In the world of video editing and post-production, color grading is an essential aspect that transforms raw footage into visually stunning masterpieces. DaVinci Resolve is a powerful tool for colorists, providing them with industry-leading capabilities to bring their artistic visions to life.
However, to truly unleash the potential of this software, colorists require monitors that deliver precise color accuracy and exceptional performance.
In this article, we will explore the five best color grading monitors tailored for DaVinci Resolve, ensuring that every shade, hue, and tone is displayed with utmost precision, enabling you to create breathtaking content that stands out from the competition.
5 Best Color Grading Monitors For Davinci Resolve
1. LG C2
The LG C2 OLED TV is a versatile and high-performing display, making it an ideal option for professional color grading when using DaVinci Resolve. Despite being a consumer TV, the LG C2 can be professionally calibrated to deliver accurate and vibrant colors, making it suitable for colorists who demand precision in their work.
Also Read- How To Calibrate LG C2/G2 For Color Grading: A Holistic Guide
Bit Depth:
The LG C2 boasts 10-bit color depth, which translates to over 1.07 billion colors. This wide range of colors ensures smooth gradients and natural transitions between hues, reducing the chances of banding or artifacts in your graded footage. The 10-bit color depth also allows for more precise color adjustments, giving you finer control over your work in DaVinci Resolve.
Color Space:
The LG C2 can cover up to the Rec.2020 color space. Many colorists work professionally and deliver content in the Rec.709 broadcast standard. Rec.2020 is a wider color space than Rec.709, which means that the LG C2 is capable of displaying a broader range of colors, making it suitable for professional color grading.
When calibrated correctly, the LG C2 can provide accurate color representation within the Rec.709 color space. This ensures that the content you grade on the LG C2 will translate accurately to other Rec.709 displays, providing a consistent viewing experience for your audience.
Contrast Ratio:
One of the standout features of the LG C2 is its impressive contrast ratio, which is a result of its OLED technology. OLED panels can achieve perfect black levels because each pixel can be independently turned off, leading to an infinite contrast ratio. This is crucial for color grading, as it allows for the accurate representation of shadows and highlights in your footage.
The high contrast ratio also contributes to the overall color accuracy and vibrancy of the LG C2, as colors are more distinguishable against the deep black levels. This enhances the visual impact of your graded content and ensures that your work looks its best.
Price:
The LG C2 is priced at around $1200, making it an affordable option for professional color grading compared to other high-end reference monitors. This attractive price point, coupled with its advanced features and accurate color reproduction, makes the LG C2 an excellent choice for colorists working with DaVinci Resolve.
2. BenQ SW321C
The BenQ SW321C 32″ 16:9 4K Monitor is an exceptional display designed for color accuracy and professional use, making it the best choice for color grading in DaVinci Resolve. With support for various color gamuts, this monitor delivers stunning visuals and precise color reproduction that meets the demands of professional colorists.
Bit Depth:
The SW321C features a 10-bit color depth panel, for natural shading and smooth color gradations. This ensures accurate color representation, allowing for finer control and precision in your color grading work with DaVinci Resolve.
Color Space:
This monitor supports an impressive range of color gamuts, including 100% of the sRGB and Rec. 709 color gamuts, 99% of the Adobe RGB color gamut, and 95% of the DCI-P3 and Display P3 color gamuts. With BenQ’s AQcolor technology and a 16-bit look up table (LUT), the SW321C provides Delta E≤2 in Adobe RGB and sRGB color spaces, ensuring a more representative view of the original image.
Contrast Ratio:
The BenQ SW321C boasts a static contrast ratio of 1000:1 and a dynamic contrast ratio of 20,000,000:1. With a 250 cd/m² brightness rating and a 5 ms (GtG) response time, this monitor offers excellent contrast and brightness levels for professional color grading work.
Price:
Priced at $1,999, the BenQ SW321C is an investment in professional color grading. Its advanced features, color accuracy, and support for various color gamuts make it a top choice for colorists using DaVinci Resolve.
3. Asus ProArt Display PA32UCG-K
The ASUS ProArt Display PA32UCG-K is a high-end, professional-grade monitor designed for creative professionals such as game developers, cinematographers, and colorists. With its 32″ 4K IPS mini-LED panel, it offers exceptional color accuracy, making it the perfect choice for color grading in DaVinci Resolve. Additionally, its 120 Hz refresh rate, AMD FreeSync2 technology, and HDR support ensure smooth and lifelike visuals, enhancing the user experience.
Bit Depth:
The ProArt Display PA32UCG-K supports a 10-bit color depth panel. This vast color range results in smoother gradients and more accurate color reproduction, which is crucial for color grading workflows in DaVinci Resolve. With a greater range of colors to work with, professionals can achieve more precise and consistent results, ultimately producing higher-quality content.
