Screen Calibration?

I've got the Spyder 3, but not overly impressed with it, wish I'd spent the extra £50 for the EyeOne
 
You might want to have a look at the Pantone Huey. Bit cheaper than the Spyder. Can't comment on its accuracy as I use the Eye One
 
There are lots of solutions out there and everybody swears by (or at) the one they are using.
I think the two main factors are price and whether you need to calibrate more than one screen; the cheapies tend to only support a single profile.

NOTE: most graphics card only support a single profile, so even if you attach two monitors you can only calibrate one of the two screens at a time. Hence for most users the single profile thing isn't much of a restriction.

I use a Munki and doubtless someone will be along in a mo to tell the world I have wasted my money ;)
 
Gary120190 said:
I'm trying to make sure my screen is properly calibrated.
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Going back to the OP.......
It is surprisingly difficult to tell if a screen is calibrated.

I went though a bad patch where my prints failed to match my calibrated screen.
It took me a long time to solve, but the problem turned out to be the screen!

I had compound problems where the calibration sensor wasn't right so the profile it produced was wrong - I've now replaced the calibration hardware. with the Munki largely because it has a built in reference to calibrate the sensor against.
I also had a bug in my graphics card driver which meant after reboot I got either no calibration or double calibration - I've replaced the graphics card.

What I didn't have when I started trying to work out what the heck was going on was a reference print that I could hold up next to the screen and see how similar they were.
That would have stopped me faffing around with the printer and led me straight to sorting out the screen.
Instead, my printer took the brunt of my wrath. I only started looking at the screen when Epson printed one of my images on a properly calibrated printer - it looked amazingly like my own print!

I solved the problem by buying a ColorChecker, it seems outrageously expensive, but it absolutely nailed any question over whether the screen was correct.

I've helped other people with their colour management and having got their setup right I make them print their own reference prints. Anytime they are worried about colour casts etc all they need to do is drag the reference print out the cupboard and compare it against the screen. It's instantly possible to tell if there is a problem. When the reference prints are held up next to the monitor they look spookily similar and the biggest variation between the two seems when we varying how close the print is held to the daylight bulb used to illuminate the print. In other words; blooming close!
 
Colour Confidence do a a Kodak Colour Mangement check up kit. It contains a CD with reference images and more important reference prints.

Bit pricey at around £40 but probably cheaper than the ink you use with poor calibration
 
Chappers said:
Colour Confidence do a a Kodak Colour Mangement check up kit. It contains a CD with reference images and more important reference prints.

Bit pricey at around £40 but probably cheaper than the ink you use with poor calibration
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Cheers - that's really useful info!
I'm trying to help someone by phone at the moment and the problem is (as always) they have no idea if their screen or printer is at fault.
If it does what I hope it does then that's money well spent!
 
I love my Colormunki, but don't currently have a Colorchecker passport thingy.

They're about £80 IIRC, plus approximately £285 for the ColorMunki itself, but it will calibrate both monitor and printer to the same colour profile...

If you can afford it then buy it IMO, extremely good :)
 
Craikeybaby said:
I've got the Spyder 3, but not overly impressed with it, wish I'd spent the extra £50 for the EyeOne
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I have used both and no differance in them both do same job apart from I now use the Spyder3 Elite which will do projectors as well
Take a look at a review here
 
most calibrators are variably similar, the main thing being if you're printing at home to fork out that bit extra for the screen and print calibrator imho :)

using the spyder 3 pro iirc atm and it seems to do a good job, and the stuff at work is done with a gretag mcbeth xrite iirc

dunno if that's of any use
 
The Spyder II is bad - as it only corrects the colour and not the brightness
The Spyder III is better.

All the labs I have ever visited all use Gretag - and the i1 display is every bit as good as the much more expensive full blown version - and it's virtually the same if you run the £2000 prolab software suite.

One thing you can do is download a good reference file - print it out (or get a print from the lab you use) and compare. Look at the neutrals. Look at the very darkest and light squares on the step wedge - no difference between the lightest, your screen is too bright (the normal) no difference between the darkest, too dark.

This is the one I use - though I recommend you download it and look at it in photoshop - as your browser is not profile aware.
 
Colormunki photo is great. Matches your printer to your screen profile so you always see what you'll end up printing.
 
Any software that can do this?
 
jimmy83 said:
Any software that can do this?
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Nope, well not properly, as the light being emitted from the monitor needs to be measured, software can't do that.
 
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