articles/Colour Management/datacolor-cal-aids-page6

Datacolor Calibration Aids - part 6 of 1 2 3 4 5 6

by Mike McNamee Published 01/06/2015

Rather alarming was the appearance of a second GUI of 'befores and afters' on our second monitor. Now the second monitor is driven from an entirely separate graphics card and should have been left untouched. As far as we could tell the second monitor calibration had not been interfered with, but the two screens looked nothing like each other.

The i1 profiler software would not recognise the Spyder5 profile as one of its own and so we were forced into using BabelColor to conduct a proper audit of the results. This uses a different patch set and so we had to uninstall the Spyder Software and then recalibrate using Eizo ColorNavigator so that we could transfer to the BabelColor to audit (I hope you are following all this!). Here are the results:

So, on the BabelColor protocol the Spyder 5 is in much the same ball park as the Color Navigator (which uses an i1 device). It is different, and not quite as good, but nothing to raise any alarm bells; the gamut volume has gone up slightly.

OVERALL
Overall then this is a neat , well-packed device that makes a good profile but lacks any sophistication in the reporting of the result. We do not hold with the view that the professional photographer needs protecting from science - ours is a technical endeavour and it is reasonable to expect professionals to take the trouble to learn their craft. The dumbing down of the reporting means that you are left hanging and wondering just how good your calibration really is. If you have to go into battle with a printing supplier you need to KNOW you are within calibration limits not make a guess on a 'before and after' screen that does not even appear to change. That said the standard of engineering of all the items tested is impressive.

Street Prices:
Spyder Colorcheckr £123
Spyder Cube £40
Spyder5 Color Elite £207

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• Datacolor Calibration Aids page 1
  
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Contact Mike McNamee

1st Published 01/06/2015
last update 09/12/2022 14:53:05

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