Color Calibration

A reader showed me a picture the other day that looked so "off" to me that it made me suspect he is working on an uncalibrated monitor.

There are a number of ways to calibrate your monitor and a number of products to help you do it. I believe Ctein uses the X-Rite ColorMunki products, probably because he likes munkis. Monkees. Er, monkeys. (X-rite is a maker of a full line of professional [a word which actually applies in this case] color calibration tools, up to and including light booths.) Actually, he probably uses a higher-level product such as the ColorMunki Photo bundle ($460).

Me, I like to KISS, so I tend to use the lowest level (and lowest cost! —for reasons I will explain) calibration products. X-Rite's ColorMunki Smile is cheap ($89), but gets poor marks for buggy software. I've always used and recommended the lower-end options from Datacolor, and not because I like spiders. Although I do like Spyders (so called because early versions had suction cups to stick to the glass of curved CRT displays; the new ones look less like spiders and more like pucks). The last one I used was an earlier base-level Spyder; the current version is the Spyder5Express ($126).

The unit is very easy to use...once you warm up your monitor (TOP's never gets cold!), dim your ambient light, and position the Spyder, a wizard walks you through an easy-to-follow five-minute calibrating procedure, and Bob's yer uncle. (My uncle is named Smokie Polk, but you know what I mean.)

spider

Spider

Spyder

Therein lies the rub, and my only complaint. Once you're done with this very simple and fast procedure, you really have no more use for your fine $126 device. I used to recheck every six months, then every year, only to find that good monitors didn't drift and that recalibration wasn't necessary. I really only need the Spyder again when I buy a new computer (my current desktop is a mid-2011 model).

...By which time I've lost the Spyder.

With two moves since 2011, my Spyder is...somewhere. Probably. Maybe. Where? Not the faintest clue. As with most things I hardly ever use, it has migrated into the land of Around Here Someplace, a land I have never been permitted to visit and will probably never be privileged to gaze upon. So—this is embarrassing to admit—each time I buy a new computer I end up buying a new Spyder. You know what they say: Oh well. Fortunately I don't buy a new computer very often.

I used to advise sharing a Spyder between a group of friends, to improve cost effectiveness, but that requires more organization than is required to keep track of a Spyder, and doubtless I will expire with that sound notion still in a vaporous and unexperienced state.

But a calibrated monitor is a basic must-have for photography these days, so a Munki or a Spyder you must have. Team Spyder!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2016 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Team Spyder!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Hugh Smith: "I never calibrated my monitor until a few years back (with a Spyder) after reading Michael Reichman's suggestion to do so. I could not believe how off my monitor was. Like you, Mike, I gave up calibrating after a while because I just didn't need to. Good advice and mi dos pesos."

Mark: "Easeplay ixnay ethay arachnidyay icspay."

Christopher Crawford: "The best way to calibrate your screen is to use a screen with its own software and sensor that allows the internal lookup tables to be adjusted. The NEC Spectraview series and the Eizo Coloredge series do this. I have used NEC Spectraview monitors for years and wouldn't ever go back to using monitors that require third-party software and hardware to calibrate."

Thomas Paul McCann: "If you find your Spyder best of luck in getting updated software for it. I gave up on all that and following Ctein's advice bought an Apple Mac with Retina display and an Epson P600 to go with it. Worked out of the box."

psu: "A couple of years ago you ran a link to a great set of lectures about the history of pictorial print making given by Richard Benson. To me one of the peak moments in the series came near the end in this video, covering color calibration, and also color management. You need flash to watch the videos. Since I'm not really a serious photographer I have never bothered with any calibration tools. Modern Apple screens all tend to be pretty close to each other in general performance, so I make my stuff look about right on my laptop (and iMac) and for my purposes this is good enough. Occasionally when I make prints I find that there are no huge color shifts as long as everyone is in sRGB, though sometimes you have to adjust for gamma. So I make a note and do that the next time. I do think there are people who do and should need to care about this stuff, but I also think that most people who think they do don't really understand what they are getting into and just end up getting confused. So my general (and as usual, lazy) rule is: unless you can explain why you need to do anything but use all of the default engines, just don't touch it. Also, I take Ctein's recent article on using in-printer color management as more evidence that the lazy way is right. 😃"

Larry Gephardt: "My NEC reminds me to recalibrate every few weeks. I never seem to notice a difference so it doesn't drift much over that period. I use the NEC's puck for my monitor. The upside to calibrating as often as it nags me is the puck never seems to get too lost. I use the ColorMunki for prints with the ArgyllCMS software. Works great and I get a near-perfect match between the screen and prints from several printers. The downside is when the color isn't right I only have myself to blame. As far as Spiders go, the Fiat is pretty nice. I like the styling better than the new Miata it's based on."

