Monitor calibration devices

[LongQ]

I know this has come up from time to time, but I suspect there may be a few more experiences in the group since the last discussion so ...

(A quick search surprisingly only turned up 2 threads, one of which was hardly a thread at all, so I suspect my query was not the best!)

Which monitor calibration devices are people using, what are their strengths and weaknesses and, if anyone has experience of more than one device maybe, how do they compare?

I'm assuming you get what you pay for - but how much do you realistically have to pay to get a half decent result?

[beano500]

Gretag Macbeth eye one display

Good price, very easy to use - does the job

[andybuk99]

Like what was said before, what are your expectations? Are you selling images to clients etc or are you simply wiching to roughly calibrate your monitor so prints you take to boots etc look half decent. If the first you want a minimum of eye1 display2 for the monitor calibration part and then get your printer/camera profiled as well. if its just happy snaps then a huey will be sufficent.

[_dobbo_]

I got a Gretag Macbeth huey a week or so ago, it seems a good bit of kit, and the ambient lighting sensor is a plus point as you can really see it working when the light levels change.

Thing is price wise the step up to the next model isn't that much, so in hindsight I probably should have splurged that little bit more, as being restricted to only use sRGB seems to be a bit of a let down, and I believe the next model up allows more control.

[LongQ]

Thanks for the responses so far.

I've been doing some reading around over the weekend and it seems the Gretag/Pantone solutions come out on top.

To be honest the Huey might be enough for the immediate requirement. If I use the simple pritn utility provided with the printer the results seem to be quite a close match. But if I print from a PS product - typically Lightroom - the results are less predictable. That may be more to do with some internal settings I have not fully understood yet.

The requirement is for some potential sales to third parties but in the main printing is unlikely to be a main revenue stream. Supply of jpg files would be normal practice.

The Eye 1 Display 2 would be OK from a budgetary perspective but the more complete Gretag/Pantone kits to encompass Printer and scanner calibration may be difficult to justify. However some profiling of the printer might be very worthwhile.

Which brings me to the Spyder2 system. It seems to offer a reasonable performance and includes some printer profiling options via software for about the same price as the Eye1 D2. It might be enough for now, given that I am not planning to need a dedicated quality graphics terminal at the moment. Should that change at some point then the calibration kit will be part of the upgrade budget.

So, is anyone out there using a Spyder2 and if so what's the feedback on it?

[andybuk99]

the spyder 2 hardware is older technology and the printer profiling is software only, not worth the money in my opinion, go for the gretag!

[freddies_dad]

LongQ said:

So, is anyone out there using a Spyder2 and if so what's the feedback on it?

This is what I've got and I'm very pleased with the results. Very simple to use, quick to do too.

I can't remember why I went for this rather than the huey... probably the printfix thing that comes with it which I haven't used yet.

As far as I could tell when researching monitor callibration tools there's pros and cons with each. I just decided that I had to make the plunge one way or another otherwise you'll be forever hearing conflicting advice.