Monitor Calibration

[carloshpvp]

I've been recently reading about monitor calibration and there are a lot of information available on the web that may lead one the be confused. As it seems to be my case. After reading some sources, I've narrowed my options down to Spyder 4 Express and x-rite Colormunki Smile as they seem to be more in accordance with my monitor pricetag (a DELL P2214H - equipped with an AH-IPS panel). So I'd like to know if anyone here could have an opinion about the performance of these two calibrators compared to each other. Or even a third option that could be more feasible.

[Donald]

I think the difficulty in answering your question is that people on here will have one or the other, or another product and, therefore, not be in a position to compare one against the other.

I use Spyder 3 and have always found it an excellent product. I am sure that Colormunki is as well liked by those who use it. In other words, I understand that each is a perfectly good product, well capable of doing the job required. It then comes down to simply a matter of personal preference.

[DanK]

I agree with Donald--most people are likely to have experience only with one.

I have an earlier x-rite calibrator, the i1 Display 2. (they have very confusing names.) It is no longer manufactured. I have had very good experience with it.

The only problem I know of is that sometimes when a new operating system comes out, it takes a while before the software is updated. If you use a Mac, make sure whichever you buy is compatible with your operating system.

you can get detailed customer reviews in several places, such as http://www.bhphotovideo.com/

[Richard Lundberg]

i've read comments suggesting that Color Munki Photo calibration of your printer (spectrophotometric) is not worth the additional price, particularly if you use Photoshop manages colors with an Epson printer and the correct settings. Accurate spectros cost lots more.

[Andrew1]

I use ColorMunki and find it works great if you prefer a simple set-up process. Run it in auto and leave it. It has pretty much the same hardware as its brother the i1Display Pro but the later is faster and the software has more user defined options in the advanced mode.

http://www.xrite.com/colormunki-display

http://blog.xritephoto.com/?p=7918

[Colin Southern]

Echoing Donald's experience. I too use a Spyder III.

By the way - calibration is only a small part of it; mostly what you're after is profiling.

[carloshpvp]

Thank you all for your inputs.
I've seen that profiling is key for color management.
If anybody else has any opinion on the models of x-rite colormunki smile and spyder 4 express it would be great too.

[Colin Southern]

Thank you all for your inputs.
I've seen that profiling is key for color management.
If anybody else has any opinion on the models of x-rite colormunki smile and spyder 4 express it would be great too.

Profiling is for both colour management and levels management. Think of the speedometer in you car; calibration would been adjusting it so that it was as mechanically accurate as possible and profiling would mean generating a correction card that nulled out the remaining differences. So the better the calibration, the smaller the profile correction required. So on the face of it, you'd think that starting with calibration would be the best thing to do (and it is in theory), but often people much calibration up making it even worse ... which is (I suspect) why most colorimeter manufacturers suggest just setting a monitor to it's factory defaults to start with.

In practice though, if you CAN get your black and white points and colour temp pretty close calibration wise, it gives more range in the profile for corrections, which is a good thing.

Off memory, I believe the Spyder IV has a new sensor which is better equipped to handle (increasingly more common) wider-gamut monitors with greater accuracy; I've got no idea if the Colormunki has technology on-par with this or not. If you can't decide, just get the Spyder.

[loosecanon]

I too use a Spyder III which works well. I have the Studio kit so also can calibrate my printers which it does reasonably quickly and profiles seem to work well. I also use ColorChecker Passport to calibrate camera profile. This gives me the confidence that when I send digital files to a printer for publications the final result will be within tollerences for colour and tones. The studio kit means I can use generic inks and papers and still print out good colour prints - ie. an A3 colour print at under £0.50 per print. The cost of the calibration equipment was paid for by the first job I used it for.

[RustBeltRaw]

I'm quite pleased with my Spyder4, but I can offer no comparison to the ColorMunki. They both do the same job to acceptable levels, so why lose sleep over it? Maybe I'm just OCD, but no longer having to worry about accurate monitor colors takes a load off my mind. And it was nice to confirm that the IPS panel in my laptop exceeded the advertised gamut.

[Colin Southern]

I too use a Spyder III which works well. I have the Studio kit so also can calibrate my printers which it does reasonably quickly and profiles seem to work well. I also use ColorChecker Passport to calibrate camera profile. This gives me the confidence that when I send digital files to a printer for publications the final result will be within tollerences for colour and tones. The studio kit means I can use generic inks and papers and still print out good colour prints - ie. an A3 colour print at under £0.50 per print. The cost of the calibration equipment was paid for by the first job I used it for.

/Start_Grrr

You're not calibrating the camera or the printer ...

... you're PROFILING it. Printer & camera calibrations aren't changing - you're only compensating by feeding it a different input to compensate.

/end_Grrr

[pnodrog]

Never dare to try and calibrate Colin but once you know his profile you can get excellent results......
My wife is much the same but I was not game to put it in writing....

[cmatei]

(a DELL P2214H - equipped with an AH-IPS panel)

I was searching info about this monitor. Do you find it reasonable for photo editing ? I'm particularly concerned about blacks, as I do astrophoto. FWIW, I have the spyder3 express, but I used it with linux software only, so I wasn't concerned about the different features in the software provided by the 'pro' options. Worked well enough for me.

[carloshpvp]

I was searching info about this monitor. Do you find it reasonable for photo editing ? I'm particularly concerned about blacks, as I do astrophoto. FWIW, I have the spyder3 express, but I used it with linux software only, so I wasn't concerned about the different features in the software provided by the 'pro' options. Worked well enough for me.

cmatei, I haven't received the monitor yet. DELL sends the monitor from US to Brazil and it takes some time to arrive. So I can't tell you by experience how the monitor performs. It seems that the panel is the same DELL uses in the standard gamut Ultrasharps. There is a review for its 24" sibling P2414H here: http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/dell_p2414h.htm

[ajohnw]

I went for the colormunki display because it was one of the 1st to definitely have filters in it that are suitable for LED monitors and could measure ambient light levels. The last turned out not to be that important but if a calibrator can't do that it's something else to wonder about.

There are a couple of sites that can help choose monitors and calibrators.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/

That one also shows the results after monitors are calibrated and gives suggestions on contrast and brightness settings.

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/viewing.html

Calibrator reviews and a lot of information on the general subject.

The pricing of calibrators varies on two fronts - spectrograph types = very expensive and then software provided even with those. One answer to that is to use this software with them

http://www.argyllcms.com/

along with this for monitors

http://dispcalgui.hoech.net/

These generate "proper" calibration reports. The trick to achieving the best possible calibration with these is to spend some time on the initial rgb balance. Say red is low. Increasing that might achieve an exact balance. If not a slight change to blue or green will at some point enable it to. Once that has been done a full set up can take as long as 45min. It makes very precise measurements.

I posted some reports on here some time ago. A search for dispcalgui or argyll colour management should bring them up.

John
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[carloshpvp]

I'd like to thank everybody for the valuable opinions.

I went for the Spyder4Express, which price droped to US$ 74 and I have a friend coming from the US this week.