Color grading in the film industry today, matte or glossy displays?

[Stan Cortbeeck]

Any colorist here? I have seen that there are many people who choose Apple to work in the audiovisual industry. I have found that there are two options for screens:

-Standard glass
-Nano-texture glass

Apple's nano-texture glass has a matte finish. Here's what Apple says about the nano-texture:

If you’re in an especially uncontrolled lighting environment, there’s an innovative matte option with nano-texture glass. Typical matte displays have a coating added to their surface that scatters light. However, these coatings lower contrast while producing unwanted haze and sparkle. Etched into the glass at the nanometer level, the nano-texture scatters light to further minimize glare — for outstanding image quality even in challenging lighting conditions. The nano-texture glass option comes with a polishing cloth that’s made with soft, nonabrasive material for safe cleaning.

And this about the standard glass:

Standard glass has an industry-leading anti-reflective coating for viewing comfort and readability.

The truth is that the standard display still reflects a lot of light. Here is a comparison I have found. Off / On:

220703-screens-off-jpg.2025762.jpg

220703-screens-on-jpg.2025761.jpg

Some people say that nano-texture also affects colors a lot and destroys image quality. They even go so far as to say that buying a nano-textured display is ruining an OLED. Others say that colors are better because, according to them, glossy screens show overly saturated colors.

So I wonder, what kind of screens are used today for professional color grading? matte or glossy? Colorist work requires a lot of work in front of a screen so I imagine a matte screen would reduce eye strain. But if it really ruins contrast and color I guess matte screens will be avoided at the professional level.

Or does it not matter if the display is matte or glossy as long as you adjust it with a good professional calibration software?

[Adam Paul]

I work in a higher end post production facility and no colorist would be working off an Apple display in an uncontrolled lighting environment.
It's all dark rooms with a Sony X300/X310/X3110 that's directly outputting from a SDI card in the workstation. All of those have a glossy glass screen.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

And then again. What about the Colorists eyes and how he or she percieves color? After all, the eye is the beginning of that chain.

[Ryan Gallagher]

I'm no colourist... but I would imagine the coating has little impact if you are doing color critical work with a darkened room and bias lighting with the correct brightness standards. For less critical work and general use when the lights are on, there may however be a general preference?

[Randy Stankey]

Micro-texture or not, I would think that a display that's not perfectly smooth would be less sharp. Regardless of the kind of texture, any texture that's not like unto a lens would diffuse some of the light. Woudn't it? That's the reason why I would choose a glossier screen when doing critical work.

I use a Cinema Display and it's never done me wrong. I have done work for print, for billboards, TV and to make DCPs and I have always gotten the results I expect. I don't know that I would select a Cinema Display for critical work like color grading but, if I didn't have anything else, I suppose it would do a passable job.

Regardless of which display one uses, I say that having the correct color profile is key. I have had instances where somebody used the wrong profile to do work. Images looked great on the computer screen but, when they went to print, the faces were all tinted green. It all came down to the fact that the person didn't use the right profile when they were given the right files to do the job.

I think it'd be a safe bet to say that, in a color grading studio, the displays are calibrated within an inch of their lives, so to speak.
It's been a while since my display has been calibrated but I don't do much graphics work for distribution, anymore, either.