Choose Datacolor's color management hardware, software and support to save time and cut costs while increasing color accuracy. It basically seems like my own ColorVision Spyder 2 hardships. Well, i looked at each and every driver online sites, and finally stumbled upon 1 having ColorVision Spyder 2 direct download, therefore i installed it and it demolished my laptop computer - i recieve the hated (blueish computer screen. Now, i did what i should've done initially.

The Spyder 2 Pro – monitor calibration made easy

ColorVision’s latest version of the Spyder is a definite improvement

If you’re moving into colour management, then you’ve probably been told to start with your monitor.

Review Background. Keith has used the original Spyder for some time and in this review looks at some of the advantages of the new offering from ColorVision.

The latest version of the Spyder 2 Pro now supports digital projector calibration – this is covered in a separate review. See also our Spyder2express review.

Updates: We have reviews of all the newer Datacolor Spyder products too.

Why do you need to sort out your monitor?

There is really only one place to start with Colour Management – your monitor.

If it doesn’t actually display accurate colour, it’s difficult to get prints right and even more so getting anyone else to produce them accurately.

At it’s simplest you should adjust your monitor by eye to get good brightness and contrast.

There are various software tools that can help you in this (see the Viewing Page in the Gallery section) but these are at best a partial solution (they rely on your eyesight for one thing).

I’ve used the original ColorVision Spyder for some time now, for calibrating my main monitor (a 21″crt).

It works well and gives good consistent results, although the two part software solution (PreCAL and OptiCAL) does seem a little clunky sometimes.
I’ve also noticed problems with some LCD screens, where the greyscale performance in particular was less than inspiring.

The recent announcement of the Spyder 2 and it’s all new software looked as if it might well improve the situation, without having to spend more money on some of the other solutions on the market.

I decided to see how much had changed…

• Will the Spyder make my monitor match my prints?
  I’ve been asked this several times and have written a short article on how it will help, but why you need to consider some other factors as well.

What does the equipment do?

There are two main aspects of getting your monitor set up correctly:

Firstly, how do you characterise the actual performance of the display. For example…

• How red is bright red
• What colour is displayed at R=127,G=127,B=127 (should be a mid grey)
• How linear is the brightness output with changing input values

This is ‘Profiling’ your monitor

I often get asked for suggestions about learning more about the nuts and bolts of Colour Management.

My usual suggestion is Bruce Fraser’s Real World Colour Management. My own copy is well thumbed. It’s my first port of call if I’m asked a question and I feel I don’t quite understand an issue well enough to be absolutely sure of an answer.

Check latest price/availability from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

RWCM 1st Edition RWCM
RWCM 2nd Edition RWCM Other Amazon sites
Amazon France / Amazon Germany / Amazon Canada

See some other books Keith has on the shelf, on our Books Page

Secondly, making the monitor perform as a ‘standard’ device

• What gamma do you want to have (I use 2.2 for my displays now)
• What colour temperature do you want (I use 6500)
• What black and white point luminances do you want

This is ‘Calibration’

It’s worth remembering that you are actually measuring the whole monitor/display card combination, since some aspects of monitor display can depend on the capabilities of your video card.

How does it work?

The examples below are all on Apple Macs, but the software is supplied for windows PCs as well (Windows: 2000, XP. Macintosh: OS X 10.2+).

It is also important that the sensor just measures what comes from the screen, so avoid bright lights (like the flash I used to take the pictures :-) and make sure that the monitor has been on long enough to stabilise (an hour is suggested).

Installation consists of running the installer on the CD, then you plug in the USB measuring device and fire up the software. The sensor measures the light coming from the screen when the software displays various colours and greys. At it’s simplest, you just follow the default settings and instructions and you end up with a profiled screen calibrated (in the case of my 23″ LCD below) to a Gamma of 2.2 and a temperature of 6500.

There is a weight attached to the lead that you can slide along the wire and balance the weight of the sensor. In the picture below, it is behind the screen. With LCDs you use a filter attachment and the sensor lays flat against the screen, while with CRTs the filter unit comes off to reveal small suckers that hold the scanner in place.

Measuring device on an Apple 23″ LCD display – the screen is tilted back so that the sensor makes good contact

After running the checks, the software shows the PDI test image (available here) and allows you to see the difference that your new settings have made. Do remember that if there has been a lot of adjustment, the ‘new’ settings may look a bit odd, especially if you have been using the monitor uncalibrated for a while. This is perfectly normal and very quickly you won’t notice it.

Test image allows comparison of settings

So, that was it … I’d just set up my monitor. The greyscale in particular looked very smooth. There have been reports that the large Apple LCD has a smoother greyscale if you use the display’s ‘native’ temperature rather than 6500. I tried this and the differences were minimal. It might be worth checking your own LCD displays with this option, unless you specifically need a cetain setting.

Now to do my laptop – this had not been very good at all with the old Spyder – but then I never use the laptop for critical work.

Just as easy to run and the greyscale was now without the slight colours that I’d noticed when trying out the old Spyder.

Calibrating a G4 Powerbook

The software certainly seems easier to use, not that the old version was difficult, just this one seemed to do everything it needed without fuss.

