Spyder 3 Pro or Spyder pro Elite??? Which one?

haring

Is there anybody who upgraded from the monitor calibrator - Spyder 3 Pro to Spyder pro Elite??? Did you notice any difference? Is it worth upgrading?

ziggy53

I moved this to the Digital Darkroom Gear forum where you will find more users experienced with monitor calibration stuff.

Professional

I don't know about it, because i bought Spyder3Studio, which including Spyder 3 Elite [i think you mistaken about pro elite], it is my only calibration device i have even i bought Eizo Monitor and i've got a dedicated calibration software for this monitor, but i use my Spyder 3 Elite for my other monitors [Mac monitors], and from the website it seems that Spyder 3 Elite version has little more features over the pro version, here is a link for the differences or comparison.

http://spyder.datacolor.com/images/S3Elite4CompareChart.jpg

Newsy

Spyder3 Pro vs Elite

http://spyder.datacolor.com/s3compare.php

Are you using Windows or Mac? Everything that follows is geared to Windows except where note.


If...

1. You have a dual or triple monitor system, or...
2. a wide gamut monitor, or...
3. Time is money to you

Then absolutely buy the Elite.


1. Where you have 2 or 3 monitors sitting side by side it is not only ideal to have all three with their RGB similar (6500K, 2.2 Gamma) but also their brightness identical.

The Elite has a dedicated software module for setting a targeted "white luminance" value and then walking you through the steps to get to that exact value. It is very interactive. White luminance is the variable by which you quantify and adjust brightness..

The Pro, having a crippled version of the Elite software, lacks this key brightness module. You will get a value for white luminance at the end of the calibration but to get to that value you make adjustments by eye, not by what the puck measures. If the white luminance is not where you want it, you have to go through most of the calibration again which takes several minutes.

Furthermore I believe the Elite is optimized for calibrating a system with multiple monitors. No work arounds required, it does the calibration for each monitor and writes a new unique ICC profile to disk for each monitor, and assigns it to the correct device in the Windows Color Management utility.

Another point on brightness, the CCFL back lights dim over time, very much so in the first year of use for some monitors. As the monitor brightness plays with the perceptual bias of your eye when editing, it is important to keep it at a level in balance with the ambient lighting of the room you edit in. Otherwise with too dark a monitor you may find yourself with prints that are too light.

Note that it seems with Mac's the Spyder software can automatically adjust brightness. I'm not a MAc user so I'm not sure on this process.

.............

2. Wide Gamut monitors - these cover the standard sRGB color space as well as the larger AdobeRGB color space. For the most accurate calibration you want to use the the Elite with the v4.0 or higher software. From what I've read recently on another forum, this software seems to use a unique calibration matrix for wide gamut monitors that is superior to versions prior to 4.x and other calibrators such as the i1 Display2.

............

3. Time.... it doesn't get any easier than the Elite. As you should be running this calibration at least every couple of months, and the brightness module allows you to keep the monitor(s) consistent, it takes much less time to do this maintenance and frees up time for editing.


With the cost difference between the Pro and Elite being about $56 USD (at B&H) I think this amount is easily justified even with one monitor standard gamut systems just based on how much easier it is to get the brightness of the monitor nailed down.

.

haring

ziggy53 wrote: »

I moved this to the Digital Darkroom Gear forum where you will find more users experienced with monitor calibration stuff.

Thanks!

haring

Newsy wrote: »

Spyder3 Pro vs Elite

http://spyder.datacolor.com/s3compare.php

Are you using Windows or Mac? Everything that follows is geared to Windows except where note.


If...

1. You have a dual or triple monitor system, or...
2. a wide gamut monitor, or...
3. Time is money to you

Then absolutely buy the Elite.


1. Where you have 2 or 3 monitors sitting side by side it is not only ideal to have all three with their RGB similar (6500K, 2.2 Gamma) but also their brightness identical.

The Elite has a dedicated software module for setting a targeted "white luminance" value and then walking you through the steps to get to that exact value. It is very interactive. White luminance is the variable by which you quantify and adjust brightness..

The Pro, having a crippled version of the Elite software, lacks this key brightness module. You will get a value for white luminance at the end of the calibration but to get to that value you make adjustments by eye, not by what the puck measures. If the white luminance is not where you want it, you have to go through most of the calibration again which takes several minutes.

Furthermore I believe the Elite is optimized for calibrating a system with multiple monitors. No work arounds required, it does the calibration for each monitor and writes a new unique ICC profile to disk for each monitor, and assigns it to the correct device in the Windows Color Management utility.

Another point on brightness, the CCFL back lights dim over time, very much so in the first year of use for some monitors. As the monitor brightness plays with the perceptual bias of your eye when editing, it is important to keep it at a level in balance with the ambient lighting of the room you edit in. Otherwise with too dark a monitor you may find yourself with prints that are too light.

Note that it seems with Mac's the Spyder software can automatically adjust brightness. I'm not a MAc user so I'm not sure on this process.

.............

2. Wide Gamut monitors - these cover the standard sRGB color space as well as the larger AdobeRGB color space. For the most accurate calibration you want to use the the Elite with the v4.0 or higher software. From what I've read recently on another forum, this software seems to use a unique calibration matrix for wide gamut monitors that is superior to versions prior to 4.x and other calibrators such as the i1 Display2.

............

3. Time.... it doesn't get any easier than the Elite. As you should be running this calibration at least every couple of months, and the brightness module allows you to keep the monitor(s) consistent, it takes much less time to do this maintenance and frees up time for editing.


With the cost difference between the Pro and Elite being about $56 USD (at B&H) I think this amount is easily justified even with one monitor standard gamut systems just based on how much easier it is to get the brightness of the monitor nailed down.

.

Thank you very much!

arodney

Any calibration software for a display that doesn’t provide a way to target specific luminance (cd/m2) and white point is basically useless.

sara505

I believe the Elite is the superior of the two, even though the word 'pro' in the label might lead you to think otherwise. I started with the pro and ended up having to upgrade to the elite. It's a good product, but I don't have all the big words to describe why.