Monitors: Which screen calibration system is best?

[David C]

Hi all,

Does anyone have any opinion to which screen calibration hardware is best? I've used the Gretagmacbeth Eye One Display system in the past and found it to be quite good but was wondering if anybody had any other recommendations. At the moment I have a cheap DELL 24" but I hope to upgrade to a lacie or eizo model when I can afford it.

Many thanks,

David

[Tareq]

Difficult, because there are different users using different software and they might be happy with what they use.
I use Spyder3Studio bundle, it includes Spyder3Elite which is great and all my monitors [laptop and desktop monitors], i recommend Spyder3Elite not Spyder2 or Spyder3Pro.

[Pictus]

Buy a cheap Spyder3 Express and use it with ColorEyes Display Pro.

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/...2&#entry295512
We have an entire fleet of colorimeters and spectrophotometers available for in-house
measurement. For wide gamut displays such as the Eizo CG221, HP LP2480, and Samsung XL24 we
find the Spyder3 outperforms the i1Pro when used with ColorEyes Display. This is based on both
qualitative visual evaluations and quantitative measurements using an RPS 380
spectroradiometer. On both the Samsung and HP displays, the most saturated midtone and
highlight greens, yellows, and oranges are more accurate and have smoother tonality when the
i1Pro is used for measurements. This is offset by poorer shadow detail and artifacts that are
not present in the Spyder3-generated profiles and calibrations.

BTW, the new CG245W can self-calibrate see http://www.eizo.com/global/products/...45w/index.html

[TommyO]

David,
The right system for you may depend on your budget. You can do your own comparisons, but many of the differences between the Spyder3Elite, Spyder3Pro and the ColorEyes Display Pro w/ Sypder is the software. Each use the same colorimeter. So, you have to ask yourself, how serious is the requirement to have more control over the calibration while you are using the Dell LCD and maybe doing less critical work. The Spyder3Express uses a slightly cheaper colorimeter, but better than the older Spyder2Express.

For example, a quick price comparison in US dollars:
- ColorEyes Display Pro w/Spyder $289 (best price);
- Spyder3Elite $198 (best)
- Spyder3Pro $141 (best)
- Spyder3Express $72 (best)

Again, depends on your budget. Between competitors, they pretty much fix their prices equally for comparable products. So, another vendors colorimeter and software equal to the Elite will be roughly the same price, if not more.

I would read up on the software portion, maybe look at their manuals on-line. Then choose.

Best of luck.

[David C]

That's great, thanks very much for your thoughts. I'll do some more research according to your suggestions before I make the leap!

Thanks again,

David