Datacolor Spyder4 Elite and Spyder4 Pro Monitor Calibration Kits

Making sure your monitor is properly calibrated for daylight temperatures and ambient light conditions is an essential task.

Monitor calibration is one of those tasks that no-one likes and many disregard altogether. The thing is, as a photographer, you are then making adjustments in Photoshop and the like, based on how the image looks to you on screen. If the screen isn’t set up properly, when you upload or send that image to someone else, either for printing or viewing, it may look significantly different.

The Datacolor Spyder 4 Elite is the top-of-the-range model in the new 4 series. There are also Pro and Express versions at reduced prices, which have less functionality but still do a great job. The Elite model sets everything up with a checklist to make sure the monitor is warm and no intense light is falling on it.

There are three ways of calibrating; the first is wizard-driven, the second involves matching multiple monitors and the last is full control for expert users. Going down the hand-held route, there’s an ambient light sensor check, though the instructions make no mention of where this should be placed.

However, once done, and it should be during the day rather than at night, the software recommends what color temperature and brightness should be used for your lighting conditions.

Then it’s time to hang the Spyder over the monitor and perform the calibration. There’s some user input required for adjusting the brightness to a specific target, but everything else is automatic until you get to the SpyderProof stage where a sample raft of pictures can be viewed by toggling between the new color profile and the old one. Still not convinced?

Another option, SpyderTune, allows the white point, gamma and brightness to be further tweaked and saved with the current profile. A final display in this easy-view analysis shows sRGB, NTSC and AdobeRGB color gamuts and allows you to show how much of that your monitor is displaying. It’s interesting to see, because while you might have 100 per cent of sRGB, the coverage of AdobeRGB can drop to around 78 percent. Those are colors in a photo that you simply won’t see when looking at a photo with that profile on your monitor.

website: spyder.datacolor.com/spyder4elite

Spyder4 Elite Video Review

Bottom Line

A really excellent piece of hardware with an easy-to-use software interface that keeps all the technical color science stuff hidden, unless you really want to use it. It can calibrate displays for a variety of lighting conditions and is user-configurable, even at the end stage. A must-have for serious photographers.

Overall, a good investment and a very useful tool.

Spyder4 Pro

This new series employs a seven-color colorimeter sensor and boasts more color accuracy and consistency than the Spyder3 models – a definite benefit for serious photographers and printmakers who look for greater accuracy of the display on their computer monitor (or iPad with the Spyder Gallery App).

The Express, Pro and Elite kits vary in terms of complexity of calibration and types of devices they calibrate, but all are very effective.

Pros

• Express is surprisingly affordable
• Pro offers multiple display support
• Elite also calibrates projectors
• Elite is suitable for photo and video pros
• Elite can compensate for varying lighting conditions

Cons

• Some complexity with the Elite version

Technical Details

• Automated Color and Brightness Calibration
• Full-spectrum color sensor
• Single sensor calibrates multiple displays
• Improved accuracy and stability – The fourth-generation Spyders have double-shielded color filters for even closer match to CIE color standards and improved long term stability. Average accuracy is up 26% and consistency between Spyder units is 19% better.
• Fast Re-calibration Assistant – The ReCAL feature makes it quick and easy to recalibrate your display to compensate for changes over time.

Video Review

Introduction

Datacolor Spyder4 Monitor Calibration Kits: Color Management for Photographers

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