spyder 3 pro - is this the best choice?

dubcat

dubcat

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Amir
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Hi - i want to buy something to calibrate my monitor. This is in part because I am colour blind and i figure calibration will help to reduce incorrect colours i can not see and in part just to have better accuracy of what i see on the screen compared to what i send off to the printers.

Is spyder 3 pro the best choice for a novice or should i be looking at something else too?

Cheers,
Dub
 
dubcat said:
Hi - i want to buy something to calibrate my monitor. This is in part because I am colour blind and i figure calibration will help to reduce incorrect colours i can not see and in part just to have better accuracy of what i see on the screen compared to what i send off to the printers.

Is spyder 3 pro the best choice for a novice or should i be looking at something else too?

Cheers,
Dub
Click to expand...

As far as screen calibration goes, I am a novice. I bought Spyer 3 Pro about a month ago and have found it pretty easy to use.

As far as printing is concerned, don't forget that screen calibration doesn't guarantee accurate printing (ie what you see on the screen is what you get on the print) - although it will obviosuly help.
 
Yup, me and Lynton went halves on one recently and it's very good for the money! (y) Taking me a while to get used to the new settings though...:thinking:
 
Iv had the Spyder 3 pro and found it very easy to use and will open your screen up very nicely.. and the colours will be much more realistic.. you may find yourself re-editing your images to fit your new REALISTIC settings.. :)
 
its the one on my shopping list, the model below doesn't do multiple panels and the model above does stuff I don't need
 
I have just been doing some calibration using my Colormunki Photo. Didn't really have time beforehand but tonight I went for it. First,after downloading from the dics and following on screen instructions this time I totally removed the existing colour management that came with the monitor. Next was to profile the monitor with Colormunki and used that as the new colour management. Then came the printer and paper ( most important the correct paper is in the profile) to profile via again on screen instructions. Although the whole process took some time the difference was amazing.

The smaller picture shows the new Colormunki settings whilst the larger picture is the original picture before profiling, some of my shadow makes it look a wee bit darker than actually is ( as you can tell by the background on the table top) but the difference is obvious. No alteration to original the picture used for the demo just the profiling made the difference

DSC_1527.jpg


Realspeed

For those who are interested in doing their own prints
 
wow what a difference - so do i get colormunki which is $$$$ or just go for spyder pro 3?
 
The Spyder pro is just to calibrate the monitor. If you really want to accurately match prints, the colormunki will allow you to scan the prints and correct so the colours match.
 
Decisions decisions.. the spyder 3 pro is so much cheaper.. is there any way to upgrade it to a full print solution later if the fancy takes me?
 
dubcat said:
Decisions decisions.. the spyder 3 pro is so much cheaper.. is there any way to upgrade it to a full print solution later if the fancy takes me?
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you know, I think this is being made more complicated then it is!

you say you are colourblind, I happen to know a colour blind photographer! who does boudoir!

if you get a calibrator (Spyder express or pro) it gets your screen as acurate as your screen can manage, and that is that!

if you are sending your prints to a printing company, their printers will be calibrated as will their screens so they both match, so if your screen is calibrated what you see should be what you get from the printers.

if it is not then they obviously dont have a particularly good quality control!

right, with you being colour blind you obviously have no perception of certain colour ranges,, Red being one of them and ,,, ohhhhh what was the others :thinking:

sadly nothing can actually help you much for this technology wise, but what the person I mentioned does is have her partner come in and check.

and between them she has developed a kind of coping strategy, doing it time and time again she has come to recognise what tones of, well grey as she put it, is the tone she should be looking for when she is working on her boudoir shots to get proper skin tone.

and she gets amazing results this way.

just a bit of food for thought!
 
Barry - that makes perfect sense. Since I will be primarily printing via online printing companies I will get the spyder pro 3. I will rope my wife in to helping me decide if tones are correct although imho she does not have a very good eye for such things. I may have to find a more discerning helper :) I guess as far as printing on my own inkjet goes I can just get that right via trial and error. After a while I will work out what i need to do to the pictures before printing them and will have less misses I guess.

