New Toys, I literally shake with fear when spending a lot of money - but I have a question

Carlh

Carlh

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Carl
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Just took the plunge to switch from my samsung lcd TV (40") to a dedicated monitor (Viewsonic VP2772 27" Monitor - DVI USB DP HA Monitor) and a spyder4 elite calibration tool.

I dont like spending (must be my scrooge genes) but I think from all the reading from TP, from videos from B&H on calibration that it should be the best thing I've done since buying a DSLR itself.

Will I still need a white-balance/colour code card or will the spyder just be fine and if a colour card/chart is recommended - Whats a fairly cheap one that will do the job and last me the rest of my life (pointless spending just a few pounds for it to rot in a couple of years, if I can spend a little more and get it to last me until I no longer wish to use one)

I'm getting mixed signals when googling about colour calibration, I know the spyder4elite and the monitor I've ordered will make a fair bit of difference (how much I wont know until they arrive and I set it all up I guess) so do I need a colour chart?

Thanks!
 
You don't need a colour chart/grey card/white card or whatever to calibrate your monitor. The calibration software and colorimeter (spyder 4 in your case) is all you need.
 
PaulButler said:
You don't need a colour chart/grey card/white card or whatever to calibrate your monitor. The calibration software and colorimeter (spyder 4 in your case) is all you need.
Click to expand...

Ive just gone for the spyder checker 24, to help with the colours though as I believe I also needed that (from more googling) so I have an accurate representation of the colours from the photo for the screen, so hopefully Im all covered now.

Will be interesting to go over older images and see how far they were off!
 
The only time I use a grey card is when I'm in tricky light or absolutely need as accurate colours as possible. Most people cannot tell few degrees of colour temp difference ... (I did say a few btw ;))

At least having a calibrated (or profiled if you prefer) monitor gives you a known starting point, but do calibrate regularly.
 
Depends how you shoot, but in consistent lighting you could do a calibration shot and set white balance, that could help in post, and if you need a consistant look

Its more critical for video and jpeg work
 
I work at a printers & we have to use the calibration equipment each month.
A grey/white card is only needed for when you are out in the field taking photos.
Most people take a photo of the grey card in situ & then take whatever other photos they want.
each time the light changes enough they take another grey card test photo.
then when back at the computer & what ever editing programme used, each time a grey card test shot comes up they know the next few shots are at that colour temp & use the colour picker to correctly choose the mid grey point.

The grey card is not used for checking what photos look like on screen.

Older screen - printer calibration equipment use to have colour charts which were used to check & compare what was seen on screen to what was expected against the ICC profile it generated.
It would compare what was on screen to what you scanned & then make an adjustment between the two.

We still use such a calibration tool but that is because we have to check the ink output of the print due to ambient temperature causing colour shift but the screens aren't effected by this of course.
So having just screen calibration isn't enough for us, which now doesn't need such charts as the communication between the screen eye & what it has in its ICC profile information is active as the eye scans the screen & the adjustments are done on the fly.

Basically unless you are concerned about printing yourself what you have is enough.
If you send your files away for printing then you may want to speak to them & discuss what ICC profile they use & possibly use the same when you edit your photos to match their printers output.
 
Carlh said:
Will I still need a white-balance/colour code card or will the spyder just be fine and if a colour card/chart is recommended - Whats a fairly cheap one that will do the job and last me the rest of my life (pointless spending just a few pounds for it to rot in a couple of years, if I can spend a little more and get it to last me until I no longer wish to use one)
Click to expand...
The Spyder will calibrate the monitor, the colour card will profile your camera (at a given moment in time, with a associated lens and light conditions).

Using just a grey card will not get you the same results as using a colour card as that deals with individual colour tones vs overall colour temperature. And by itself the Spyder will not make your camera shots colour accurate.

Under controlled lighting i'll generally use a colour card to give me an accurate base while PP and tweak it to taste if required. If you want to splash the cash on something that will last a good while the de-facto standard is a X-rite ColorChecker Passport (£68 Amazon), me personally i use something slight less robust but for my use equally as good (link) and their website (link). It's cheaper to order via their ebay shop.

I do however use the X-rite software as a plugin to LR as it makes the colour card a doddle to use and much easier than using the Adobe DNG editor.

As always all the above imvho :D
 
Last edited:
Thanks everyone. I've gone for the monitor that I mentioned in the post, a spyder4elite and a spyder checker 24, that should at least get me consistent with what im producing in camera, to the screen. I just need to sort out my printer and find out what my printer supplier (for larger prints) does with their profiles. Thanks for all the info, got lots of research to do to get the most out of the info you have all given, cheers
 
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