Color Space:
This monitor is designed to cover a wide range of color spaces, ensuring that it can be used for various creative work. It covers 98% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, 99.5% of Adobe RGB, 100% of sRGB, and 100% of Rec. 709. Additionally, it supports 85% of the Rec. 2020 color space, essential for HDR content creation. By offering compatibility with such a diverse range of color spaces, the ProArt Display PA32UCG-K allows users to work on various projects without any limitations or compromises in color accuracy.
Contrast Ratio:
The mini-LED backlight panel in the ProArt Display PA32UCG-K is equipped with 1152 local dimming zones, providing bright whites and deep blacks. The monitor delivers a peak brightness of 1600 nits, a static contrast ratio of 1000:1, and a dynamic contrast ratio of 100,000,000:1. These specifications result in improved image quality, ensuring that content creators can accurately perceive and adjust both the brightest and darkest areas of their projects. This level of detail is particularly important for HDR content and color grading, where the subtle nuances of color and contrast can make a significant difference in the final product.
Price:
The ASUS ProArt Display PA32UCG-K comes with a price tag of $3,499. While this may be a substantial investment, the exceptional color accuracy, HDR support, and performance features justify the cost for professionals working with color-sensitive applications like DaVinci Resolve. The monitor’s outstanding specifications and capabilities make it a valuable tool that can improve the quality and efficiency of creative work in various fields.
4. Eizo ColorEdge CS2740
The Eizo ColorEdge CS2740 is a high-quality, professional-grade monitor designed for creative individuals working in photography, video editing, or design fields. Its 26.9″ 4K IPS panel, wide color gamut, and USB Type-C connectivity make it an excellent choice for color grading in DaVinci Resolve.
Bit Depth:
The ColorEdge CS2740 features 10-bit support. This enables smoother color gradations and a reduced Delta-E between adjacent colors, resulting in more accurate color reproduction. The 16-bit look-up table (LUT) ensures a higher precision and better gradation characteristics compared to software calibration.
Color Space:
Engineered to support 99% of the Adobe RGB and 103% of the NTSC color gamuts, the ColorEdge CS2740 accurately reproduces a wide range of colors. This ensures that images shot in Adobe RGB are displayed correctly, and the monitor is also capable of reproducing almost the entire ISO-coated and US web-coated CMYK color spaces used in printing.
Contrast Ratio:
The ColorEdge CS2740 features a static contrast ratio of 1000:1, providing clear distinction between dark and bright areas in the image. With a maximum brightness of 350 cd/m² and a 10 ms (GtG) response time, this monitor delivers smooth visuals and minimal motion blur, making it ideal for video editing and color grading tasks.
Price:
Priced at $1900, the Eizo ColorEdge CS2740 offers great value for creative professionals who need a high-quality monitor for color grading in DaVinci Resolve. The monitor comes with an external EX4 calibration sensor, allowing users to calibrate the monitor to their preferred settings, ensuring accurate color reproduction and a consistent workflow.
5. LG- 32EP950-B
The LG UltraFine 32EP950-B is a 31.5″ 4K HDR OLED monitor designed specifically for creative professionals who demand exceptional color accuracy and performance. With its 3840 x 2160 resolution at 60 Hz, this 4K OLED monitor delivers vibrant colors and high-dynamic range, making it a top choice for video editors using DaVinci Resolve. Its lifelike colors, wide color gamut, and HDR capabilities ensure accurate color representation, while the Pixel Dimming technology provides deep blacks and stunning contrast.
Bit Depth:
The LG 32EP950-B features a 10-bit color depth. This extensive color range enables smoother gradients and more precise color rendering, reducing banding and other visual artifacts often associated with lower bit depths. The monitor’s color depth ensures that colorists and editors working with DaVinci Resolve can achieve the highest level of color accuracy and detail in their projects.
Color Space:
The LG 32EP950-B covers 99% of the DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB color spectrums, providing accurate color reproduction and wide color gamut for professional video editing and color grading. In addition, the monitor supports multiple HDR signals, including the BT.2100 HDR TV broadcast standard, as well as the PQ/P3 PQ standard. These features ensure that your edited footage will be compatible with a wide range of display devices and meet the requirements of modern broadcast standards.
Contrast Ratio:
The LG 32EP950-B utilizes Pixel Dimming technology, allowing for individual pixel brightness control. This feature delivers near-perfect contrast and an extensive range of colors by taking full advantage of the monitor’s impressive 1 million:1 contrast ratio. The result is rich, deep blacks and vibrant colors, allowing colorists and editors to work with greater precision and confidence in their color grading decisions.
Price:
At a price point of $2,500, the LG UltraFine 32EP950-B offers premium-quality color grading performance for creative professionals who require top-notch color accuracy and performance. While the cost may be higher than some other monitors on the market, the investment in the LG 32EP950-B ensures a level of color fidelity and detail that is crucial for professional video editing and color grading tasks.
Conclusion: Best Color Grading Monitors For Davinci Resolve
Each monitor offers unique features and capabilities that cater to the demands of professional color grading, ensuring that every shade, hue, and tone is displayed with utmost precision. By investing in one of these top-tier monitors, you can create breathtaking content that stands out from the competition and captivates your audience.
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