ColorVision Spyder2 review

Why do you need to calibrate and profile your monitor? Colour is a very relative concept and each monitor (or, indeed, every digital imaging device including your camera, scanner and printer) has its own output characteristics. This can be exemplified in a very straightforward way - simply try viewing the same digital picture on two (uncalibrated) monitors and it is bound to be displayed quite differently - brightness, contrast and colour casts are all likely to be very dissimilar. As you do not know which monitor (if any) displays content of the digital file correctly, this, obviously, has several problematic consequences. First, attempting editing the file is an exercise in futility as you do not even know where you begin. Second, the colours that you think are displayed correctly on your monitor will be displayed differently on other people's monitors, i.e. there is no way to precisely communicate your vision to other photographers (or for you to view other photographers' work as intended by them). Third, it would be virtually impossible to achieve consistency between what you see on the monitor and what is then produced by your printer.

To avoid these problems it therefore is crucial to tune your monitor (i.e. “calibrate” it) so that its output (colour balance, brightness and contrast) is as close as possible to certain standards and then characterise (i.e. “profile”) it. Whereas Macs and PCs both have software that allows performing basic monitor calibration, this solution depends on your eyes and is not accurate enough (more on this below). If you are serious about your photography it then is highly advised to use a hardware calibration device (colorimeter) with a dedicated software utility to achieve reliable results. ColorVision's Spyder2 is one such product that should allow photographers to accurately calibrate and profile their monitors - let us see if it lives up to its potential.

Which package?

ColorVision's monitor calibrating and profiling products have been around for a few years and gone through several development iterations. Depiction of their current versions and packages can be found here. Quite honestly, though, I think that the very basic package, Spyder2express, which sells for about USD100, has everything most of us need (I am not discussing printer profiling here) - it boasts a great colorimeter (Spyder2 - can handle both CRT and LCD displays) which comes together with an easy-to-use piece of software to drive it and profile your monitor (the software runs on both Macs and PCs). The more expensive packages add additional software and features such as ability to calibrate to non-standard target values (see below) or multiple monitor calibration and matching.

I personally bought Spyder2 only because Spyder2express was not yet available at the time of purchase. Though it was positioned as for “advanced amateurs and prosumers”, I find that it generally suffices to ensure that your monitor is accurately calibrated and profiled. I would suggest ignoring the marketing labels aimed at making potential buyers go for more expensive packages - base your purchase decision on selecting the features and software that you know you actually need.

What's in the box

What you get depends on which package you choose to buy. ColorVision Spyder2 includes Spyder2 colorimeter, Spyder2 software, installation guide in seven languages, USD75 upgrade coupon for ColorVision PrintFIX or SpectroPRO as well as Pantone Colorist software.

As far as the Pantone Colorist software is concerned, though, international users should be forewarned that its Web utility can be accessed by U.S. and Canada based customers only - using it requires electronically registering your product; however, to do so you need to be a member of myPANTONE and the membership is for U.S. and Canadian residents only. This is rather regrettable considering the fact that ColorVision is obviously trying to be an international player (their products are advertised and sold, for example, in China, too).

Targets and their values

Monitors are calibrated to certain targets, which normally include gamma and white point. The former refers to the brightness of midtones in a display (the two most commonly used values are 1.8 and 2.2; the higher the number the higher the contrast), whereas the latter is the measurement of white on a colour monitor (it is usually expressed in degrees Kelvin; the most neutral white point is 6500 degrees Kelvin and if you choose the setting of 5000K, which is another commonly used standard, your screen will look somewhat yellowish and murky). Spyder2 allows choosing the following gamma/white point combinations: 1.8-5000K, 1.8-6500K, 1.8-Native (i.e. native white point of your monitor), 2.2-5000K, 2.2-6500, and 2.2-Native. For most photographers 2.2-6500K is the combination to go with unless they have a very good reason to do otherwise. As mentioned above, if you are sure you need to calibrate to other target values then you should consider buying Spyder2PRO.

Calibrating and profiling a 20-inch Apple Cinema Display under Mac OS X

Spyder2 software installation was very straightforward and quick. The software is wizard-based and each step offers explanations as to what your choices are and why - they are easy to understand and were apparently written for newcomers to monitor calibration and profiling.

On my 1.42GHz PowerPC G4 Mac with 1GB of RAM the calibration process took about 17 minutes. Upon that a custom Monitor Profile was automatically created, put into the folder with all the other profiles and set as the default one. Neat job - no fuss, no muss.

I created three custom profiles using precisely the same settings in absolute darkness. They all adequately removed the somewhat heavy blue cast of the native Cinema profile yet there was a slight difference between them and I chose the most neutral one. This apparently indicates that the colorimeter and the software are not entirely state-of-the-art, yet, at this price level, more than acceptable for even quite demanding photographers.

Calibrating and profiling a 14-inch notebook LCD under Windows XP

Software installation was very simple and fast, too. Identically, the software is wizard-based and each step has explanations as to what is going to happen and why - I reckon that even novices to monitor calibration will not be confused.

Though the PC used in the test was quite a bit of a lesser performer than the Mac above the entire calibration process took the same 17 minutes, which indicates that the process is not hugely dependent on the resources of the computing system. Similarly, after calibration was completed a custom Monitor Profile was automatically created, put into the folder with the other profiles and set as the default one. Not too bad at all.

In the same manner as above I conducted the test three times. However, I could not distinguish any difference between the three profiles, which most likely is because the lesser monitor is unable to reproduce subtle colour variations.

Comparing the Apple Cinema Display and the PC laptop monitor side-by-side after calibration I could see a subtle difference in colour - it was noticeable at close examination yet most likely insignificant enough to bother most photographers.

One thing that I would like to also note is that prior to using Spyder2 I created a custom profile using Apple's Display Calibrator Assistant, which basically relies on one's subjective judgment as to what he sees on the screen. Whereas the profile looked more neutral than the native Cinema profile, there still was a significant gap between it and the one created with Spyder2. Maybe your subjective judgment can be closer to objective readings than mine but, once again, calibrating a monitor without using a dedicated colorimeter is not entirely appropriate for any serious photographic work.

Conclusions

In my opinion ColorVision's Spyder2 represents a good value for the money in that it allows many a photographer to perform reliable monitor calibration and profiling in an affordable manner. It is not perfect or state-of-the-art - at less than USD200 it was never meant to be - yet the results it produces are adequately accurate and sufficient for the majority of real-life photographic tasks.