I took the device round to my old CRT. This is starting to show signs of it’s age and compared to the new Apple 23″ LCD looks soft and dim. Removing the LCD filter I stuck the sensor to the screen – it didn’t fall off- and ran the software. Quite a few more options were available since the CRT has many more controls. The picture below shows the CRT’s own adjustment menu (below sensor), where I’m adjusting the individual colours to balance them (upper right window) This was part of the PreCAL software in the original Spyder package.

The process was not difficult to follow, and there are numerous help screens available at most stages. One thing you can set is how often the software will remind you to calibrate your monitor. I have mine set up to remind me every two weeks, but you can choose your own settings — I know some people who do it every day!

Setting up a CRT

So I’d managed to calibrate all three main monitors I use in less than an hour, and that included installing the software. Subsequent recalibration is quicker, unless you need to reset brightness/contrast settings as well. It is worth mentioing that if you (or anyone else) make -any- adjustments to the monitor then the calibration will need to be repeated.

I tend to use the three machines for quite different uses and rarely at the same location. This was one reason that I was happy to accept the defaults values for calibration. If I’d got half a dozen monitors in a single office I’d probably be much more keen to have them calibrated to consistent values so that people moving work from one machine to another would see the same view. More advanced modes of the software allow you to customise most settings for the particular task and hardware you are using.

For example, this gets more important if you are using special lighting for proofing, and need to work to much higher levels of accuracy.

Most of my photographic work is not so colour critical, so the default 6500,2.2 settings were fine.

Custom targets and curve adjustment allow you to reproduce all kind of set-ups, but … if you are going to be making use of the advanced settings, you should already have quite a lot of colour management knowledge — if not then I’d suggest you take the time to learn about it…

If you know why you want ITU-R Rec. BT.709 then by all means use it, otherwise it’s probably best to stick to the defaults :-)

The sensor can also be used as a colorimeter to measure screen colours and can handle the calibration of multiple screens on the same computer.

The range of solutions

The package I’ve been looking at is the Spyder 2 Pro. At the moment it also comes bundled with nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 Standard Edition, PANTONE colorist, and ColorVision DoctorPRO.

Colorvision Spyder 2 Driver Windows 7

It includes a site license for calibrating all your monitors (Mac and PC)

The picture below shows my old Spyder and the new Spyder 2 Pro. The new LCD filter (top) is much easier to fit than the old one. Not shown are the LCD balance weights, once again the new solution wins on simplicity

The only thing not improved is the box– I rather like the old cloth covered black box

Old and new Spyders

ColorVision also offer simplified calibration hardware and software that might better suit other users.

The table below is taken from ColorVision info (you should check their site for the latest prices and details of bundled software).

Update – as of Autumn 2009

Spyder products feature comparisons

Information from Datacolor:

Spyder3 V3 vs V4 software features (May 2010) – S3Elite V4 review

Product features (late 2009)

Colorvision Spyder 2 Windows 10

Summary

Buying the Spyder4 Elite

We make a specific point of not selling hardware, but if you found the review of help please consider buying the Spyder, or any other items at all, via our links with Amazon or B&H
Amazon UK link / Amazon Fr / Amazon De
Amazon USA link / Amazon Canada link

It won’t cost any more (nor less we’re afraid) but will contribute towards the running costs of our site.

A solid, easy to use bit of kit.

The Amazon link to the right goes to the current equivalent, the Spyder4Elite

Just when advances in monitor technology were beginning to show up some of the deficiencies in my old Spyder, along comes one that is both easier to use and more accurate.

The grey scale improvements are particularly welcome, given the amount of black and white photography I do.

As ever, I’d advise you to do some research of your own before making buying decisions, but I’m more than happy with the results I get with the new Spyder.

It never was difficult to use, but the attention paid to interface design in the new software is welcome.

A very capable device … even if I still prefer the box that the old one came in… :-)

Update – after several weeks of use I decided that the display on my Powerbook was slightly better at ‘Native’ settings, and the Apple 23″ was fine at 6500.

As I said, I don’t usually use the Powerbook for critical work…

Feature matrix updated (Mar. 2006) after our review of the Spyder2express ($99)

Note – 2008 – The range has been further extended, but the Spyder 2 Pro is still a worthwhile bit of kit, and very good value for money.

If you’re reading one of our older reviews because you’ve been given some equipment, do note that not only may there no longer be software supporting the device, but it may work less well with newer LED backlit and wide gamut monitors.

Update 2012 – New reviews of Datacolor’s latest Spyder4Express and Spyder4Elite

2008 – We have a similar tables covering the Spyder2express, Spyder3Pro and Spyder3Elite

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More colour management and printing related information

For information about printers, paper reviews and profiling (colour management) see the Printing section of the main printers and printing page, or use the search box at the top of any page.
All colour management articles and reviews are indexed on the main Colour Management page - please do let Keith know if you've any questions, either via the comments or just email us?

Some specific articles that may be of interest:

• Why don't my prints match my screen? A short article showing why there is more to getting your prints to match your screen, than just calibrating your monitor. It's the vital first step, but you do need to consider some other factors for best results.
• Why are my prints too dark - some basic suggestions to this common problem.

