Monitor Calibration on a Budget

CaiusMartius

I have searched this forum to try and pick a monitor calibration tool, but I am still unsure. It seems that people have major issue with almost all of the leading brands.

These are the ones in my price range:

1. Huey Pro
2. Spyder 3 Elite
3. X-Rite i1 Display 2

I would like to get advice from the people here as to which they think is the best choice. (or if there is a better choice that I haven't listed.)

If you look at consumer reviews on Amazon and B&H there are a lot of 1s for each of these. That concerns me. They get good 'professional' reviews, but consumers tend to not rate them as highly.

I run Windows 7 (64bit)

catspaw

I'm quite happy with the Spyder 2 Express. If you have the extra money for the 3 Elite, go for it

CaiusMartius

catspaw wrote:

I'm quite happy with the Spyder 2 Express. If you have the extra money for the 3 Elite, go for it

As far as I can tell, that has been discontinued. I know another SmugMugger bought the Spyder 3 Pro and was disappointed. A different SmugMugger told her that the Sypder 3 Elite was better.

Newsy

Either the Spyder3 Elite or the i1 Display2. Both allow for measuring and setting the monitors' white (and black) luminance levels which is how you control the brightness of the monitor.

Both of these will work with "wide gamut" monitors.

Check out YouTube for video evaluations of these devices. I watched an interesting one the other day where it showed an i1D2 calibrating a monitor in about 11 minutes vs almost 20 for the Spyder2 Pro. I use the Spyder2 Pro and was thinking.... argh! half the time.

Btw... what monitor do you plan on using these on?

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CaiusMartius

Newsy wrote:

Btw... what monitor do you plan on using these on?

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I have an HP L2245w. 1608x1050.

Newsy

CaiusMartius wrote:

I have an HP L2245w. 1608x1050.

This monitor uses a 6bit TN TFT Panel and likely has between 85 and 95% coverage of the sRGB color space.

This means that if you find a used Spyder2 unit (preferably the Pro) for sale somewhere, it should work fine with this monitor.

If you want to future proof, perhaps considering buying one of the new wide gamut monitors, then consider the Spyder3 or i1D2 units as their pucks are optimized for wide gamut monitors.

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