I am going to get in to B&W :) Will save a lot of hassle! :)

Cheers,
Dub
 
dubcat said:
Barry - that makes perfect sense. Since I will be primarily printing via online printing companies I will get the spyder pro 3. I will rope my wife in to helping me decide if tones are correct although imho she does not have a very good eye for such things. I may have to find a more discerning helper :) I guess as far as printing on my own inkjet goes I can just get that right via trial and error. After a while I will work out what i need to do to the pictures before printing them and will have less misses I guess.

I am going to get in to B&W :) Will save a lot of hassle! :)

Cheers,
Dub
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Humm, just a thought for a starting point,
have you thought about setting the camera up so it takes the picture correct in the first place?

what I meen is taking a custom white balence then taking a shot as a reference shot, that way the person who is helping you should have a correct representation to compare to and learn.

because when I think about it,, even when you are not colour blind training your eyes to get colour right is hard. most of my own images have a warm tone to them.

Black and white, definatly the way forward :LOL:
 
if you get a calibrator (Spyder express or pro) it gets your screen as acurate as your screen can manage, and that is that!

if you are sending your prints to a printing company, their printers will be calibrated as will their screens so they both match, so if your screen is calibrated what you see should be what you get from the printers.

if it is not then they obviously dont have a particularly good quality control!

right, with you being colour blind you obviously have no perception of certain colour ranges,, Red being one of them and ,,, ohhhhh what was t
Click to expand...

I run a lab - so let me give you a little of the wisdom I've gained in the past 30 years...

First - The Spyder 3 does a good job. All labs use Gretag/X-rite (same company) and you get a screen only i1 Display for about £140. The software is the same as the £800 i1 so you don't have to relearn as you progress....

Are you in a camera club - or is there one nearby? Often clubs have a profiler which is shared amoung the members.

If you are wanting to print your own, Epson printers are very consistant, and if you download the correct profile - and use it correctly (and once) you'll get very good results.

Now, being colourblind is normally the inability to see red/green. There are 2 options you can follow for this.....

1 - work in B&W

2 - learn to use the numbers on the info pallet in Photoshop. If you photograph a greycard or better still a McBeth chart under the image you're going to take - and then again without it, you can use the values in it to set your file - and you don't need to correct your screen.

For example - the 18% grey patch should have R G B values of 119 (and all three the same) - the white 235 and the black 40. If you use the eyedropper on these to neutral the grey (and you can set the highlight and shadow droppers to 235 and 40) and then the highlight and shadow droppers on the white and black you have set the exposure and contrast to be ideal. Now, you are left with the saturation - but you get the idea. Now if you save the settings from the levels you can then apply these to all the images you've taken with the same settings at the same time - and presto!

You can do much the same - make settings for your camera in Lightroom for daylight, overcast, cold shade etc - and then just use these to get 90% right for any photo - this works best for RAW....
 
David - just so i am clear what you are saying is that instead of calibrating my monitor i could hold up a card with 18% grey, white and black on it during a test shot at the beginning of the shoot and then use this to get my white balance and colours right in Photoshop? Seems a lot cheaper than buying a monitor calibration device! :)

Regarding monitor calibration are you recommending x-rite over spyder? If so could you post a link to a specific item?

Thanks,
Dub
 
I vote calibration over (or even better alongside) colour checking shots, as it lets you have it 'right' then change it to make it suit the image better/ your creative vision
 
ust so i am clear what you are saying is that instead of calibrating my monitor i could hold up a card with 18% grey, white and black on it during a test shot at the beginning of the shoot and then use this to get my white balance and colours right in Photoshop?
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Depends on what you do.

We all have an over-riding desire to adjust to what we see - so I would always suggest calibration of your screen - regardless of your vision.

