Pixel Perfect Colour: The Spyder2Pro Studio from ColorVision

[Jason Dunn]

<img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/prod_spyder2pro.gif" /><br /><br /><b>Product Category:</b> Colour calibration<br /><b>Manufacturer: </b> <a href="http://www.colorvision.com">ColorVision</a><br /><b>Where to Buy: </b> <a href="http://www.colorvision.com/profis/profis_view.jsp?id=341">ColorVision</a><br /><b>Price: </b> $299 USD<br /><b>Specifications:</b> CRT, LCD or notebook display(s). Windows 2000 or XP, Mac OS X10.2 or better, USB port.<br /><br /><b>Pros:</b><li>Excellent hardware design on the sensor and LCD;<br /><li>Useful software bundle for pros.<br /><b>Cons:</b><li>Poor out-of-box experience and setup instructions;<br /><li>Not useful for every display.<br /><b>Summary:</b><br />Colour calibration on monitors is something I've often thought I <i>should</i> do, given the amount of time I spend working with digital photos, but I never quite get around to it. When ColorVision sent me a Spyder2Pro Studio to try out, I had no more excuses - it was time to calibrate. Were the results worth it? Read on for the full review!<!><br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>To Calibrate or Not to Calibrate?</b></span><br />As I mentioned earlier, monitor colour calibration is something that I've always thought about, but I've never managed to bite the bullet and get it done. Until recently, most of the products on the market have been aimed at professionals and priced to match, so I wasn't even interested in trying. ColorVision is one of the market leaders in this arena, and when I heard about their entry-level product priced at $109 USD that was aimed at home users, I decided it was time to give colour calibration a try. <br /><br />It took a few months of back and forth emails, but ColorVision ended up sending me the Spyder2Pro Studio, a $299 USD product aimed at the professional market. A professional photographer I am not, but after coming back from vacation with over 1000 photos,I wanted to start with a calibrated monitor before I started editing them. I cracked open the box on the Spyder2Pro Studio and got started. I decided to use it to calibrate my hp 7280us laptop, a 17" widescreen beauty which boasts one of the best LCD displays I've ever seen in terms of clarity and saturated colours. I was curious to see whether the Spyder2Pro would improve this experience.<br /><br /><span><b>Getting Started With the Spyder2Pro Studio</b></span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/jd-spyder-001.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 1: What comes in the box.</i><br /><br />The Spyder2Pro Studio comes with the calibration sensor, and several pieces of software: ColorVision DoctorPro, Pantone Colorist, and nik Color Effects Pro 2.0. Being an amateur photographer, I have to admit that I wasn't familiar with any of this software, although a bit of research on the Web led me to believe a professional photographer would be quite happy to have these software tools. <br /><br />Before I could install the software I had to ensure that Adobe's Gamma adjustment software wasn't loading at startup, which required an msconfig (Start > Run > msconfig) to remove it from the startup routine. The instructions suggest to look in the Startup folder – Adobe's Gamma adjustment software doesn't load from there (at least with Photoshop Elements), so this is a critical step that might spoil the calibration process. After prepping my system and cleaning the screen, I installed the software – then sat there wondering what to do next. I've been spoiled by hardware installation that guides me from one step to another – why this didn't start up the software and tell me to connect the Spyder is beyond me.<br /><br />Once I manually started the software, it asked me to connect the Spyder, and after connecting it the software continued the setup. When I got to the Select Target phase, I was immediately lost – I understand a little about gamma, white point, and colour temperatures, but the setup didn't explain how or why I'd pick the various targets: 1.8-5000? 1.8-6500? 2.2-Native? It told me that 2.2-6500 was the most common choice, so I selected that one. There's a help window, but I found the explanation to be insufficient for me to grasp what it was I was doing. The next step was equally perplexing – Luminance Mode? Again I went with the suggested choice: Visual. I can only hope that their home user version has a different setup procedure, because this was a bit baffling.<br /><br />Next it asked me to specify what type of controls the screen has: in the case of the laptop, brightness is the only control. The next few steps were along the same lines and easier to understand. After it detected the connected Spyder, it warned me to make sure the "LCD baffle" was connected. This is a hard plastic shell the fits over and around the suction cups, and I was initially a little concerned about damage to the screen, but there are small pads that keep it barely a millimetre above the monitor's edge. There's a counterweight that you can move up and down the cable to ensure that the sensor doesn't slide off the screen – clever design!<br /><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/jd-spyder-002.