My hubby let me borrow his monitor, after giving me a spiffy new video card that can handle multiple monitors for my B-day. Ohh, I could get used to having two monitors, especially while using Photoshop. (Though his is a 15 inch and mine is a 17 inch so there is a bit of eye adjustment when moving between the two.)

Benefits:

• Oh the joy of having most of the screen to edit an image, and not scrolling constantly. I throw all the palettes on the 2nd monitor and oh what space there is for the acutal image!!!!
• While waiting for Photoshop to fireup or while thinking about what I want to do next, I can just use the next screen over to surf the web, hunt through photos, etc.

Negatives:

• It takes some getting used to using the slider bars on the sides of programs. I keep running into the next monitor - annoying. I’ve learned to make my app windows slightly skinnier so I have a gap before going into the next monitor screen.
• I can’t see around the set of two monitors. (My desk isn’t up against a wall. We’d situated it so I could see what the kiddos are doing in the family room and what is on TV.)
• My desk is not built for two monitors. I don’t want to balance a screen on a box or anything to get them to match up.

The benefits outweigh the negatives, but I’ll have to save up to have this setup for much longer… (Ghostrock, can I start a “get Av another monitor donation fund? Just kidding!) Maybe someday I’ll have a whole wall of monitors?

–Avlor