Monitor Calibration

milkjunkie90

Hi I'm trying to calibrate my monitor for photos and i was wondering if anyone had any tips. I was looking at monitor calibration tools like the spyder3 but they seem quite expensive for something ill only need to use once. I dont suppose someone has one that they could rent me?:)

sineadw

You need to calibrate your monitor about once a month or so

dirtyghettokid

i bought a pantone huey for about a hundred quid. it requires running every 14 days. if you borrow one, it requires software to be installed to use it and then it will pop up every time your screen needs calibrating (unless you turn reminders off)

artyeva

second hand huey and huey pros come up in the uk every so often on e-bay. do what i did and don't be put off by 'delivery to uk only' and just e-mail the seller to see of they'll deliver here - no harm in asking. the one i got recently seems to have been from an art college that was upgrading, judging by the original label on the box. i got mine for €50 or €60 including delivery and by the looks of it it's only been used once or twice - it's as new anyway.

squareballoon

I got Eye one match and I calibrate my machine every two weeks which it prompts me to do

ThOnda

I got Spyder second hand for €50 at it does decent job, every time I got it back into my hands

NakedDex

Here's a question I haven't had to consider, until today, about monitor calibration; what do you do when you're convinced the calibration is wrong, but the device says it's right?
Mine gave me a notice today to say the monitor was due recalibration, so I duly ran the software and the result has made everything far, far too warm. The monitor doesn't have colour temperature adjustment, so I can't re-correct it to 6500K (as it asks you to do) before running the software.

af_thefragile

Try a different calibration tool...?

NakedDex

It's a Spyder 3 Pro. It's never given me an incorrect calibration before.



I've done some tweaking on the monitor to get a new calibration to sit right, but I now notice that the top of my screen is a lot darker than the bottom, and displays strong blue hues. Methinks the problem is my screen now, rather than the calibration.

Heebie

Calibration tools need calibration themselves from time to time.

The i1's come with a white patch mounted in a holder for the device that should be replaced annually if I remember the documentation right... but even with that they recommend getting it recalibrated at the factory every so often.

NakedDex

Yeah, I've been told of that before, but it's only about nine months old. I'd figured I'd get twice that before having to send it away for re-calibration.

Heebie

Yeah, that's a bit soon for it not to be working right.
There's probably some adjustment on the monitor that's not right already.. or it's possible the monitor is just cheap crap and isn't really capable of accurate display. (hopefully that's not the case... but since the calibration equipment probably cost more than the monitor.. it's possible... and probably preferable to the calibration hardware being crap.)

NakedDex wrote: »

Yeah, I've been told of that before, but it's only about nine months old. I'd figured I'd get twice that before having to send it away for re-calibration.

NakedDex

The monitor had been fine on it's calibrations until now. Certainly not cheap crap as monitors go, but definitely not an editing specific monitor (a Samsung I originally picked up for €230 a couple of years ago, primarily concerned with gaming at the time).

There's little adjustment on the monitor, but I guess I'll have to recheck and recalibrate a few more times to ensure it's not just a setting causing the mishap.