Monitor Calibrators

LH
Posted By
Lawrence_Hudetz
Jan 22, 2009
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679
Replies
16
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Closed
Has anyone here any experience with ColorVision Spyder v3? My supplier won’t carry it any more due to problems in the past. I have version 1 and no complaints. In preparation for upgrading the monitor, I’m looking into updating the calibrator as well.

reviews are quite favorable, and the price is right.
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RP
Russell_Proulx
Jan 22, 2009
Seems a LOT of people are happy with the "i1Display 2" and "1Display LT" from X-rite. Haven’t tried their new ‘ColorMunki Photo’ solution but I heard it was good too.

I’ve been very happy using a Monaco Optix on XP using the OptixPro software. Monaco was bought by x-Rite and they discontinued it. It still works fine with XP. For Vista64 I bought ‘ColorEyes Display Pro’ software that can use the Monaco (XRite DTP94) sensor and it seems very good.

fwiw, I stopped using Colorvision products a long time ago. My 1st hardware calibrator was an MC7 sensor from Colorvision (circa 1999) and then I used the original Spyder. I lost confidence in their products before they came out with the Spyder 3 product line. Many folks claim it’s a LOT better. But it was too late for me. There’s nothing worse than working on a mis-calibrated system and not being aware that it’s wrong.

Russell
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Jan 22, 2009
Thanks, Russell

I have not had a bad profile from Spyder 1, so I must be in the minority.

I’ll keep looking.
RP
Russell_Proulx
Jan 23, 2009
I have not had a bad profile from Spyder 1, so I must be in the minority.

Have you tried anything else? How do you know your profiles are accurate? I guess for some folks ‘good enough’ is good enough. But how do you know it really is?

If you’re a photographer then you are aware of the inverse square law. How well do you think a sensor can measure light accurately when it’s taking incident light readings 1/8-1/4" from a screen while being held in place with suction cups that are gradually coming off. I think not..

As soon as I see a white plastic disc covering a sensor I move on. I consider that a fatal design flaw. And how many colour patches does it assess? 5..10..20?? certainly not the 90 or more patches that semi-pro (and up) software uses to generate reliable ‘table based’ profiles.

Russell
B
BJNicholls
Jan 23, 2009
I’ve read reviews of older Colorvision Spyder tools that indicate the hardware was inconsistent. On reviewer had to go through three devices to get one that worked correctly. I’ve also seen that Colorvision had a poor attitude toward user problems. I haven’t seen similar problems communicated about the Spyder 3 product, but I use the i1 Display 2 tool.

I also own Colormunki Design and find, on the rare occasion a profile actually finishes, that the profile results are poor and the display profiling software is dumbed-down to the point that I couldn’t recommend it to even a casual user. That is, I wouldn’t recommend it even if it did work, which it doesn’t. I’m on my second colorimeter and the lastest software doesn’t recognize it on three different computers.
RP
Russell_Proulx
Jan 23, 2009
I also own Colormunki Design and find, … the profile results are poor .. I couldn’t recommend it to even a casual user. That is, I wouldn’t recommend it even if it did work, which it doesn’t.

Another happy customer 🙂

Thanks for the heads-up..
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Jan 23, 2009
First of all, Russell, I am a long time engineer specializing in instrumentation, and such laws as power laws are second nature to me. "I think not" is no conclusive evidence. And, all sensors are displaced from the actual light emitting surface by the same amount, the thickness of the glass.

If I find the sensor cups have dislodged, I repeat the measurement and compare the results. I have not found any discrepancies. I even check the results with room lights on and off.

So far as accuracy, I have little to complain about; mostly the way a particular image looks between a version with transmitted light vs reflected, a difference known to all who have ever printed from a transparency.

For several years, I ran an Epson 9600 for a friend who owned a photo store. He had a monitor calibrated with an Eye 1, so one day, I traded calibrators with him, and calibrated both is and mine together, then switched profiles. I especially wanted to do that as I was doing specialty corrections and scans on 4×5, which he could not do. The differences were so minor that at times, we didn’t know which was which!

ColorVision’s customer service was really good to me. they notified me that the puck I bought had cable problems which would render the puck useless, and offered to replace it free, after the warranty period expired, and before I had any problems.