Bernard Scharp: "I still have my Spyder3, which helped me through three computers and a decent collection of monitors (calibration is a godsend if you're using a two- or three-display setup with CRT screens), but Datacolor recently informed me they were dropping support on the Spyder3 (and older). So even if you don't lose the thing, you may have to get a new one eventually anyway.  :-(  "

glenn brown: "Not too happy with my Spyder, bought from the TOP link to B&H as everyone should. Installed it and calibrated once then it stopped working. The software could not see it. Customer support is terrible, after five times back and forth I gave up and went to the WWW. Found a solution in two minutes versus four weeks with Datacolor. I still am not sure you can calibrate a retina screen...anybody know about that stuff?"

Urs Willi: "I have been using Datacolor's products for several years now (for screen and paper calibration) and am still very happy with them—not only with their products but equally with their support, which is excellent (at least here in Switzerland)."

Kenneth Tanaka (partial comment): "I think the general color quality and consistency of displays has tremendously improved, especially with the demise of tube monitors. That, plus the great improvement in inkjet print technologies has enabled many people, particularly amateur photographers, to largely shrug at color management and be very productive with uncalibrated off-the-shelf equipment. Indeed the iPad and the Retina iMac displays have become my own reference standards for electronic (emitted light) presentation. Purists may quibble with such a standard but the naked fact remains that it represents the medium that the vast majority of my target audience use to view my images. [...]

"Color is all about visual relationships. If you can manage those relationships and your equipment is reliably and reasonably consistent then you probably don't need to buy into a CM system at all any more."

RayC: "(Bias alert) I work for a company that makes one of the above-mentioned calibrators. But given that I've been in the photography business much longer than that, and have fought color battles from the day I stopped shooting B&W exclusively, I'll say with only a little bias that having a calibrated screen should be a requirement for your 'digital darkroom.' There are a number of photo labs that actually promote their customers use of screen calibration because it dramatically lowers their customer service and dissatisfaction. Locally we had one lab that actually sold the devices and offered discounts on their services if you bought a device.

"Ultimately if the only thing you do is look at the images on your own screen it may not matter too much whether you calibrate or not (technically this probably isn't true but practically it may be). If you print, either to your own printer or to a lab, you will dramatically lower your frustration (and costs) by calibrating the screen. As far as stability goes...I have two 'work' locations each with two screens (in addition to the MacBook Pro screen). One of those setups is incredibly stable and I generally recalibrate only a couple of times a year. The other...I find I need to calibrate (or at least validate the calibration) before I'm going to do any serious color correction work.

"Some other day maybe we can take on Ctein's statement that you know longer need to profile your printer...."

Comments

[Herb Cunningham]

glad to hear others have not calibrated the monitor in years- My La Cie is still working just fine, thank you. Maybe being primarily a b/w printer has something to do with it?

[Gato]

I like the middle spider best.

My new Colormumki arrived Thursday and I used it for the first time yesterday. For years I used an Eye One puck, but I put in a new computer last month and there is no software support for Win 10. So another $150 off to B&H.

For better or worse, it didn't make a huge difference over what I did walking through the Win 10 visual tool. Enough to make a difference in printing, but 90% of my photos go online only and lord only knows what kind of devices or monitors people out there are using.

So the next step for me - as soon as I get some photos processed and posted - is to go around to friends, family and the public library to look at my newest photos on as many devices and monitors as possible so I get an idea of what the audience is seeing.

[James]

I use X-rite's i1 Display Pro, but I ditched its software long ago for Argyll CMS. It's lighter-weight, software wise, than the X-Rite software, and does at least as good a job of calibrating my old Dell 2008WFP as X-Rite's software did.

