Spyder Calibration Tool

[The Vulcan]

I'm considering buying the Spyder calibration tool for use on my desktop and laptop. The laptop is a 17" Toshiba Qosmio and the desktop monitor is a Viewsonic LCD.

Looking at the choices in FotoFile (Bangkok) they have the full blown Spyder3 suite at 35,000 baht, the Spyder3Pro at 15, 000 baht and the Spyder2 Express at 5,500 baht.

Obviously, if I can get results from the latter, this would be ideal!

I'm not really into printing my stuff; I just want to ensure that BOTH my monitors are correctly calibrated and colour accurate.

I figure it would be ideal to match them somehow thus making transfers from each machine easier.

Is it possible to match the monitors or are they to be individually calibrated?

Does anyone have experience of the above, and what was your opinion?

[nighty]

I'm considering buying the Spyder calibration tool for use on my desktop and laptop. The laptop is a 17" Toshiba Qosmio and the desktop monitor is a Viewsonic LCD.

Looking at the choices in FotoFile (Bangkok) they have the full blown Spyder3 suite at 35,000 baht, the Spyder3Pro at 15, 000 baht and the Spyder2 Express at 5,500 baht.

Obviously, if I can get results from the latter, this would be ideal!

I'm not really into printing my stuff; I just want to ensure that BOTH my monitors are correctly calibrated and colour accurate.

I figure it would be ideal to match them somehow thus making transfers from each machine easier.

Is it possible to match the monitors or are they to be individually calibrated?

Does anyone have experience of the above, and what was your opinion?

I recently used a Spyder to calculate a profile for a Mac Book Pro. It was a disaster. The images on screen looked absolutely terrible. I sorted it by reloading the default profile. I didn't go on to profile the printer as the output I'm getting is really ok, not perfection but usable and saleable.

Can you place the monitors side by side to compare them, is there much difference between them? What I want is Clean whites and blacks and neutral greys in my prints. I can balance the images onscreen by the numbers or histograms in Photoshop and my output is really ok.

Let me know what you think

Eugene

[PadThaiGuy]

Those calibration tools are expensive.

Someone should buy a good one and start a calibration service.

I'd gladly pay someone to come do mine for a fee.

[The Vulcan]

I'm considering buying the Spyder calibration tool for use on my desktop and laptop. The laptop is a 17" Toshiba Qosmio and the desktop monitor is a Viewsonic LCD.

Looking at the choices in FotoFile (Bangkok) they have the full blown Spyder3 suite at 35,000 baht, the Spyder3Pro at 15, 000 baht and the Spyder2 Express at 5,500 baht.

Obviously, if I can get results from the latter, this would be ideal!

I'm not really into printing my stuff; I just want to ensure that BOTH my monitors are correctly calibrated and colour accurate.

I figure it would be ideal to match them somehow thus making transfers from each machine easier.

Is it possible to match the monitors or are they to be individually calibrated?

Does anyone have experience of the above, and what was your opinion?

I recently used a Spyder to calculate a profile for a Mac Book Pro. It was a disaster. The images on screen looked absolutely terrible. I sorted it by reloading the default profile. I didn't go on to profile the printer as the output I'm getting is really ok, not perfection but usable and saleable.

Can you place the monitors side by side to compare them, is there much difference between them? What I want is Clean whites and blacks and neutral greys in my prints. I can balance the images onscreen by the numbers or histograms in Photoshop and my output is really ok.

Let me know what you think

Eugene

Thanks Eugene. Certainly food for thought.

As I "see it" (excuse the pun) using my eyes to balance the monitors is what I've been doing BUT I figure that as our eyes are very adaptable to accommodating subtle differences that this is not the way to go. I was hoping (and still am) that a scientific approach might be more accurate.

It seems to me from the reports I've read that opinions differ greatly on the use of the Spyder software, hence my posting. Hearing your disaster is a little disconcerting.

Thanks for the alert.

[hughden]

I have the Spyder2 Pro which I use on my 24" iMac. When comparing the before and after images on the test shot that is provided; the colour did indeed seem to be better balanced than before. At least it gives me some, maybe false, confidence that my monitor is now showing colours correctly. I have not tried it on my Macbook yet, although I had a cheaper, older version of the Spyder which seemed to work OK on the Macbook.

My Pro package included a software based printer profiler which I am not having much success with. I suspect the basic Express package would do a perfectly acceptable job on your monitor.

[The Vulcan]

Hi "Hugh"

Glad to hear of your success. I'm inclined to go for the "express" tool as you state (cost of course)

I'll post reports in due course

Thanks to all for your input

[LivinLOS]

I think I have a spyder2 with colorfacts software in box somewhere around.

Any interest ??

[DavidS]

No experience, but I did download for free the Monitor Calibration Wizard. Just google and get it.

I'm no expert, and colour-blind to boot, but I did find it easy to use.

If you try it and it works for you, I'd like to know.

[astral]

Monitor Calibration Wizard. Just google and get it.

Nice little tool, and easy to use.

[The Vulcan]

Calibration update

The SpyderExpress tool is a disaster. I've never seen such wild colours! It failed miserably on the Viewsonic and fared little better on my laptop.

I followed the instructions explicitly, and after 6 calibrations gave up.

I then turned to the members recommendation - Monitor Calibration Wizard.

It worked well on the laptop (windows XP) but will not run on the desktop (Vista).

I therefore downloaded the test image that comes with the Spyder onto both the laptop and desktop and visually "synched" the screens.

Printing from both machines produces identical results.

5,500 baht for a test image?

Oh well!