monitor calibration

Does your monitor need to be calibrated even if you get prints done from a lab?....second....what calibration do you recomend?.....adobe gamma or colorvision spyder?

The short answer is yes! My monitor needs to be calibrated regardless of where I print the pictures. If I didn't calibrate the monitor, than the only place where my pictures would look right is on the same monitor. I use the Spyder2PRO. Works great!

The actual colorimeters are always preferable. I got the Spyder2PRO from BH for like 149.00

Visual calibration is better than none, but hardware calibration is better. If you want to be able to soft proof, then you must calibrate your monitor. The ONLY time I'd say it isn't important to is if you do absolutely no editing to your images before getting them printed, and even then you won't be able to quantify the quality of the print service since you have no color reference.