Argyll uses the i1 puck and a variety of other colorimeters and spectrometers, but is command line only. As I'm no good in the command line, I use the DisplayCAL GUI (fka DispoCAL gui) to drive it.

It's not quick: it takes about an hour for my old Dell, and about 40 minutes for the MacBook Pro screen, and that's on the medium setting... The glossy display on the MacBook fools the colorimeter a bit, and the calibration winds up making the screen a tiny bit bluer than the Dell, though that happened with the X-Rite software too. I've checked checked images I made on both both with my uncalibrated work monitor and both look natural and accurate-enough, so the differences are minor.

Argyll CMS http://www.argyllcms.com
DisplayCAL GUI http://displaycal.net

[John Holmes]

What is the value in calibrating my monitor when those who only view my images on their digital devices haven't calibrated theirs?

[Well, if you don't, then nobody can see your images correctly; but if you do, then some people can. --Mike]

[Chuck Albertson]

I use and like the Spyder (4, which still looks like an homage to a spider), but I re-calibrate my monitor once a week. I have a decent monitor (NEC MultiSync PA272W), but it drifts to the warmish side. You might want to pick up one of those Cable Management bags from Think Tank to keep doo-dads like that organized.

[benny_pea]

I took so long between calibrations that I found that my version of the Spyder is no longer supported by my OS.

I think I might "rent" one off ebay - looks like there are plenty of people who buy one and use it once - should be able to get one for free, or thereabouts...

[Mike King]

There is software out there, free software, that let's you use your Eyeball, Mk. 1 to do a fair job of monitor calibration, it works, it's easy, it may not be quite as good as a $100+ device but cheap enough that even casual users should give it a try. After I got my older model Monaco EZ Color I tried to recalibrate my monitor after using the eyeball method and did not have to change a thing. Windows 7 comes with software to do this in the Control Panel.

[Robert Hudyma]

My favorite Spider was made by Alpha Romeo and most were fire-engine red. In my youth I owned two Alpha's they were fun to drive but a maintenance nightmare. The engines leaked oil and they refused to start on cold winter days. I switched to a Saab, no regrets, it always started.

[It's hard to remember now that that was one of the reasons Saabs were popular. Also that front wheel drive was considered so great for snow...when these days it's AWD that's good for snow and FWD that's deficient. My mother's last car was a high-end end-of-Swedish-Saab Saab and it was a very nice car. --Mike]

[Wolfgang Lonien]

I use Richard Hughes' "ColorHug" which is cheap and works great on any system. With my Linux & Gnome machine it's detected automatically, but it would works as well for any Windows machine as long as you can boot the supplied Linux Live CD for the calibration process. Richard is a Gnome and Red Hat developer, and he sent me one of the early developer items.

[JG]

With regard to your idea of sharing a Spyder among friends, be aware that some (but not all) manufacturers of them still prohibit this and consider it a violation of the software license they grant to the original purchaser.

In the case of my i1 Display Pro, the disc that contains the software specifically states that "unauthorized ... lending ... is not permitted" in fine print around the edge of it (although nowhere on the disc or in the accompanying manual does it explain exactly what constitutes unauthorized lending.)

Of course, as noted above, there is third-party software that can be used instead, so there are ways to do as you suggest without violating a license agreement, if one still exists for the OEM software provided with the Spyder one purchases.

(As a personal aside, I've always hated that business model and am glad to see it being employed somewhat less often than it has been in the past. I also quite dislike Adobe's pay-as-you-go software model and am sticking with CS6 instead of upgrading for that reason. But I digress...)

[Tom]

I've dutifully calibrated every screen I've owned with X-Rite products. Sometimes to definite benefit, sometimes as is the case with my current Eizo display to find no difference from the built in profile. It's defitately worth profiling Apple Laptops. But I also have to say that I've never known a publisher or an agency of any kind where displays were profiled and neither was any attempt made to shield the user from changing ambient light conditions. One of the biggest shocks I ever had was seeing what my lovingly prepared web site images looked like on the average PC laptop.