I have considerable experience with optical measurements in the near and far infrared regions, which, except for wavelength, differ little from these kinds of measurements. I proved at one point that the optical power meters in use at that time, even though calibrated to +/-3%, were actually off as a collection by 10%, forcing a re-evaluation of the calibration techniques employed.

I know what to look for.

I posted here because of the problem cited in my post and I want to get some feedback as to current problems, if any. Speculation based on the past has no value to me, so if you know something or have a link, I would appreciate it.

Thank you. 🙂

Too bad about Colormunki. It’s not cheap.
RP
Russell_Proulx
Jan 23, 2009
And, all sensors are displaced from the actual light emitting surface by the same amount, the thickness of the glass.

My point was that an incident meter reading (ie the white disc) will be affected by any change in the light source to sensor distance whereas a reflected meter reading will not.

I’ll butt out now as I have no info to offer on the Spyder3 🙂

You might like to check out Adobe Color Management forum though where you might find good answers. There’s also the colorsync-users list <http://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/colorsync-users> where many ‘color management geeks’ dwell. There’s a searchable archive online that might have useful threads on the Spyder3.

Russell
DM
dave_milbut
Jan 23, 2009
maybe adobe needs to add kickbacks to the vid card manufacturers to the budget as the program relies so heavily on driver support.
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Jan 23, 2009
Thanks, Russell.

With respect to the incident/vs reflective, the square law falloff applies to reflective as well, as now the light source is the reflection. If the source is diffuse and large, the systems will behave similarly.

In both cases, especially outdoors, tha actual source of illumination is, FAPP, infinity.
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Jan 23, 2009
Dave, wrong thread? 😀
DM
dave_milbut
Jan 23, 2009
mayhap larry, mayhap. 🙂
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Jan 24, 2009
Ok , some results.

For openers, here’s an interesting website:

<http://www.colourcollective.co.uk/uk/>

See the article on calibrators.

More to the point, I visited my supplier just while the digital guy was running print profiles with the Data Color Studio suite, and it wasn’t sweet at all. Soft proofing after profiling showed color casts in white areas that changed from profile to profile, done minutes apart. The 3D projection of the profile was ghastly. Of course, I wasn’t looking for the whole suite, just the monitor cal, so I checked out the article in the link above.

I’ve come down on the side of the i1 Display 2. Unfortunately, they have no stock, so I ordered one through Amazon.

Here’s another interesting site:

<http://www.ugra.ch/index.php?show=3>

If you check in the color collective site, you will find an article on the LaCie 724, which has a report by UGRA on the 724. It looks quite good, yet, the same store I checked today is returning two 724s to LaCie for non-uniformity, both for luminance and one also for color cast, from magenta at one corner to blue at the other.

I’m intrigued by UGRA. It looks to be a serious, carefully structured organization, sort of the Wilhelm Imaging Research of calibration and profiling, but much more intensive. We most likely will hear more from them.
LH
Lawrence_Hudetz
Jan 27, 2009
I got the McBeth i1 Display 2 last night and ran both the Quick Cal and the Advanced. It indicates that I have plenty of life yet in this Mitsubishi crt and did a beautiful job in profiling, such that the subtle colors read more accurate. There is s "creaminess", almost as if i picked up dot pitch.

I think their Help and information can be better done, however. A novice is likely to have problems figuring out the details.

And Russ, the old Colorvision puck sticks better than the i1. It fell off the screen onto the keyboard!

The Quick cal and Advanced matched perfectly, so unless you have individual RGB adjustments, you don’t need to use the Advanced. Curiously, the advanced showed the three guns well off, even though using the balance utility in the Mitsu shows pretty good balance. Once I got those correct, the brightness came up past 90.
B
Buko
Jan 28, 2009
I just love my iOne 2
RP
Russell_Proulx
Jan 28, 2009
Russ, the old Colorvision puck sticks better than the i1. It fell off the screen onto the keyboard!

I still prefer my XRite DTP94 as it does not use any attaching system. It just rests gently on the slightly tilted monitor. I didn’t think the i1 used suction cups? Anyway.. glad to hear it’s working well 🙂
BC
Bart_Cross
Jan 28, 2009
I’ll second the old Xrite DT94

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