Digital Home Thoughts: Pixel Perfect Colour: The Spyder2Pro Studio from ColorVision

To Calibrate or Not to Calibrate?
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.

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.

Getting Started With the Spyder2Pro Studio


Figure 1: What comes in the box.

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.

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.

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.

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!


Figure 2: The sensor on my laptop LCD screen, and the testing process is underway.

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.