[Anthony Shaughnessy]

Some TN-type LCD monitors (such as the one I'm using on my laptop at this moment) have very restricted viewing angles - to the extent that I just have to move the laptop screen forward/back quite slightly to have a marked effect on any image I'm viewing. If you're going to use a calibration device I suggest not using it on a TN-type LCD screen - I have an external IPS-type monitor I use whenever I want to look at photos.
Anthony
CAVEAT - I'm not an expert on LCD technology.

[Marty]

Agreed at Team Spyder.
and I really dig those first two Spider photos.
When middle age finally exasperates me and I purchase my first Miata I will pay TOPNY headquarters a visit...beeping as I sputter by with GoPro attached to the rollbar.

[Peter Gilbert]

Next time buy the version that allows you to mount the puck on a stand to measure ambient light, and keep it plugged into the computer. Never lose it then.

[Duncan]

Chuck Albertson said, "You might want to pick up one of those Cable Management bags from Think Tank to keep doo-dads like that organized."

My only problem with this is that I'd then lose all my doo-dads at once.

[Kevin Purcell]

A few points:

1. If you have a CCFL illuminated monitor the colors will drift to warm as the CCFL tubes age and the blue phosphors "wear out". You will need calibration over time with these monitors. That's where the 6 month to 12 month recommendation comes from.

2. LED backlights (even though they are blue+UV LEDs with a yellow phosphors to make white light) seem to have a better lifetime (100,000 hours to 50% brightness) but the color balance can change over time.

3. Most recently companies are making the white LED backlighting from three primary color RGB LED mounted on the same chip. These can tune their color temperature on the fly and maintain a given white (D50, D65) backlight. I'm not sure how widely deployed these are but they are already in other "high gamut" desktop monitors. I wouldn't be surprised if they've been in larger iMacs for a few years. The new iPad that can tune it's color temp seems to indicate Apple have started to use them in high end portable devices (though most laptops use white LEDs)

http://www.osram-os.com/Graphics/XPic5/00102499_0.pdf/Color%20Stabilization%20of%20RGB%20LEDs%20in%20an%20LED%20Backlighting%20Example.pdf

4. Some older calibrators are no longer supported on more recent OSes pretty much entirely due to laziness/monetary reasons but they will work fine with Argyll CMS. If you have an older calibrator with broken software you can always try Argyll CMS and DisplayCal for a UI that James mentions. They support a huge range of calibrators.

http://www.argyllcms.com
http://displaycal.net

5. The color filters in some (most of the cheaper i.e. non-spectrographic) calibrators also age so colors will drift. Some seem sensitive to absorbing water vapor. When you're not using the calibrator store it in a sealed bag with silica gel to workaround this problem.

6. Companies are starting to make inexpensive intergrted spectrometers now

http://image-sensors-world.blogspot.com/2015/05/fringoe-unveils-consumer-ft-spectrometer.html

it's only a matter of time until these appear in color calibrators though if the actively compensated RGB-LED backlighting and LCD dyes never drift in color you may not need them or anything more than the standard company provided monitor profile.

[Andreas]

I still use(d) the Spyder2Xpress, and still know its place - I guess ;-)

[Jim Henry]

Maybe my color perception is not as acute as others, but I agree that re-calibrating is rarely necessary (I have a Dell U2410). So I guess I can quit feeling guilty about not responding to the daily re-calibrate nags from the Spyder software.

That alone is worth the price of admission.

However the best part of this posting is the "Around Here Somewhere" paragraph. Priceless! It is a phrase (like "perfect storm" for example) that we won't understand how we lived without it.

[Kathy Li]

Alternate method to pool the expense with a bunch of friends: rent a ColorMunki from lensrentals. :)

[phil]

I have the opposite problem from you. I’ve managed to keep track of my i1 Display for so long (it’s old enough to be branded Gretag-Macbeth) there’s no software support for it, even using Argyll. So perhaps your strategy of passive upgrade enforcement by neglect is just as good.

[Kefyn Moss]

I'm still using the more spider-like Spyder3 but I haven't used the software for years as I use NEC's Spectraview that calibrates their monitor's hardware so the puck is just a measuring device. The biggest advantage I've found with hardware calibration is you can get the luminance down really low to match print output far more accurately than I could with software calibration alone.

