Monitor Calibration - Spyder 3 Express

[Malcolm_Stewart]

If I buy something like the Spyder 3 Express gadget will it change how my monitor looks when I'm viewing the default Windows desktop, this browser window (latest Firefox), and things like my email viewer, games; or are the corrections limited to profiled software such as Photoshop etc.

Thanks.

[RonM]

Malcolm,

It basically profiles everything, the profile is loaded into your video card when you boot up, so everything you view on your monitor has that profile, which means that for example viewing images on t'internet is better

[GlennH]

The profile and calibration data are two different things. Settings such as gamma, luminance, and colour temperature are loaded at bootup.

However, the profile, which defines the individual characteristics of your monitor, can only be accessed by colour managed applications such as PS.

[Malcolm_Stewart]

Thanks guys for your replies.

Not having one of these or seen examples of the software, I'm still confused. Does the software have separate sections for calibration and profiling? Can they be individually applied? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick/Spyder!

[GlennH]

Calibration and profiling are all done as part of the same 2-stage process. Calibration sets the white point, gamma, and luminance, and then a series of colour patches are loaded onto your screen to create the profile.

That profile then gets stored as your OS default, and is automatically accessed by colour-managed programs such as Photoshop, which is then able to 'compensate' for the characteristics of your monitor to display colour correctly.

Non colour-managed applications such as Internet Explorer bypass this, so instead of the RGB values being mapped to your monitor profile they get sent straight to the graphics card - sometimes with very detrimental results depending upon your monitor and its gamut.

[Muffin]

Malcolm - do you mean the Spyder3Elite? I did finally buy one to go with my new NEC LCD monitor and it does work very well and it is very easy to use.

I was trying to calibrate my monitor visually and it just didn't work. You must get the moniitor calibration correct if you are to use CS2 etc etc to produce prints.

[PeteRob]

I bought the pro (as the first and cheapest step toward a decent monitor and a printer) and I was suprised how much difference it makes to my laptop screen. When the profile is applied the whole appearance changes - the effect is subtle and is not noticeable for icons etc. but I have a portrait of my grandson as a background image and the skin tone changes (for the better) when the custom profile loads some seconds into the startup procedure. In a colour managed application, DPP, I can see a big change in yellow-greens (sunlit grass)in some photos if I toggle from sRG to RGB as a workspace even with a "cheap" screen. So I think the calibration means that the screen displays the correct colour for the given image interpretation and that my screen is actually capable of more than sRGB in the green. So in Firefox, if the monitor has a wider than sRGB gamut I would expect you to see RGB images to be richer than with the standard sRGB monitor profile.

I also found that some images I had adjusted the colour on looked horrid and unnatural when the screen was calibrated. So mucking about with colours is to be avoided on an uncalibrated screen.

I use Vista and there is a bug (been reading about it all weekend, affects windows 7 too) that the custom profile gets forgotten when the screensaver comes on, the computer goes to sleep, you install a program, etc. There is a utility in the datacolour folder that lets you choose a profile - this reactivates the custom icm. A lot faster than rebooting which seems the only other option.

[Malcolm_Stewart]

Thanks for your reply, and the information about the bug.

I was hoping that I'd find a discounted Spyder or similar at Focus on Imaging, but I must have missed them if they were there, and I bought a lens instead.