Where to find updated info on (graphic design) hardware?
As a graphic design student I can’t live without my tablet. Even if you don’t do a lot of drawing it’s invaluable when I’m cleaning up photos and what not. I would suggest a Wacom intuos. I’ve tried other tablets and wacom just does it for me. A nice monitor is important. I like to have a large workspace. The only other thing I could suggest, which would undoubtedly be an investment, would be switching to a mac. My IMac runs the adobe creative suite like a dream.
Specific monitor is not that important but whatever you do you need a hardware calibrator (ie. Pantone Huey). As far as tablets, Wacom is the only way to go. I do photo retouching and I just have a cheap 4×5 one that works fine for what I do. I imagine if you’re going to be actually drawing you would want something bigger. Printers and scanners haven’t changed much in the last decade, either, other than getting cheaper and cheaper, to the point where printers, in particular, might as well be free. Maybe scanners haven’t changed, but printers have made huge improvements over the last few years. The bottom of the barrel shitty ones that are just excuses to sell you ink aren’t anything special, but if you are outputting photos it is only recently that inkjet technology has surpassed traditional printmaking processes. Epson in particular is the standard (I have an R1800, highly recommend it or the 1900 that just replaced it). Whatever you get, get custom ICC profiles made for whatever pape
What kind of work are you doing? Print, web, photo retouching? I’d highly recommend a wide screen monitor. My cheap 22in widescreen allows me to pretty much work on a full letter sized spread at once. An even better option would be dual screen. I’ve got a MBP, and my second monitor. The laptop screen holds extra menus, email client, reference photos, while the large screen is clear to get some work done. Color correction for any monitor can be handled by a 3rd party device like Pantone’s Huey. I’m a graphic designer, but I don’t have one. I go by my spot color book, understanding that the screen lies. Proof is in the printing. As far as web color constancy, I just accept the fact that aside from adobeRBG.icc, there won’t ever truly be a standard web color experience. As far as printing goes, I have a quick small HP deskjet. I love that it’ll do full bleed letter. I also have a large format Epson. Useful for assembl
Ah, yes, color. I do still keep a couple of CRTs around for color checking. LCDs have gotten better, but even the ones that are “great” don’t have the broad gamut that CRTs do. If color matching is important to you, the Huey is a great choice. But for photo retouching of your own photos, its not necessary, since you’re not “matching” anyone else’s colors, you’re just tweaking until you like the results, probably with some test printing on your own. It’s also not much help for web design, appealing to the argument that a certain color is “exactly right” is worth exactly zero, since what matters is not how it looks on a monitor that is perfectly calibrated (2 percent of your audience?) but how it survives and degrades on the widest possible variety of “bad” monitors in the wild.