[hugh crawford]

". For years I used an Eye One puck, but I put in a new computer last month and there is no software support for Win 10"

Not true. The installer does not work , but a little Googling will reveal how to use an Eye One in Windows 10.

[Andrea B.]

Really a spider? I flew off the chair and knocked over some stuff. Not expecting that. Gack!!

[jeffrey K Hartge]

I have an old Spyder (perhaps Spyder 2?). Since all of my screens (TV, projector and various monitors) run off computers (except the TV in "TV mode"), I end up doing calibrations for all of them. More often than not it results in a significantly better viewing experience - especially since many of my screens are on the low end of the cost spectrum.

However, what I would really like to calibrate is my tablet. It has a green cast to all of the yellows. Unfortunately, at present, its OS doesn't allow modification of the display output curves.

[Matthew Miller]

Check your local library. Mine has one to loan. If they don't, you might suggest it.

[Peter Croft]

I bought the ColorMunki Photo in 2013 and I reckon I've had about 5 minutes use of it. It may as well be used as a doorstop. I had it working, briefly, but the software is so buggy that after changing computers, I simply cannot get it to work again. It's due to the serial number/login dialog which, if it doesn't like you, closes the program down. There's some fix like changing the order of loading of network devices during bootup (huh? Why? And why has the software never been updated to fix this?) I got it going once in early 2014, but I can't get it going now. So my $450 Munki is a clunky heap of garbage.

If you look at the software version dates, the last update was years ago. They don't keep it up to date. Trying to find that FAQ about the network load order is a trial. I found it a few months ago, but it didn't work, so I'm still without a working Munki/Junki. As you can tell, I'm pretty angry with X-Rite.

I specifically chose this device for its printer calibration capability. I have never got as far as being able to use that function. Pah!

[Aaron Britton]

Well, if you ever do get to the land of Around Here Someplace, could you look for some of my lost matching socks. Because I know they must be Around Here Someplace, but for the life of me, I just can't find all of my matching pairs.

Aaron

[Philip Lanaaum]

I have to disagree with the idea the you calibrate once a year or once a device and let it go. Being from the old color film mind set where you "calibrated" (test/samples) your enlarger setup each time you changed film, paper, enlarger bulbs etc. Do you mean to tell me that you don't soft proof your prints? How do you know that what you see is really what will be printed?
I recalibrate my monitor each time there is an update to my graphics driver (yes there are differences) or every three weeks. What I do want is the best quality image I can get sent off to my print facility. I also use the published print drivers, now how can I ensure color fidelity with out knowing that what I see on the monitor is "correct"?
By the way I use the color Monki Photo too, in the days of my Nokia monitor, aging myself in computer age, I used the Huey Pro.

[Fazal Majid]

If you are a Mac user, you need a hardware calibrated monitor due to OS X not supporting more than 8 bits per channel (that's changed recently for very specific combinations of GPU and DP displays, but most software can't handle it, certainly not CS6).
http://diglloyd.com/articles/Recommended/display-calibration.html

[Robert]

Same, used the Spyder a couple of times. No idea where I put it. I am reminded of it when now and again ab lodge appears on the screen saying that the Spyder software has a bug and needs to be restarted. I tell it to go away. It keeps coming back though.

[Alan Carmody]

Another vote for eBay for this kind of material purchase-something where you don't need to buy new, and which you really don't need anymore soon after you've bought it. It's dead easy to buy something and then sell it off, minimizing costs. As you may know, eBay and the postal service provide eBay ready boxes, so the work overhead is minimal.

[Ken Owen]

Here's another handy Spider that I've been using since they first came out:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/762494-REG/SPIDER_HOLSTER_100_SpiderPro_Single_Camera_System.html

[Bob Blakley]

I got the ColorMunki Photo because it allowed me to calibrate not just my monitor but also my printer. I didn't get my first satisfactory color print until after I calibrated the printer (a high-ish end Epson), and printer calibration solved the problem of losing the calibrator for me, since I need to recalibrate the printer every time I use a new paper...