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 2: The sensor on my laptop LCD screen, and the testing process is underway.</i><br /><br />The testing process itself goes through a series of black, red, green, blue, and grey samples and the sensor reads how the monitor generates those colours. The process takes quite a while – I didn't use a stopwatch, but it was at least 15 to 20 minutes. It was interesting to watch it cycle through the colours, but I was happy to have an episode of Smallville handy to pass the time. Once the process was completed, it took me to the Before and After stage, which is where this product either proves its worth or makes you want a refund.<br /><PAGEBREAK><br /><span><b>The Proof is in the Pixels</b></span><br /><img src="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/jd-spyder-003.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 3: This is the screen where you see the baseline image and can toggle between the before and after.</i><br /><br />The test photo shows a variety of images (<a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/jd-spyder-004.jpg">full-sized image</a>) to give you a good idea of how the changed profile impacts different subjects. There's a Switch button that allows you to toggle between before the calibration and after. There's no doubt about it, there was a very noticeable difference. It allowed me to see differences all the way up the grey to white strip, although it didn't help much with the deep blacks – the last three steps are pure black. LCD monitors are often criticized for their inability to display the subtleties of black shading, but this is the first time I've actually noticed it. The various skin tones were vastly improved by the calibration – the before setting had them all looking washed out, while the calibrated setting gave them a rich tone. I was less convinced with the Windows user-interface colours however – it's hard to describe, and not something that can be shown in a screenshot, but somehow the grey background of the calibration program looks a bit magenta tinted. It's subtle, but I'm not sure if it's better. There's a particularly interesting note in the help file for this screen:<br /><br /><i>"This setting is not necessarily how your monitor looked before calibration, as some other Look Up Table may have been in use previously, such as one that accompanied a vendor supplied profile for your monitor."</i><br /><br />This brings up an interesting point: the preview shown as the "before calibration" is the monitor with no color profile applied. Most monitors come with some sort of color profile, so this before and after is only a fair comparison if your monitor had no color settings applied to begin with. In the case of my HP laptop, there was no color profile loaded by default, yet the before preview seemed much worse than the colour I was used to seeing from this LCD. This makes it more than a little difficult to judge how much better the calibrated monitor is.<br /><br />After showing you a summary of the profile created, the software takes you to a final screen where I was looking for the word "Exit" or "Finish". I didn't find either, so I clicked next and the entire process restarted from the beginning. Keeping in mind that this is a 20 minute process, I was a bit frustrated at having to go through it all again.<br /><br />The ColorVision software is unintuitive and, frankly, a bit flaky: I uninstalled a Java-based program (LogMeIn) and rebooted, and after doing so the ColorVision app <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/jd-spyder-005.gif">suddenly lost the calibration profile</a>. Since I needed to fix this, I noticed then that the application never installed shortcuts to the profile selector in my Start menu – they were on my desktop, which I deleted expecting them to be in my Start menu. I had to dig into the Program Files folder to find <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/images/jd-spyder-006.gif">the program I needed to run</a> in order to select the colour profile I wanted. A bit frustrating!<br /><br /><span><b>Conclusions</b></span><br />After using a colour-calibrated monitor for a couple of weeks now, I’m not convinced this is something everyone needs to do. I suppose if you have a cheap monitor that’s badly out of whack when it comes to color accuracy, some would say this would be a good investment – but why would anyone spend several hundred dollars on colour calibration software if they had a cheap monitor? Myself, I’d recommend you buy a new monitor instead. Ultimately, I'm put in a position I don't recall being in before with a review: a completely neutral opinion about the product. If I had two of the same laptops and could do some real A/B testing, I might have a different opinion, but ultimately I feel rather vague about this product.<br /><br />[I]Jason Dunn is the President of <a href="http://www.thoughtsmedia.com">Thoughts Media</a> and the Executive Editor of <a href="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com">Pocket PC Thoughts</a>, <a href="http://www.smartphonethoughts.com">Smartphone Thoughts</a>, and <a href="http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com">Digital Media Thoughts</a>. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and enjoys photography, reading, and computer gaming (when he has the time).

