Which Calibration Tool + Poll

Saxi, it was good to hear from you and your expirence with the Spyder 3. I still have not pulled the trigger yet on my calibtation tool but I am almost certian I will be getting the Eye One 2.

BigAlz1 wrote in post #8286769
Saxi, it was good to hear from you and your expirence with the Spyder 3. I still have not pulled the trigger yet on my calibtation tool but I am almost certian I will be getting the Eye One 2.

My concern with the eye one is from what i understand it does not support larger gamut monitors.

Man I am all confused about which to get.

Been looking at the spyder3 and the eye-one display 2 but having a real hard time deciding on which to get.
I am mainly using a 17" laptop for my editing (until I get the funds together for a new desktop system) so I can't expect miracles but should probably go with one that has luminance settings due to this.

Oh well, I will figure it out eventually I suppose.

dbdigitals wrote in post #8286786
Man I am all confused about which to get.

Been looking at the spyder3 and the eye-one display 2 but having a real hard time deciding on which to get.
I am mainly using a 17" laptop for my editing (until I get the funds together for a new desktop system) so I can't expect miracles but should probably go with one that has luminance settings due to this.

Oh well, I will figure it out eventually I suppose.

I'm in the same boat, the Spyder 3 Pro gave me lots of problems, the Eye One I don't think does Wide Gamut monitors, the Color Munki is expensive and has very mixed reviews about bad support and activation issues. I don't want to spend $1,000 on a calibration tool for a hobby but my monitor is all mucked up, I can't even edit photos as I can't get the thing right. I can get the color good but brightness is absolutely impossible. If I bring the brightness down what I believe it is 90 or even 120 luminance it looks like crap.

I've used both the Spyder2 and the Spyder3 and have always heard only good reports on them!

im in the same boat working off a dell 15in xps laptop. My images look light on my screen but when printed or put up online they look very dark. Im trying to also figure which system to purchase without breaking the bank.

I'm even more confused now...

What's a wide gamut monitor and how do I find out mine? I've got a 21 inc AOC 210v widescreen monitor.

I can see I can select 'gamma1', 'gamma 2' and 'gamma 3'. I'm on gamma 1 now.

Rgds

I'm pretty much done with DataColor, their guy on their forums was pretty rude. I mentioned I've been having this problem for a while, he told me to contact support and I said I did and after about a month of going back and forth I gave up. His response, "what year was this?". I've brought my brightness down to 10, 20, 30, and even 65 (which is before the whites start to turn grey) and calibrated each time. When I enter my room, I can just see the blue in the background. No matter what I do, it just doesn't work well. My left monitor has a yellow cast, my right one has a blue cast. Both of them are just too bright but without luminance testing, I can't really adjust it unless I upgrade to the elite client. There is a way to get a luminance rating if you set it to a target and use ambient continuous testing but I was told to target native. I know 10 brightness is around 90 luminance. I forget what 30 and 65 was, but 65 is what I am using now. I also removed the ICC profiles generated by the Spyder 3 Pro and everything looks so much better in terms of color. When I stand 20 feet back my screen looks white, not blue. I haven't messed much with the left one but I don't use it for photos really so I will just clear the ICC off that anyway.

the fact that spectraview software works best with the eyeone display 2 is what solidified my choice. I used to use a spyder2express kit and thought it was garbage....the eyeone is SO much better.

The comments about Spyder3 Elite made me go to Datacolor website and watch a video about the Elite software. I have the Spyder3 Pro and the Elite looked exactly like the Pro, not any difference at all as far as I could see, and the video was 9 minutes long and showed every screen in the whole calibration process.

Datacolor has a chart that shows all of these extras that the Elite has over the Pro, they also have a $99 upgrade offer. But what are you getting? Where are all of those options available with Elite? Like I said, I could see no difference at all. Has anyone used both or upgraded from Pro to Elite?

Kent Clark wrote in post #8299206
The comments about Spyder3 Elite made me go to Datacolor website and watch a video about the Elite software. I have the Spyder3 Pro and the Elite looked exactly like the Pro, not any difference at all as far as I could see, and the video was 9 minutes long and showed every screen in the whole calibration process.

Datacolor has a chart that shows all of these extras that the Elite has over the Pro, they also have a $99 upgrade offer. But what are you getting? Where are all of those options available with Elite? Like I said, I could see no difference at all. Has anyone used both or upgraded from Pro to Elite?

I think you have the ability to target luminance and black point where I can only adjust luminance with Pro but I can't really do that on an LCD I can only run it a quirky way to just see what it is without calibration then go back and calibrate it. I believe there are also additional targets outside of the standard native, 5000, 6500 at 1.8, 2.0, 2.2 gamma and so on. Otherwise I believe it is very similar. It looks like you really need Elite to do anything useful, but with the color casts I just can't believe it will fix it. Even Data color couldn't figure it out.

Cathpah wrote in post #8299195
the fact that spectraview software works best with the eyeone display 2 is what solidified my choice. I used to use a spyder2express kit and thought it was garbage....the eyeone is SO much better.

I don't think Eye One can work on newer monitors that have larger gamut ranges, this is the big reason I didn't touch them. The color munki does and the blue lacey or whatever it is called, but the color munki has lots of bad feedback about horrid support and funky software, the blue lacey looks interesting (same puck as eye one though) but at $400+ I would want to do print as well.

Saxi, it sounds to me that the extras in Pro don't technically apply to LCD monitors, and therefore aren't that useful. What I mean is that Datacolor stressed in the video and it stressed to me in an email exchange when I first bought the Spyder3 Pro that you should leave LCDs at the factory default, don't play around with the rgb sliders, etc, etc. When you do that it seems that much of the Elite additions become meaningless, except for the wider range of color temperature and gamma values. That might be useful but I doubt it's worth $100.

Saxi wrote in post #8299247
I don't think Eye One can work on newer monitors that have larger gamut ranges,

If this article is what you are referring to, that's a totally different issue: That of safari assuming "monitor profile" for untagged images. Which is rather silly design by Apple IMO. And a not too well written article either IMO. Use FF 3.0.11 and you'll have no problems.

This article mentions it should work fine: Link, while some people in this thread report problems, others report no problems at all...
I'd probably contact iOne and ask.

Saxi wrote in post #8299247
blue lacey

LaCie Blue Eye.
Needs a LaCie 300/500 Series monitor for fully automatic mode. IMO if you own a different screen, it offers no advantage over other calibrators. (If you do own a lacie, it's nice)

Saxi wrote in post #8299247
but the color munki has lots of bad feedback about horrid support and funky software,

ColorMunki software has gotten an update recently (there's a thread on POTN somewhere).
It can now produce V2 profiles, and you can set a target for luminosity. These were the two major drawbacks AFAIK.

Saxi wrote in post #8299247
the blue lacey looks interesting (same puck as eye one though) but at $400+ I would want to do print as well.

ColorMunki is the only one you mentioned that also does print.

Souwalker wrote in post #8298706
I'm even more confused now...

What's a wide gamut monitor and how do I find out mine? I've got a 21 inc AOC 210v widescreen monitor.

I can see I can select 'gamma1', 'gamma 2' and 'gamma 3'. I'm on gamma 1 now.

Rgds

bump

hate to do this but I'm still confused about my question