440×1440. In this post I will show you how it looks and what it does, and in a second post, probably next week, I will do a bigger review, especially how it is to edit on such a screen.

The screen have a very Apple style look, with shiny parts and silver background. Not really my favorite, but as I don’t see it from the back I don’t really mind. The screen comes with a nice looking, partially transparent stand, just too bad they chosen style over substance. The stand can’t be height adjusted more than 2cm (by selecting one from two sets of mounting holes) and it allows the screen to shake a little when you touch the table a little stronger. It also allows for a small tilt, but no rotation. The stand is also mostly metal, so has a nice quality feel.

The screen is mostly covered with plastic, with a metal rim around it. Here I actually seen few production errors, with the gap between the rim and the screen not being the same in all the places.

Box it came in

Stand connection and ports

The LG 34um95 allows for a lot of connections, from HDMI, through DisplayPort to Thunderbolt. It also has speakers, which I think nobody will ever use, as compared to the screen they are not so great. Additionally, it includes a USB hub, with a single USB 3 port and two USB 2 ports.

I only had few hours with the screen, so these are my first impressions. First of all, it’s huge. It’s very immersive and something completely different to a 16:9 screen. It’s very bright and colourful. It’s not only factory calibrated, but there is also a software directly from LG, that work with most calibration devices, so you can easily tune up it even more. The resolution allows for a lot of content to be seen at once, and especial panoramic photos, or new movies looks perfect.

The only issue I found that was not that great, was the backlight bleeding in the bottom corners and a little also in the top ones. It’s quite visible when the screen is completely black, and a little when it’s partially black. Not yet sure how I feel about it, as quite often it’s not visible. Will continue to use it and see.

Both monitors at same time

Calibrating

That’s all for now, more in the full review next week :)

Few days ago, I ordered a new 34 inch 21:9 monitor (which I’m still waiting for :)), as a nice upgrade to my 24 inch I’m working on right now. I will post more about it, once I have it, as I think it will change the way I work with Photoshop and Lightroom quite a lot. But until then, how about few wallpapers, already sized for a monitor that big.

So if you already have a 21:9 screen, you may like one of these wallpapers :) Of course you can find more on the wallpapers page.

The all new ones are in a 3440×1440 resolution, so big enough for a 34 inch screen, or anything smaller than that.

HDRshooter comunity

Maybe some of you have already noticed, the small addition of a spot in the bottom left of the blog. This is a new way you can interact with me, the blog, and also with each other. This is the new HDRshooter community :). Feel free to comment on the blog, post questions, links, your photos, what ever you want, just with few rules: no spaming, no trolling, no NSFW content, keep it civilized :)

When you have the spot opened you can not only join the chat, but if you click on Whats popular you can see the currently most popular posts and pages on the blog. So feel free to give it a try :)

Brackets to play with

And to give it a little push for the start, here you have the brackets from one of my photos. You can edit them in any way you like and share your result in the community chat. In a week from now, I will randomly choose one of those who shared their results and send a free copy of my video tutorials Master exposure blending.

You can download the brackets in RAW format from Dropbox here.

Also feel free to share you results on your facebook/flickr/blog, but please don’t forget to give me credit for the photo and link back here. And of course, please don’t use this photo for any commercial purpose (I’m still the author).

Discount code

And for those who would like to check out my video tutorials right away, you can use the code TWENTYOFF to get 20% off the price until the end of next week. You can find the whole description and the buy link on the Master exposure blending page. 

For today, I again updated the wallpapers selection on this blog. Again I added three new Dubai wallpapers, as usually in the 1920×1200 and the 1600×1200 resolution. Head over to the Wallpapers page to download them.

And don’t forget that there are many more wallpapers there :)

I’m away again, in Budapest again, and should be back tomorrow. And since I planed this trip from day to day, I don’t have a photo for today. So to make up for it, how about a quick sale for today, of my video tutorial. Use the code “QUICKSALE” to get 30% off from the price. That’s around 15usd off from the normal 49usd price (So the new price is 34,30 usd). The code will be active for the next two days :)

To get all the info, and sample videos on the series, please check the Master exposure blending page.

and hear you can see the introduction video, to see what it’s about