[Stephen Scharf]

Great article, Mike. IIRC, however, a Munki, EyeOne or a Spyder creates a profile of most displays. Most LCD displays are not, technically speaking, capable of actually being calibrated, however, they can be profiled. This applies to the majority of LCD displays in use, and, AFAIK, virtually all laptop displays in use.

The EIZO CG-series, and NEC PA-series professional displays (e.g. the NEC PA-272W-BK-SVII that I use) come with their own colorimeter purpose-made for them by XRite, as well as display control hardware, firmware, and software that performs a proper hardware-based calibration on the display to reach one's intended targets. One of the key attributes they have is that they have the requisite bit-depth and LUTs (lookup tables) that are sufficient to permit hardware-based calibration. The software makes it very easy to hit one's intended white point, black point luminance values, as well as gamma and color temperature, and they are capable of acheiving very low "delta-E" values, a key measure of color accuracy. The other advantage they have is that they are capable of acheiving a much wider color gamut than most LCD displays; the NECs approx. 99.3% of Adobe RGB. This is a considerably larger gamut than the sRGB gamut that some LCDs are capable of achieving, including the Apple Retina 27" iMac. One thing I will say about the Apple Retina display on the 27" iMac, is that Apple does a quite good job with the display calibration at the factory. Once profiled with an EyeOne Display, they are reasonably close for all practical purposes to a hardware-calibrated NEC (though cannot match them for delta-E or gamut).

[Werner Gansz]

I have a 24" NEC monitor. It has a built-in D6500 color temperature setting. I've been using the Spyder 3 Express for years but finally decided to just try the D6500 setting in the monitor, the same value that Spyder Express uses. I don't see any difference.

I think most good monitors have a D6500 built-in and since LCD's don't change over time I wonder of these calibration systems have run there course for most of us. For printers like Ctein who often calibrate their monitors to look like specific papers and inks it may be useful (the Express version of Spyder won't do that) but I don't really see the value of overriding a built-in setting in the monitor with a computer generated calibration.

[MHMG]

Here's a validation target that may be of interest. It does require Photoshop to view the target at 100% magnification (people on the latest 4k monitors may need to try 200%) and also to open/close various PSD layers. The target's intended purpose is to validate how well your calibration method, either instrumented or visual, has handled the very important grey scale performance across the full tonal range. Linearity at the extreme ends of the tonal scale plus freedom from "color ripple" throughout the highlights, mid tones, and especially shadows are usually the characteristics which separate high-end monitors and great calibration software from lesser performing equipment.

http://aardenburg-imaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/MonitorCheckerv4.2_LAB.psd

cheers,
Mark

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Color management is rather like the graphic designers' and photographers' version of an English teacher warning, "If you can't say what you mean you won't mean what you say!".

CM gave me many expensive fits in the early days of this century. A few years ago when revising my desktop station I bought the terrific NEC PA301W to solve my display issues. It supports 98% of the Adobe RGB gamut and comes with an integrated version of the X-Rite calibration system which nags me every month for recalibration, although it doesn't really drift noticeably. (I use an X-Rite i1|Display Pro with my MacBook Pro but, frankly, I think any of the systems mentioned above would do just as good of a job...to the extent that a "job" really needs to be done at all.

I think the general color quality and consistency of displays has tremendously improved, especially with the demise of tube monitors. That, plus the great improvement in inkjet print technologies has enabled many people, particularly amateur photographers, to largely shrug at color management and be very productive with uncalibrated off-the-shelf equipment. Indeed the iPad and the Retina iMac displays have become my own reference standards for electronic (emitted light) presentation. Purists may quibble with such a standard but the naked fact remains that it represents the medium that the vast majority of my target audience use to view my images.

Anecdote: Several years ago I became acquainted with a fellow who had become the main go-to digital retoucher, color grader, and printer for an impressive number of very hot contemporary fine art photographers. When the subject of CM came up over lunch one day I was very surprised to see him whiff the subject away like a fart. He claimed not to exert himself at color-calibrating his workflow. He claimed to largely eyeball the whole process. Looking at the prints he produced and the files he often used as source material (which were often -ahem- far from finished) I was just a bit suspicious of his claim.