Articles below by Keith(Google's picks for matching this page)

Before starting a calibration cycle, the software cautions you to make sure your monitor is properly warmed up before proceeding. In most cases, excessive brightness will only produce eye fatigue and interfere with your ability to discriminate shadow detail. WOW that was hard. When calibrating a monitor, the first thing you have to do is to make sure that the sensor head is only seeing light from the display. Skip to main content. A side note about display brightness here: Advanced Color and Tone Adjust Features Sophisticated Gray Balance and Tonal Response Algorithms provide demanding users with exceptionally smooth gradient steps and neutral grays, while an advanced feature set is available including RGB Pre-Calibration function, multiple gamma and color temperature options, and multi-monitor capability.

While that has a little value, we’re more than a bit leery of advising our readers based on colorvisoon subjective data. If we were actually going through the full multi-monitor calibration workflow, this would just be a coarse adjustment that would be refined later through actual measurements by the Spyder2.

As just noted though, I recommend a conservative approach in twiddling the settings on LCD monitors, as that’s often a recipe for failure, or at least difficulty.

There’s some debate about how frequently you should recalibrate. When this happened, some steps of the process required us to move the Spyder, bring up the on-screen menu, adjust the relevant control setting, dismiss the menu, and then reposition the Spyder, for every adjustment.

Comprehensive Calibration Wizard Easy-to-Use Calibration Wizard with comprehensive help guides you through the entire calibration process and the unique before and after viewing feature lets you compare your display with and without calibration.

64-bit Windows Vista/7/8 Driver

Advanced Color and Tone Adjust Features Sophisticated Gray Balance and Tonal Response Algorithms provide demanding users with exceptionally smooth gradient steps and neutral grays, while an advanced feature set is available including RGB Pre-Calibration function, multiple spyfer and color temperature options, and multi-monitor capability.

Styluses for Surface Pro 2. On the Spyder, this weight is permanently attached, surrounding the cable, and slides up and down with moderate force.

Since we left colorvlsion black and white luminance boxes blank in the setup screens, the software just made the set point here equal to the value it measured.

ColorVision Spyder2pro Color Calibration System Spyder 2 Pro

Pro-level features include multiple monitor calibration and matching, custom targeting, and curves manipulation. Colorision also don’t need to obsess about getting the sensor exactly centered, it’s fine if it’s off-center by a quarter inch or so in any direction.

This gave us greater confidence in the accuracy of its calibrations. All we can do is make subjective comparisons between how the screens look. Furthermore, the 2nd generation Spyder sensor included has been construc ted before !

ColorVision Spyder2pro Color Calibration System Spyder 2 Pro | eBay

If the display had a separate brightness control, we’d get a second screen showing a series of very dark blocks, with the instruction to adjust the brightness level until we could just make out all four blocks. Easy to install and very easy to use. WOW that was hard. Particularly with lower-end LCDs, some systems we tested would occasionally produce obviously wild-looking results with a given monitor, but then come back and generate a decent-looking calibration on the next run.

As noted above, if you’re calibrating an LCD, make sure the LCD filter is attached to the sensor head, drape the weight down the back of the screen, and position the sensor head on the screen where indicated.

Screen Calibration with Spyder 2 Pro on Vimeo

This presents soft felt pads to the face colkrvision the LCD, rather than suction cups, and the filter helps the sensor measure the colors from LCD panels more accurately. If you can afford it, the ColorVision Spyder2PRO gives the most flexibility and bang for the buck, and is what we use here.

Like a number of other calibrators, the Spyder2 comes with a small counterweight attached to its cable. I guess that’s OK if you have no options available for controlling the light levels in your work area, but if you’re doing critical color work, it’s crazy not to try to control the ambient lighting. This screen is where you tell the software what type of display you’re working with.

Spyder2pro Windows 10

The item may have some signs of cosmetic wear, but is fully operational and functions as intended.

Apple iLife 11 – Upgrade for Coorvision That was my fault to begin with, calibration just showed me the error of my ways. The Wizard guides you through each step of the way and Help is just a click away if needed.

We hope to bring you a colorvisino soon, showing the process so you can see how easy it is. The considerably more expensive Gretag MacBeth EyeOne Pro is a true spectrophotometer, collecting data at many points across the color spectrum, but our admittedly subjective tests didn’t find a noticeable advantage to the Eye-One Pro’s finer-grained color measurements.

Spyder 2 Express Windows 10

Some lower-end calibrators can only handle single monitor per computer, the one carrying the menu bar on a Mac, or the one with the Start menu on it in Windows. Ideally, you want lighting that’s on the dim side of normal relative to typical office illumination, and that approximates the Kelvin of your monitor screen.

It’s still an annoyance that we’d like to see ColorVision fix in future spydwr of the Spyder’s software though. If you have a brightly lit room that you can’t can’t manage to make any dimmer, then by all means crank it up.

Colorvision Spyder 2 Pro Driver

This award winning product uses the Spyder2 colorimeter, wizard driven software, and the most comprehensive calibration feature set on the market today.

Colorvision Spyder 2 Pro Driver Windows 7