Monitor Calibration Tools?

[FLO]

We need a monitor calibration tool here at FLO and are also interested in stocking them. I am familiar with and liked one called Colorvision Spyder, but that was over five years ago so things might have changed.

What's hot and what's not in the world of monitor calibration please?

Steve

[brianb]

Hot or not, I'm using the Pantone Huey Pro, have been for several years, works well, no issues at all.

[iwatkins]

Hi Steve,

ColorVision Spyder is still a good budget system for monitors. Sub £100 for a good setup.

You can still pay over £6k for colour management kit, e.g. Gretag stuff I use for work, but that is good for monitors, printers, cameras etc.

Also consider a self calibrating monitor if really important, prices are getting reasonable now for some of the Eizos for example. Really handy as they continue to adjust as light levels in your workplace changes through the day.

(calibrated systems are vital for my job, so know a little more than I want to know )

Cheers

Ian

[pook]

Ahh.. a subject close to my heart, and a professional necessity for me.

I have two systems.

1. LaCie Blue Eye Pro (the best sub £300), and 2. A Monaco Optix (now Xrite) DTP94.

Both are good with standard gamut monitors, but the Monaco fails to calibrate my Eizo wide gamut panel whereas the Blue Eye Pro manages to profile the 102% Adobe RGB98 screen.

The spyder 3 is a great budget alternative and is wide gamut compatible.

Stay away from the Huey. You get what you pay for, and you don't pay much for the huey. I once calibrated a screen with that and the best it managed was a delta E of 6.8. The same screen with the Monaco Optix delivered a delta E of 0.9.

I have a great deal of practical professional experience with managing colour workflow. If you need advice, drop me a PM.

You can go crazy with this subject, but as most people don't actually understand colour workflow, they just want a plug in, press a button solution, so don't consider stocking anything too expensive as it will just sit on a shelf.

Spyder 3 is a great budget system that would be worth stocking, especially as wide gamut IPS panels are getting cheaper these days. The 6K mentioned in an earlier post will be to mange a complete workflow from capture to print, and is specialist gear 99% of people will never use. There's no need to spend more than £300 calibrating a screen, no matter what you do for a living.

Hot or not, I'm using the Pantone Huey Pro, have been for several years, works well, no issues at all.

No offence... but have you measured the accuracy in any way? Visually, you'll get used to anything, and it will appear correct. You can't visually assess colour accuracy of a screen unless you have a measured benchmark to judge it against, and even then it's not easy.

..yeah.. Spyder 3. Stock that. great value, works well on standard and high gamut panels. You'll have no comeback from selling those.

[iwatkins]

Indeed Pook,

If I had to have only one system I used my own money to buy it would be a Spyder 3.

Our work Gretag system *is* excellent but indeed unnecessary for most, although vital for us.

I actually trialled the Huey system for some mobile systems we were putting together. OK, it was a few years ago but I also didn't rate it.

There is a lot of **** talked about colour management, especially in the photography and printing world, can certainly be a minefield for newcomers.

Cheers

Ian

[brianb]

have you measured the accuracy in any way?

Yes, against a standard calibration chart illuminated by the specified "daylight" bulb - and not by eye.

The Huey may not be perfect but as you say it's not expensive & it's a heck of a lot better than nothing. All the more expensive systems I've seen (including the Spyder) have been less accurate and/or failed to compensate for changes in room lighting and/or had software stability issues and/or been very much more expensive.

[pook]

You shouldn't be compensating for room lighting. Accurate is accurate.. it's an absolute. The only thing that should be set according to room lighting is luminance.

I'm wondering how you measured it then. You used a chart of known accuracy, but didn't evaluate by eye.. so how? With another colorimeter? If so, which one?

I've used the Huey, and I found it quite poor. It's also incapable of calibrating a wide gamut panel, and this is important these days, as wide gamut IPS panels are becoming common place (even though 99% of people are viewing un-managed standard gamut content and therefore inaccurate colours).