To use 2 monitors on 1 machine.....

Hi all,

Can anyone tell me what I need to be able to use 2 monitors on 1 machine?

I do a lot of work zoomed into a pixel, and would like to have another monitor which shows the full picture. For use with Flash and Photoshop mainly.

Thanks,

g2

You need two monitors, and two video cards, or a video card that supports two monitors like the Matrox Parhelia or G450 I think it is called. And most of the newer ATI and nVidia cards also support dual monitor.

I'm not sure a dual monitor will do that for you. From what I've seen you can only have the main application window on one screen then move items like the tools, tool bars, onto the other screen. But I don't think you can have to active working ap backgrounds.

Would it not be possible to do what he wishes with: WINDOW>DOCUMENT>NEW WINDOW ?

Not sure as I don't currently run dual monitors, just a punt in the dark.

I just tried this out on my dad's computer with 3 monitors. You can not do what you are trying to do. You can't move the actual file you are work on outside of the photoshop program window. You can move the palettes to another monitor, but not another view window or document.

However I am guessing you can do this on a Macintosh, since there is no "application window". Each document is treated as it's own window. Again i'm guessing on that, because I've never used a mac with Dual monitors. It would seem likely though.

Grr... I wanted to do that too... that bites...

he could have flash in one monitor and photoshop in another monitor, if that is what he wants ofcourse it could be done and with one "special" videocard.

well - I use two monitors - I have a small 15" and a larger 19"
I have a matrox Millenium G550 video card (90$) which is excellent for 2D work but kinda crappy for 3D apps like games and such...
You can get PS to work like that if it's not maximized on one monitor only. I mean you must maximize it across both monitors but it's not good because you loose the status bar and the lower portion of the window. If you have different types of monitors that is. if they're both the same size...I guess it could work.
Deker is right in what he said though.

I can say that working with two monitors is great - takes a little getting used to but after that - it's just great. I have the TPS forum on one monitor and PS open on the other. When I work from a refference pic I open the picture in ACDSEE on the smaller monitor and I work in PS on the larger... Mostly I use the smaller monitor for ICQ, Yahoo messenger, my mail client and winamp and this leaves the whole 19" free for photoshop...all at a glance.

I would advise against ATI video cards - they don't have good support for different resolutions on two monitors...I keep the smaller one at 1024 and the bigger at 1280 - it's also great for testing websites - at different resolutions and you can see them side by side - or I sometimes use opera on one monitor and IE on another for the same site just to see what they look like....
It's very useful... and cheaper than buying a really large monitor...

not that I wouldn't buy a 24" sony or iiyama if I had the money

well - hope this helps a bit....

Yes multiple monitors are awesome. like i said my dad has three two 19" and a 21". tons of space... it's insane.

Originally posted by deker
Yes multiple monitors are awesome. like i said my dad has three two 19" and a 21". tons of space... it's insane.

what's your daddy deker? a spy or game tester?