[Jason Kravitz]

Hmm - I've often thought about calibrating but after reading this it might not be worth the trouble!

Out of curiosity - what do you use to clean your laptop's monitor? Mine is filthy and using a soft cloth and water seems to smear things around a bit but doesn't really help.

[Doug Johnson]

I have the previous version of the Spyder, and I have to say I'm disappointed too.

You would think that calibration would give consistent results being run one time to the next. But I found the results from the Spyder/OptiCAL software were incredibly inconsistent. Sometimes the display would end up looking good, but more often it ended up being obviously tinted some other color.

The other problem I had with it was that (at least in the OptiCAL software) they do not support multiple monitors. There are a lot of people running multiple-monitor desktops these days, and the OptiCAL software doesn't support this configuration at all!

These problems MAY have been addressed with the Spyder2, but it seems these are shortcomings that should have been addressed prior to release of a version 1 product.

Because of these two problems, I haven't used this product at all since I got it. Definitely not recommended.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Colour calibration is a must in every serious digital workflow. Without it you cannot expect to have reliable results when editing. In fact you might as well not edit. Even something as basic as Adobe Gamma helps.

The problem has nothing to do with the monitor being new or not. New monitors need not be calibrated properly, in fact I've seen some which were quite off in terms of accuracy.

Finally I'm not sure if a notebook LCD was the best place to test this. They tend to be rather crummy for the purposes of image editing.

[Jason Dunn]

Colour calibration is a must in every serious digital workflow. Without it you cannot expect to have reliable results when editing. In fact you might as well not edit.

Bah! Pure FUD - this is the first time I've *ever* colour calibrated anything, and I've had some fantastic looking prints over the years. I find some people are really snobby about colour correction, so I had high expectations that this would prove to be a really useful step, because all the "pros" say you REALLY HAVE TO DO THIS, but it wasn't as drastic of a change as I would have thought. You can certainly edit even if you haven't colour calibrated your monitor, because improving a photo is about much more than just colour. A dark photo is improved more by brightening it up then having perfect colour.

Finally I'm not sure if a notebook LCD was the best place to test this. They tend to be rather crummy for the purposes of image editing.

Great, you're a CRT snob too. :lol: No one except for the most hardcore photo professionals are going to stick to using CRTs - LCDs have too many advantages. And are you suggesting that photographers should drag a CRT out into the field? Or just never use a laptop to edit photos on? Come on...

[klinux]

Bah! Pure FUD - this is the first time I've *ever* colour calibrated anything, and I've had some fantastic looking prints over the years.

I don't think this is fair Jason. For example, virtually all videophiles out there agree that one should have one's major investment in large plasma/LCD profesionally calibrated by an ISF technician if not tweaked at home using Avia or Joe Kane's test DVDs. Virtually all videophile also agree that the displays at the big-box stores are tweaked to be display the brightest images so as to draw the attention of less than knowledgable consumers.

IMHO, you sound like one of those less than knowledgeable consumers who claim that all these calibration is FUD because you have been watching TV for years without calibration and those images look great? Morover, those that insist on calibration are snobs?

What's next, proclaiming those who use WMA lossless are snobs too because you have been listening to X bitrate compressed audio for years without problem? :?:

[Jason Dunn]

I don't think this is fair Jason. For example, virtually all videophiles out there agree that one should have one's major investment in large plasma/LCD profesionally calibrated by an ISF technician if not tweaked at home using Avia or Joe Kane's test DVDs.

See, that's a world that has never intersected with mine - I've never considered having my TV calibrated. I've seen some TVs that are out of sync and badly in need of a tune up, but beyond the basic adjustment of what looks good to my eyes, I haven't considered a professional calibration job. If someone wants to pay for that, they're welcome to, but I'd resent a videophile boldy proclaiming that an uncalibrated TV wasn't even worth watching!

To the point at hand, it was Lee's "might as well not edit" statement that pushed my hot button: it sounded like he was saying "unless you have a properly calibrated monitor, you shouldn't even bother trying to edit your images because they'll all look like crap". That's pure BS - it's fair to say that if you're a professional photographer who's lifeblood is 100% accurate colour prints, then calibration is a vital part of your process. But, hello, this is not a site for professionals - as far as I know, we're all consumers/enthusiasts here. My review was written from the point of view of a photography enthusisat, not a professional photographer.

IMHO, you sound like one of those less than knowledgeable consumers who claim that all these calibration is FUD because you have been watching TV for years without calibration and those images look great? Morover, those that insist on calibration are snobs?

