Monitor calibration

[Stephen Dwyer 10]

Hi Folks

Just wondering whether/ how often you calibrate your monitors. What product recommendations you might have? My monitor is fairly new but a printing house says I need to calibrate. 

thanks 

Stephen

[MDM 953]

The age of the monitor is completely irrelevant. The factory calibrations are usually out to way out. You can get away without colour management if you are just uploading stock as you are never checking against any standard but when you want to print (lab or home) it becomes essential (getting accurate skin tones for example)

 

It's a toss up between X-Rite and Spyder. I use the X-Rite i1 Display PRO which is decently specified device (£178 at the moment, don't know what it costs in Oz). The cheaper ones give less choice basically.  A good grey card is also essential (e.g. X-Rite Mini Grey Scale Balance Chart) as you take a shot of this in the same light as your images and use it to get an accurate white balance in your raw converter (needless to say shooting raw is essential). A Color Checker Passport (which is now at version 2 it seems and includes a grey card) is worth having as it allows you to calibrate your camera as well if you want to go that far. 

 

Spyder have similar stuff. 

 

 

[Harry Harrison 64]

Some monitor manufacturers will actually specify a particular calibrator. The above mentioned X-Rite i1 Display PRO is the only one that can be used with the specialist Dell software for some of its Ultrasharp monitors and the software will then adjust the internal hardware Look Up Table (LUT). I don't think you can go wrong with that calibrator.

[Martin Carlsson 429]

another vote for the X-Rite i1Display Pro, way better then the Spyder Express that I had before. The i1 does a great job of calibrating a dual screen setup, a bit of a challenging dual screen set up with one wide-gamut full HD Dell monitor and the other one being a 4K Benq rec709/sRGB monitor. Re-calibrate about every 2 months. The i1 can basically calibrate anything with a screen, so even calibrated computer connected TVs, which was a revelation in terms of betterment of colours and contrast etc.

[Allan Bell 1,557]

I use the X-Rite i1Display and it is very good.

 

As for frequency of re-calibrating I used to do it as often as X-Rite recommended but could see no difference on my 27" iMac screen so now re-cal about every four months and still see no difference.

 

Allan

 

[M.Chapman 963]

I use X-Rite i1 display too. Very happy with it. I've not seen any significant drift in my monitors over time, but uncalibrated I've found some were way out.

 

Mark

[John Mitchell 2,889]

I use the inexpensive ColorMunki Smile software. It's pretty basic and has a silly name but it seems to do a good job. It has probably been almost a year since I last calibrated. I wonder how necessary it is to do frequent calibrations. What might cause the calibration to go off?

[Rico 74]

For me, it's the Spyder 5 Elite. I recalibrate monthly (recommended).

What I notice is that the screen brightness goes awry once in a while

[Chuck Nacke 684]

Started with the Spyder3 and now using the Spyder5.

Been very happy with DataColor (Spyder).

Check Cal every month or two.

 

Chuck

[Harry Harrison 64]

I see that from the beginning of the year Datacolor now have a new puck & new software that replaces the Spyder 5. You can also pay a fairly modest amount to upgrade the software for the Spyder 5 though I haven't gone into the detail. Review from Northlight Images here:

 

http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/spyder-x-calibrator-review/

 

Actually some way through this review there is an interesting section under "Spyder tune" dealing with the issue that "One misconception people have about using a monitor calibrator is that it will make all screens look alike. It won’t – it will optimise any particular screen, but that doesn’t mean they will look the same."

 

Something that had bothered me slightly with my two, one having a better gamut than the other.

Edited July 3 by Harry Harrison

[John Mitchell 2,889]

3 hours ago, Rico said:

For me, it's the Spyder 5 Elite. I recalibrate monthly (recommended).

What I notice is that the screen brightness goes awry once in a while

 

Can't say that I notice any changes over time. However, I click the "reload current calibration settings" button in color management (Windows 7) now and then, but perhaps I should be calibrating more often.

Edited July 3 by John Mitchell

[Stephen Dwyer 10]

Hi Folks

Thanks for all of the valuable advice, much appreciated.

Stephen

[Alex Ramsay 383]

ColorMunki Display (X-rite) about every 2 months seems to keep my iMac on track (I do a fair bit of printing as well as colour-critical work for clients)

 

Alex