Who out there calibrates their monitor? If so, what product do you use? This is new territory for me, and I'm trying to determine quality vs cost .. are there free services, or is investing the $$ in a product the way to go?
I took the plunge and am now kicking myself. It really makes obvious I need a better quality monitor. But overall, it works well with CS3 and I think results are more consistent in PP.
My prob is, I *know* I need a better monitor, it's on the Christmas List! I'm trying to decide if I should invest money now .. (so many images to edit, so little time) ... if I do invest the money now, will it be worth it even w/ a new monitor, or does having a quality monitor make it a non-issue?
Photography is a huge money pit and I have to choose where I spend my limited funds. I choose not to spend it on calibration hardware/software. I process photos on a laptop computer. My photos always print fine, so I'm not changing anything.
Without knowing anyones financial situations, I'd have to say the market on monitors couldnt possibly get any better! There are soo many different manufcturers offering so much options that the prices are just amazing. I run a dual monitor setup and am contemplating a third, and they are calibrated with a Huey Pro.
Last edited by Buddha Jones; 11-11-2008 at 09:54 PM.
My pix seem to blend in with everyone elses pix in galleries. If I was off, the other pix would look off, but they look fine, too, so I guess I'm OK. In fact, I've never seen any but a few posted pix that looked really off.
I use the basic Heuy from Pantone - cost me about $60 when I got it, I think.
It does a very nice job with my monitors - my day-to-day workhorse is a Gateway widescreen which tends to too cold but very saturated. The print results since calibrating with the Huey are beautifully natural. It has worked with no problems since I've had it, and takes a couple of minutes to calibrate. I do not use the room ambient light correction on it at all.
I have the Huey Pro - works nice on my Nokia monitor (bought out by ViewSonic in the mid 90's). However, when I get rich - I will go buy a ColorMunki ColorMunki - ColorMunki Photo because it wil build ICC profiles for your camera, monitor and printer. You can even get color readings off of walls, paint --- etc. Looks cool, but it is just too expensive for me to run out and get.
I have Iiyama Prolite monitor and didn't have any monitor calibration hardware until a month ago, when I finally got the Pantone Huey (for about a hundred euros).
So what exactly changed? After the calibration the color tone became a bit warmer and less saturated. These are really subtle differences and one wouldn't have noticed anything wrong on the pictures before as well. The other thing Huey does though is that it constantly monitores the room lightning conditions and changes the monitor brightness accordingly. I find this very helpful, since I work on the photos often late in the night, when there is no ambient light from the windows and only one lightsource in the room. Before I got Huey the photos I processes late in the night often were a bit dark and over saturated. In this I see now an improvement.
Greetings to y'all
I've done a software calibration with basICColor display's virtual device
But I'm looking forward to buy a hardware calibration tool, Huey or Eye-One Display 2. That's the only stuff we've got in our banana republic