Believe it or not, what you see isn’t necessarily what you get, when it comes to color reproduction. A factory set monitor can often be too bright for photographic work, fooling one into thinking the color is perfect.
I recently picked up the datacolor Spyder 3 Elite, which is a software, hardware based monitor calibration tool. For the longest time I thought my colors were correct from using the photoshop/visual calibration method of setting my color mode to 32bit and then adjusting for brightness and contrast.
It wasn’t until I sent a photo which I had corrected in LR3 to a friend, and he told me my whites were really off compared to his calibrated monitor. What more, is that a monitor that is not properly calibrated could result in a poor color print, and that’s not what I wanted!
Using the Spyder 3 Elite was difficult at all. The only problem I encountered was the brightness of the ambient light coming through the blinds in the day time. Let me explain…
Before connecting the calibration hardware to the computer USB port, I loaded the software following directions. One the software was loaded, I was given instructions to connect the hardware device to measure the ambient light of the room to allow for proper adjustments. This is where I had some trouble with too much ambient light.
The calibration tool is very specific and sensitive to the amount of light hitting the monitor, as well as any glare. You may find yourself either angling the monitor away from a window, or closing the blinds when you are making your calibrations. However, if you are in a room where the lighting isn’t consistent (like the most of us) you’ll have to do your best.
The initial calibration took about 30 minutes to run through all of its adjustments. Once completed, you are able to save the adjustment as a custom setting. I recommend using the date/time as your saved settings name. You will also have a reminder option to recalibrate your monitor. I choose a weekly check.
Now that you’ve calibrated your monitor, the next step to being a professional photographer is to calibrate your camera.
A relatively quick and simple way to do this, is to use a color target of sort (I’m sure some can be found online) then take a picture of the color target. Now scan or import that image from your camera, and then print it. Then compare that printed image with the on screen image, and the original. Make your camera adjustments, and try again; this may take several tries.
There really is more to this process, but it is simple, and necessary if you want to have accurate representation of color for your photographs. However, if you only plan to display your images online, you can do without the fancy tools, and just do a visual calibration.
As for the Spyder 3 Elite- I found it to be simple to use. Is it right for you at a cost of $180 – $200 for the average? I don’t know. But, if you have to monitors, I would say it is a definite that you’ll want to calibrate your monitors.
Remember, it’s not just the monitor that needs calibrating to make a perfect print, but it is a starting point.