digital photography is starting to become a hobby of mine and i was looking at some of the programs available to calibrate monitors. anyone have any experience with this type of software?

i was looking at colorvision spyder 2 in particular. anyone have this software?

8/2/2005 8:54:58 AM

I dont think its just sofware. It has a calibration tool that actually sticks to your monitor.

8/2/2005 9:06:04 AM

ya i know. just curious if anyone had any personal experience with that program or any others.

8/2/2005 9:17:40 AM

This shit gets expensive. Unless you have a high end monitor, and do commercial level color correction for publishing on your computer, it's hard to justify the expense. Low end monitors aren't going to play well with the color correction tools.

8/2/2005 11:24:13 AM

i dunno if mine is considered high end... it is a samsung 19" flat screen (thin one).

yeah it does get pricey. not sure if the benefit is worth it.

8/2/2005 12:19:34 PM

the high end monitors are usually 21" trinitrons.

[Edited on August 2, 2005 at 1:34 PM. Reason : and they sell them with the calibration tool already installed.]

8/2/2005 1:33:51 PM

when it moves from hobby to self-sustaining endeavor, then you can worry about calibration

what are you shooting with?

8/2/2005 1:36:57 PM

There are a few free monitor calibration apps for Mac OS (one is built in to the OS). The way they work is that you look at the screen and move some sliders around until a certain pattern blends together. It makes a big difference. I would imagine there should be similar types of stuff for Windows.

There there are more expensive ones that come with a little camera type thing that you stick to your monitor and it auto calibrates it.

8/2/2005 1:43:56 PM

Don't buy the spyder if your LCD cost less than $800.00. You just won't get good enough results to justify the cost. If you're serious about this, you can get a really nice refurbished 21" Trinitron tube monitor in the low $200s.

Also, when it comes to calibrating LCDs, black level becomes much more important than color.

[Edited on August 2, 2005 at 1:50 PM. Reason : LCD thought]

8/2/2005 1:50:06 PM

gotcha.

^^^digital slr

i guess i got info i was interested in. wasn't sure how effective it'd be and if it'd be worth it.

[Edited on August 2, 2005 at 4:50 PM. Reason : er]

8/2/2005 4:49:39 PM

do you do white balances with that dslr? (which one?)

do you shoot in raw mode?

because if you're not doing those
you should probably worry about that more before you start focusing on your monitor

8/2/2005 4:55:59 PM

ya i do white balances and shoot in raw. i am really pretty pleased with my pics. just like gadgets and wondering if the calibration software really makes a difference.

kon. minolta maxxum 7d

8/2/2005 5:54:03 PM