Colour Calibrating your PC Monitor ?

[Bagpuss]

Has anyone got one of those clever gizmos that you can offer up to your PC monitor so that you can calibrate the screen so that the colour you see is what comes out on your printer ? I was wondering if anyone could recommend an in-expensive one ?

On a couple of occassions recently I have done some photoshop "repairs" on customers photos and when I have sent them to Photobox the difference in colour is amazing

Bagpuss

[stcstc]

there is a bit more to it. depends on the monitor etc etc


one of the spyder devices wouldnt be too expensive

have a look at cambridgeincolour.com, some great tutorials on colour management

[Jonny2morsos]

Datacolour do a range under the trade name of Spyder

If you are running Windows 7 then you need the Spyder 3 but if you are running XP or Vista then a Spyder 2 will do and these come up from regularly on ebay. There are different models within these ranges with the more sophisticated ones doing printer profiling as well. I notice they now have a Spyder 4 but the first I heard of this was today when visiting their website before writing this.

My father in law is an ex pro photographer, does our printing for us and has a Spyder 3 which we all use as there is no restriction on the number of computers you can install it on. I have three computers in the business and they are all regularly recalibrated. As I am still running XP I will pick one up on ebay as soon as I can get one at the right price.

A new Spyder 3 can be bought online for £65 for the basic monitor calibration only version (Spyder Express).

If you are using an online printing service then I would not expect too much colour accuracy especially if you are using one of the budget price outfits. If you have any photo studios as customers I would ask who they use as they tend to stick with the labs that produce the most consistent results. Two of my pro photographer customers use One Vision - http://www.onevisionimaging.com/

Another factor to consider is your customer will have probably given you the image they have looked at on their own monitor which was most likely not calibrated either.

Colour management is a whole new ball game!

[stcstc]

the spyder for print is actually a seperate device

i would suggest buying the middle of the 3 devices

it will then allow you to calibrate dual monitors, and a few other things, along with having a good bit more control over the calibration process

also be aware if your using a crap or cheap monitor chances are calibration ain gonna help that much

[Jonny2morsos]

the spyder for print is actually a seperate device

i would suggest buying the middle of the 3 devices

Thanks for that information. Can you just confirm which is the middle of the three devices?

[stcstc]

spyder pro is the middle, elite is the high and express is lowest

then there is spyder print, for print calibration

[CanvasChris]

Monitor calibration is only the start if you want output to match screen. You'll need to calibrate all of your media and create separate icc profiles.

Like Steve says, if you have a monitor thats not capable of displaying more than 97% of the RGB spectrum then it's probably not worth it because your printer will be able to produce it.

Lets presume you do... then if you are on a budget perhaps consider the i1 Colormunki. It will do both screen and output and is reasonable priced.