But today I can see that such an approach is very feasible for even the less-skilled among us. Color is all about visual relationships. If you can manage those relationships and your equipment is reliably and reasonably consistent then you probably don't need to buy into a CM system at all any more.

[David Parsons]

I'm one of those people who tried calibrating and found that it doesn't make that much of a difference for my work.

Color inaccuracy is greatly overstated as a problem. IME, it's not really a problem that most monitors have, especially now with LCD monitors. They are good enough from the factory and don't drift like CRTs do.

It's something of a fetish for some people to be constantly concerned that the color is just so.

For those people who need to prepare their work for pre-press or have specific needs to match their monitors to their prints then they have the tool to do that. I just don't think most people really need it.

[DavidB]

"
...I took so long between calibrations that I found that my version of the Spyder is no longer supported by my OS..."

Nice to know that I'm not the only one that experience this!

[Dick Barbour]

Thanks to James for suggesting the alternate free software DisplayCal; I had never heard of it. I've been using the very simple-minded software that came with my Spyder4 Express (Express means cheap in tech-speak).The Express takes about 90 seconds and DisplayCal took about 90 minutes, profiling the heck out of my 23" Viewsonic. I've always been reasonably content with its color accuracy; my prints match the display pretty well in most cases. Looking at my photos with the new profile, it seems to me that there are more subtle shades of color visible than before. Is this possible, or is it wishful thinking? At least the price was right.

[John Gibson]

Please accept my apology for commenting here - on a different post.
The post I'm commenting on Was called "Blog Note: TOP Gets Dragged Into the Twenty-Teens".
Just this:
If your new layout supports 'reader mode' in Safari on iOS, that would be great.
I support all of the comments along the lines of - we come here for your perspective and that of the community, but ease of reading would be a nice bonus.

[Adrian]

In reply to John Holmes post: "What is the value in calibrating my monitor when those who only view my images on their digital devices haven't calibrated theirs?"

In addition to what you replied Mike, I would also add that processing a photo on an un-profiled/calibrated monitor is like composing a song on an un-tuned piano. When the resulting score is played on either an out-of-tune or an in-tune piano then both will be aural disasters, as will any out-of-the-box un-profiled/calibrated cheapo monitor reveal all the faulty processing of a photograph that was developed with decisions based on incorrect visual feedback from an un-profiled/calibrated monitor.
On the other hand, processing with a profiled and calibrated monitor ensures that when the image is viewed on an uncalibrated monitor it will have an internal integrity that will make it look as good as anything that monitor can display. In other words, it will look great to that viewer, even if the photographer cringes at the poorly rendered image.

[James Ziegler]

Next time you need to do a calibration, you could also consider renting the device. Lensrentals.com has a ColorMunki available to rent:
http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/micro-four-thirds/accessories/calibration/colormunki

Since it is a higher end device (one that can do prints apparantly,) renting is cheaper than buying if you don't need it regularly.

[Gordon Cahill]

I still find it bizarre that any serious photographer would happily drop thousands on a new lens or body and then moan about spending a hundred or so on a colorimeter, or even worse think they can calibrate to an ICC standard by eye.

Remembering that calibration is about consistency and not accuracy a hardware calibration just means you *know* your monitor is the closest it can be to the standard rather than thinking it's good enough.

Gordon

[Tim Smith]

Lots of good information in this series of comments. I will only add to what a few have already implied. A caution that monitors, even the most expensive and very best, do not last forever.

When I purchased my first Eizo monitor 10 years ago, I justified the expense to myself by thinking it would be the "last monitor I'll ever need". But it wasn't. It reached a point of exhaustion and wasn't able to pump out the stuff required to meet my preferred target.

My guess is that buying a calibration device in order to breathe new life into an older monitor is unlikely to be worthwhile (at least, not for very long).

[John Seidel]

Let me add my voice to those who locate their Spider calibration device only to find that, instead of offering updated software that will work on your new system, they expect you to buy a whole new Spider just to get current software. No thanks. Ctein's observations on calibration brought me joy. I'd already gone that direction, but having educated confirmation really removed that lingering doubt. The chain from camera to computer to printer is almost magical–but not always in a good way.

[Robert Roaldi]

I'm surprised no one has come up with a way to use a D-SLR to calibrate a screen.