I've never seen any A/B tests, or any "before and after" results of video calibration, so I have no knowledge of the subject. If that makes me an ignorant consumer in your eyes, so be it. If people want to have their sets calibrated, more power to them. But to say that they should never bother watching TV/DVDs on a set that isn't calibrated is sheer stupidity isn't it?

What's next, proclaiming those who use WMA lossless are snobs too because you have been listening to X bitrate compressed audio for years without problem? :?:

I personally can't hear the difference between WMA lossless and WMA at 192kbps, but if someone can and they want to rip lossless, go for it. But if that person came into these forums and stated that anyone ripping audio other than in a lossless format is wasting their time and shouldn't even listen to music...I'd have a strong disagreement with them.

Are you seeing a pattern here? ;-)

[klinux]

To me, if you (generic you here, not just Jason specifically) rip at lossless, great. 65kbps, cool. Hey, whatever sounds/looks good to you, good for you - who am I to judge that?

However, there are two cases where I have strong opinion: the first of which is bad science. An example of this is those who insist on $10,000 per meter speaker cables with unverifiable esoteric audio properties.

The second case is more similar to yours. LYS's comments are extreme but I think yours is as well. For example, the fact that your TV is uncalibrated is physically verifiable - by both trained eyes and with equipment.

Now, I have never said that an uncalibrated TV is unwatchable. if you enjoy it then that's the end of it (see also last sentence of paragraph 1). What I am objecting to, and perhaps I misunderstood your comment, is your calling those with trained eyes or use calibration equipment spreading FUD which I certainly do not think is the case.

Hope that makes it clearer?

[Jason Dunn]

Now, I have never said that an uncalibrated TV is unwatchable. if you enjoy it then that's the end of it (see also last sentence of paragraph 1). What I am objecting to, and perhaps I misunderstood your comment, is your calling those with trained eyes or use calibration equipment spreading FUD which I certainly do not think is the case. Hope that makes it clearer?

I know that YOU never said that an uncalibrated TV was unwatchable - I was merely extending Lee's logic to the examples you raised because you objected to me objecting to his objection. :lol:

Perhaps when he said "you might as well not edit" he meant something different, but I took that to mean "if you don't have a calibrated monitor, don't even bother trying to improve your pictures" - and that is the FUD I was talking about. It's certainly possible for you, me, and every other person here to use their favourite photo editing program to work on their photos without having a colour calibrated monitor. Will they get results as good as if they had a calibrated monitor, scanner, printer, all in a room with no windows? No, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't bother.

As you can tell, one of my trigger points are elitist attitudes that tell people they can't/shouldn't do things just because they're not doing it the "perfect" way. People need to start someplace!

[klinux]

Lee should defend his own argument then! :lol:

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

LOL, nothing much to defend. If you're printing for snapshots it's fine (in fact for snapshots I'm very easy-going), but if you're serious about your work (which is where my POV is) even a simple calibration from something like Adobe Gamma (which isn't as close to that you get from a good colourimeter unless you have very good eyes) can do wonders.

I suppose I should attach a new sig!

[jizmo]

This is not to be taken personally by anyone, but when it comes to color management, platform choises, cable materials etc, I think it's snobism if you have to advertise it and put down choises other people have made.

Us gadget freaks too ofter forget that what you actually do is the most important thing, not the instruments we do it with. Not having a certain program or apparatus is a much too often an sorry excuse for not doing something or for doing something badly.

For every high tech snob complaining about having to stick with PC instead of MAC and not having the latest photoshop version I can name two oldschool c64 artist who can beat them hands down with 22-year old Koala Painter and a broken joystic.