The biggest single problem we see in our lab are files that way way too dark. The average uncalibrated monitor is about 300cd/m2 - and a calibrated should be 100-120cd/m2. Don't worry about the unit of measurement - just look at the amounts!

A spyder2 corrects the colour - but not the brightness. If your screen is too bright you won't see the details in the highlights. If you make the image suit the overbright monitor you will loose loads of shadow detail - regardless of what happens later.

You can use the photos of a gretag mcbeth card - or lastolight 3 tone test chart to set the correct values - but it may well look way too light on an uncalibrated screen.

I use the i1 as there is an upgrade path - which I have taken - with £2500 of software to a very high level.... Every lab I know uses gretag - so if you buy gretag/xrite your lab can give you advice - anything else, they won't have experience.
 
Ok so get the monitor calibrated AND use the 3 tone test chart.. got it..
 
Hi guys - for anyone following this thread i noticed that x-rite are running some free webinars relating to their colour checking card thingy. Basically this is the thing with lots of colours on it that you hold up in a test shot and then use to get your colours right. I don't know much about it but plan to be on the webinars to find out more and thought it might be of interest to others hence this post.

http://www.xritephoto.com/ph_learning.aspx?action=webinars

i have signed up for the following:

- ColorChecker Passport – RAW COLOR POWER!

and

- RAW COLOR POWER with Adobe® Lightroom and ColorChecker® Passport
 
I'm colour blind and do ok. I use the colour picker tool a lot - you can see the colour casts in reference to the numbers. Skin tones have ranges of colours. Blue is the lowest value (because most white skin has yellow in it), Green higher and generally red the highest but the difference in numbers is not huge - You can get used to using this tool and the colour correction tools in Ps (I've been taught to use the Photo Filter Adjustment layer and this levels out the colours. Look at the histogram colours and you'll also see what colours are dominant. You can even these out by knowing if there's too much blue, add som,e yellow (and vice versa) and same for green/magenta, red/cyan.

Takes time but I'm a lot better now than I used to be!

And yes you need a calibrated monitor and printer profiles first and foremost. I use the Spyder 2 but want to upgrade.
 
What do you want to upgrade to?

EOS_JD said:
I'm colour blind and do ok. I use the colour picker tool a lot - you can see the colour casts in reference to the numbers. Skin tones have ranges of colours. Blue is the lowest value (because most white skin has yellow in it), Green higher and generally red the highest but the difference in numbers is not huge - You can get used to using this tool and the colour correction tools in Ps (I've been taught to use the Photo Filter Adjustment layer and this levels out the colours. Look at the histogram colours and you'll also see what colours are dominant. You can even these out by knowing if there's too much blue, add som,e yellow (and vice versa) and same for green/magenta, red/cyan.

Takes time but I'm a lot better now than I used to be!

And yes you need a calibrated monitor and printer profiles first and foremost. I use the Spyder 2 but want to upgrade.
Click to expand...
 
snappingsam said:
The biggest single problem we see in our lab are files that way way too dark. The average uncalibrated monitor is about 300cd/m2 - and a calibrated should be 100-120cd/m2. Don't worry about the unit of measurement - just look at the amounts!

A spyder2 corrects the colour - but not the brightness. If your screen is too bright you won't see the details in the highlights. If you make the image suit the overbright monitor you will loose loads of shadow detail - regardless of what happens later.
Click to expand...


Can vote that the 3 series spiders also adjust brightness, recently getting a spyder 3 I found out my monitor was running noticably brighter then it should.

come to think about it, when the old spyder 2 packed up I manually adjusted my screen, so all this time I must have been running much brighter then I should.
 
dubcat said:
What do you want to upgrade to?
Click to expand...

Probably the Spyder 3 :) ColorMunki is for monitor and printer and I get free custom profiles from my paper manufacturer so no requirement for the profiling.
 
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