The 6 Best Monitors For Photo Editing And Video Editing - Winter 2021 Reviews

The best monitor for photo editing or video editing that we've tested is the Dell S2721QS. It's a great and versatile model that's well-suited for content creation, and best of all, it has an affordable price tag that makes it our current top budget pick. It has a 27 inch screen that allows you to open multiple windows side-by-side, and its 4k resolution lets you see all the fine details of your work. It has good ergonomics and wide viewing angles, making it a good choice for sharing your work with colleagues or clients.

It has an outstanding SDR color gamut. It covers the entire sRGB color space, and its Adobe RGB coverage is great. Gradient handling is superb, and there are no signs of color bleed. Its out-of-the-box accuracy is just okay, so it might be worth calibrating if you plan on doing color work. It can display a wide color gamut for HDR content; however, it has some trouble displaying dark colors due to its IPS panel's low contrast ratio. This also means that it isn't well-suited for dark rooms as blacks appear gray.

Fast-moving scenes look reasonably clear thanks to its good response time. It has an amazingly low input lag if you want to use it for gaming, and it supports variable refresh rate technology to reduce screen tearing. It doesn't have any USB ports for charging, but you do get a pair of integrated speakers, and it has a Picture-in-Picture mode that lets you display two input signals at once, which can be useful for multitaskers using two computers. Overall, it's a simple and wallet-friendly monitor that should please most people.

The Acer Predator X27 is the best Adobe RGB monitor for photo editing or video editing. This is a great 27 inch model with impressive picture quality and outstanding peak brightness in HDR. It has wide viewing angles so that images remain accurate when viewed from the side, great for sharing your work with colleagues. It has decent reflection handling and gets bright enough for most environments, and it also comes with anti-glare panels to further reduce glare.

It's well-suited for those working in the Adobe RGB color space as it has near full coverage, which is the best we've tested on a monitor. It has a great wide color gamut for HDR, with good coverage of the DCI P3 color space, and it gets more than bright enough to make highlights pop. Unfortunately, color accuracy is sub-par out of the box, so you might need to calibrate it first. Also, it doesn't look as good in dark rooms as it has a low contrast ratio that makes blacks look grayish.

There's a USB hub with four USB 3.0 ports to charge your mobile devices as well as a pair of built-in speakers. Its response time is excellent if you want to game on the side, and it has a 144Hz refresh rate and native G-SYNC support to reduce screen tearing. Overall, although it's designed primarily for gaming, it's a great monitor that most photo and video editors should be happy with.

The Dell U3219Q is the best monitor for photo editing and video editing with a 32 inch screen that we've tested. It's a well-built model with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a sharp 4k resolution. It has excellent ergonomics and wide viewing angles, making it easier to place the screen at your optimal viewing position and share your work with coworkers. Its reflection handling is mediocre, but it gets bright enough to combat glare in most lighting conditions.

It has an outstanding color gamut, with full sRGB coverage and great Adobe RGB coverage. However, it doesn't display dark colors well due to its low contrast ratio, which is typical for IPS monitors. It has exceptional gradient handling, so banding should be minimal, and there are no signs of color bleed. Response time is decent, good enough for some casual gaming, but there are no advanced gaming features like variable refresh rate.

There are quite a few additional features, such as four USB 3.0 ports and a USB-C port that supports DisplayPort Alt Mode, which lets you display an image from a compatible device and charge it simultaneously with a single cable. There's also a Picture-in-Picture/Picture-by-Picture mode that allows you to display two input signals at once, which can be useful for those working on two computers. Overall, it's a great monitor that should please most photo and video editors.

The best monitor for photo editing with an ultrawide screen is the LG 34GN850-B. The 21:9 aspect ratio allows you to open multiple windows at once, and the 3440x1440 resolution is great for seeing images clearly. It's a fairly well-built model, but you can't switch it into portrait mode because of its size, and the stand doesn't allow for swivel adjustments.

It has excellent coverage of the Adobe RGB color space and near-perfect coverage of the commonly-used sRGB color space. Its out-of-the-box color accuracy is great, but you may still need to get it calibrated if you need extremely accurate colors. It has a 10-bit panel with superb gradient handling, and there's no color bleed. If you work in bright environments, it gets bright enough to combat glare, and it has decent reflection handling. Additionally, the IPS panel provides wide viewing angles, great for sharing your work with others.

Sadly, this isn't ideal if you work in dark environments. It has a low contrast ratio, so blacks appear closer to gray, and the black uniformity is just okay. On the upside, if you want to watch HDR, it displays a wide color gamut, and it has decent peak brightness in that mode, enough to bring out some highlights. Overall, most people should be happy with this, making it the best monitor for photo editing in the ultrawide category that we've tested.