/jizmo

[BubbaJon]

Bah! Pure FUD - this is the first time I've *ever* colour calibrated anything, and I've had some fantastic looking prints over the years. I find some people are really snobby about colour
I think you've got the wrong take on this one or you got up on the wrong side of the bed. First off - there is absolutely nothing wrong with being a purist or demanding quality from yourself and the tools you use. If you do not feel so motivated then by all means continue on with your mediocre expectations and ways. Personally I get offended by anti-snobs - those who criticize and ridicule simply on the basis they don't happen to get whatever it is they are ridiculing. I believe the world is indeed big enough to hold the perfectionists and those who don't give a damn.
With my minor flame out of the way... it does indeed matter to color manage if you care about the quality of your work. To my mind one of the most useful things the calibration can do is get your monitor to where it is operating at it's best. You did pay good money for the thing - right? The part that most people get confused over is that word "color" - that's not the entire picture (no pun intended). Most people don't have a clue about the relationship between the brightness and contrast controls on their monitor - much less the color temperature. Subsequently their monitor is typically overbright and the dynamic range is too short - thus dark colors get all plowed into black and bright colors get washed out.
Then they adjust the monitor to their favorite color or the background. Who knows where that thing sits within the color space at this point?
Now I've been doing digital for more years than I care to count and I can tell you that if something is wrong with your print color-wise and your monitor is not calibrated - you have absolutely no standard on which to base a judgement on what needs to be done. So you end up guessing which is ok if you like wasting ink and slaying trees by the cord.
But of course that takes us back to the primary point - it matters only if you care...
Regards,
BubbaJon

PS: Oh yeah - and I don't think he was trying to be a "monitor snob" it is a well-known fact that laptops generally have LCD's that are inferior to desktop units. The ones that have outstanding LCD's also have corresponding pricetags - Toshiba Qosmio's come to mind. So I think that his observation was just that if you are attempting to illustrate a point - choose something that will make it effectively. You'd hardly use a Formula One car to test a fuel savings device, nor a Honda Civic to test racing slicks.

[Jason Dunn]

I'll let the whole first part just roll off my flame-retardant back... ;-)

...it is a well-known fact that laptops generally have LCD's that are inferior to desktop units. The ones that have outstanding LCD's also have corresponding pricetags - Toshiba Qosmio's come to mind.

I have six different LCD displays in my home - three LCD monitors, one LCD TV, and two LCDs on laptops. I hardly even remember what CRTs look like, and the rest of the world is moving that way as well, so it's largely a moot point. You may think that vinyl sounds better than CDs, and maybe it does, but 99% of the world doesn't have a record player or bigass '70s speakers, so it's purely academic. CDs are the standard for audio. LCD screens are the standrad for computer displays. You can still get record players, and nice pro-level CRTs, but that's not what most people are using and this review was written from my personal perspective. A review is ultimately an opinion, nothing more, so take it for what it is.

And for the record, the LCD on my zd7280 laptop (http://www.digitalmediathoughts.com/articles.php?action=expand,6736) *is* amazing -it's the best I've ever seen on any laptop, bar none (including 17" Powerbooks). I paid about $3000 USD for the laptop and it easily has the best LCD display out of all the displays I have in my house. I've seen some truly horrible LCD screens, and they've all been on laptops, so I know what you mean about laptops having weak LCD screens...but that wasn't the case with the laptop I was testing it on.

And again, to the point I made earlier, if colour calibration won't work properly on a laptop LCD, then the product is largely useless given that sales of laptops are outstripping desktops by a wide margin. CRT's are dead - so that means that some creative companies will have to come out with some ingenious solutions to get accurate colour on LCDs, both desktop and laptop.

[Phoenix]

...I have six different LCD displays in my home - three LCD monitors, one LCD TV, and two LCDs on laptops. I hardly even remember what CRTs look like, and the rest of the world is moving that way as well, so it's largely a moot point. You may think that vinyl sounds better than CDs, and maybe it does, but 99% of the world doesn't have a record player or bigass '70s speakers, so it's purely academic. CDs are the standard for audio. LCD screens are the standrad for computer displays. You can still get record players, and nice pro-level CRTs, but that's not what most people are using and this review was written from my personal perspective. A review is ultimately an opinion, nothing more, so take it for what it is...

And again, to the point I made earlier, if colour calibration won't work properly on a laptop LCD, then the product is largely useless given that sales of laptops are outstripping desktops by a wide margin. CRT's are dead - so that means that some creative companies will have to come out with some ingenious solutions to get accurate colour on LCDs, both desktop and laptop.

I would have to agree. Naturally, there will be pros and enthusiasts alike using CRTs for edit work, but the market in general and consumers of all levels have and will continue to move away from big clunky CRTs to embrace thin panels. So naturally, considering that LCDs are a huge market, especially in light of the fact that the technology will continue to progress and dominate, it will be important for companies that offer calibration tools to make extra effort in making certain that their products produce reliable and consistent results with LCDs.

[klinux]

CDs are the standard for audio. LCD screens are the standrad for computer displays. You can still get record players, and nice pro-level CRTs, but that's not what most people are using.

You are absolutely correct.. for consumers. Pros still tape and other formats to downmix to CD and use CRTs (or film projectors) to do their work. Since most of us would like to think of ourselves as "prosumers" with our digital SLRs, PDAs with VGA resolution, and what not, it is only natural that some people here want to be more demanding, if you will, with the equipments that we all use.

[BubbaJon]

I have six different LCD displays in my home - three LCD monitors, one LCD TV, and two LCDs on laptops. I hardly even remember what CRTs look like, and the rest of the world is moving that way as well, so it's largely a moot point. ...so I know what you mean about laptops having weak LCD screens...but that wasn't the case with the laptop I was testing it on.
And again, to the point I made earlier, if colour calibration won't work properly on a laptop LCD, then the product is largely useless given that sales of laptops are outstripping desktops by a wide margin.

Actually I only have 2 CRT's left holding the fort against 4 LCD's not including my tablet PC and I'm about to get another LCD (Samsung 213t) for the larger screen resoluition for retouching work. I have to say my Toshiba M200 Tablet PC LCD screen is adequate but the off-angle performance sucks. My desktop Sammy's are adequate.
Anyway - I am a programmer by trade, but my heart belongs to graphics and photography. I would have never traded in my CRT's for LCD's given the state of the art were it not for color calibrators. Now I read up on the various options and I settled on the GretagMacbeth EyeOne Display 2. It was specifically mentioned as having the best overall performance on LCD's and laptop displays. I'm pretty happy with my decision. I can correct a print on any of my machines and be assured that the print will look the same regardless. I *like* that a lot. The thing I have noticed with my laptop is that it does not have the dynamic range of my desktop LCD's - the shadow detail suffers a bit - but I also know that I'm extracting every bit of performance that rascal has. That also gives me a good feeling as I hate to pay that kind of money for something only to hate it when I use it. So. I'm not a CRT snob - I love the hell out of my LCD's and love the increased desktop space they bring to me. I still long for the day when they match the performance of a CRT but I am able to live with it.
So - maybe you should try to get a Gretag Macbeth EyeOne Display 2 to try out. It has an easy mode where you do very little, or it has an advanced mode that lets you have more control over what's happening. Since I don't have access to the RGB adjustments on the tablet PC, I use the easy method. On my desktops I use the more involved method - they both work great and are easy to understand. They also don't try to shine you on by a before and after button. It just does what it's supposed to. It does show you a graph of where your system is within the color space. When it comes time to recalibrate it will disable the current profile and you'll see the change dramatically. The EyeOne understands how to "talk" to both the video card and modern monitors that "speak" DDL. It adjusts both the color lookup table (LUT) of the video card *and* adjusts the monitor directly when calibrating your system.
Enough said - works great. I guess I took umbrage when you generically slammed color management when the problem was likely just the wrong calibrator.
Regards,
BubbaJon

[socrates63]

Sorry for reviving an old thread, but I haven't visited the site in a little while (my bad :oops: ) and I found the review timely. I was just looking into getting the Spyder to calibrate my LCD after getting prints which looked a little too different from what I saw on my monitor.

I was a bit surprised with Jason's experience with the Spyder as it is a well known and highly regarded product (or so I thought). I will have to check out Gretag Macbeth EyeOne Display 2.

Jason, did the Spyder people see your review? Did they have anything to say about your experiences?

[Jason Dunn]

I will have to check out Gretag Macbeth EyeOne Display 2. Jason, did the Spyder people see your review? Did they have anything to say about your experiences?

Yeah, I've heard great things about the Gretag Macbeth product. No comment from the Spyder people on my review. The core product works well enough, it's just the setup and install that's not very user-friendly.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

I just got a Eye One Display (the older one) from B&amp;H and it's quite a steal at $69. Calibrating a new Dell 2001FP yielded a huge difference (to me anyway). Most telling was that a bunch of photos which I thought were off when I got them back were now matching what was being shown on the monitor. Amazing!

Best part is that they're even cheaper now, at $64.95, so if you're serious about your photographs, go get one!

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&amp;A=details&amp;Q=&amp;sku=302809&amp;is=REG&amp;addedTroughType=search