Reddit reviews Datacolor Spyder5PRO – Designed for Serious Photographers and Designers (S5P100)

Not at all. Just get one of these [referral link] and calibrate it before every big project. You'll be fine.

https://www.amazon.com/Datacolor-Spyder5PRO-Designed-Photographers-Designers/dp/B00UBSL31Q - this is the one you want, the Pro

The Spyder5Express won't work with dual monitors.

The problem is who has another 100$ to spend on a color calibrator?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UBSL31Q

Well a company that does photography does sure or someone willing to spend near a thousand dollars on a monitor does sure. Some youtube reviewer sure!

But someone who is going to buy say a 500$ gaming screen? I don't think so.

Manufacturer claims like '1 billion colours' are complete shit.

Two things matter for colour. Your spectrum coverage and your deltaE value. There are different spectrum's that manufacturers like to use, some less relevant than others.

http://www.displaymate.com/Display_Color_Gamuts_1.htm

NTSC for example is of no real value. sRGB or Rec.709 is the normal standard for colour display. DCI-P3 is a stepping stone, being 26% larger than sRGB. Rec.2020 is the next gen standard, being 72% larger than sRGB.

DeltaE is the human perception of colour differences. A larger value means the difference is more distinguishable, an average DeltaE of 1 is considered the minimum a human can notice. Any display with a value of 2 or under is considered good, although professional calibrated displays should easily be under 1.

http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/Delta_E:_The_Color_Difference

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/calibrating.htm

You can have a wide colour spectrum, but somewhat poor accuracy despite that. If you buy an expensive monitor, I recommend renting or buying a calibration unit to achieve the best possible results.

https://www.amazon.ca/Datacolor-S5P100-Spyder5PRO-Colorimeter-Black/dp/B00UBSL31Q

Avoid the cheapest calibration units, as they tend to lack features such as room lighting monitoring.

Your next step is to use a colorimeter to get it calibrated as /u/bbmm mentioned.

I use and am quite happy with my ColorMunk Displaybut I know many people also like the Datacolor Spyder.

The steps are pretty straight forward once you've got the software installed. Just be mentally prepared for the fact that you probably won't like how the calibrated display looks at first (because you've been looking at inaccurate colors for so long your brain has gotten used to them) so give it some time.

Enjoy!

Buy a color calibrator, or do it very crudely (if you are selling prints I would not do this) and hold your phone next to your MacBook and use the basic software adjustments like contrast, gamma, and rgb settings to match it. A proper color calibrator will ensure your photos are accurate and as even as they can be across all screens. Some of the higher end ones even allow camera and printer calibration. Once again, unless you are just shooting for fun, id STRONGLY recommend actually buying a proper calibrator like these:
Datacolor spyder5PRO or the spyder5elite

x-rite colormunki display or the x-rite idisplay PRO

Nope, its fine.

Most important question - is your monitor calibrated? If you don't have a hardware calibration sensor then you really can't be sure what you are seeing is accurate.

Having one will save you plenty of frustration when you want to start ordering prints. I'm calibrated and when I order prints I drop-ship them directly to the client. I don't need to see them first.

I have the 5-year old version of this calibrator and it's still working just fine. It's a very worthwhile investment.

> Colormunki Display

Thank you for the amazing reply.

The Colormunki Display came out in 2011, right? It has better sensor even though it came out 4 years earlier?

Is this 2011 one, the one you're talking about:

X-Rite CMUNDIS ColorMunki Display CDN$ 168.99

Datacolor S5P100 Spyder5PRO CDN$ 187.16

The Spyder5 express is the same price as the 2011 Colormunki Display.

Windows and MacOS have built in utilities to help calibrate monitors, but I've been using the test images from here for about 10 years:

http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

That page will do a pretty good job, but if you really want to get it 100% right, something like this is what is needed:

https://www.amazon.com/Datacolor-Spyder5PRO-Designed-Photographers-Designers/dp/B00UBSL31Q/

For comparison, it sells for $240 in Canada... so even after the exchange rate and shipping, $99 USD is still a good deal.

The obvious solution here (the one I chose) is to get a Color calibrating device and create your own profile.

I would go with a 4K monitor, especially at 27", because that's a size where you will notice the difference. With the split screen feature in windows 10, you don't really need to have multiple monitors. Split screen isn't that great for workflow at 1080 since you can't fit that much on each side, but it works well at 4K since each half of the screen is the equivalent to the pixel width of a 1080p monitor. Since you mentioned you don't do heavy color work, this monitor would work really well for you. There's always the option of a color calibrator in the future if you decide you need it.

I use a spyder 5. It's the only one I have ever used. It does the job. Can't speak about others.

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I assume you have an IPS screen?

Every monitor is different. You cannot just take someone else's settings and apply them to your unit, you'll just make things worse. You need to either buy something like Datacolor Spyder and calibrate the monitor yourself or find someone who has the equipment and is willing to help you out.

As a side note, all TN panels have washed out colors and if you care about picture quality even a bit, you'll most likely have to choose an IPS or VA monitor instead.

Product page here: http://spyder.datacolor.com/portfolio-view/spyder5pro/

Amazon page here if you'd like to read some reviews: http://smile.amazon.com/Datacolor-S5P100-Spyder5PRO/dp/B00UBSL31Q

Looks like the same price at amazon: https://smile.amazon.com/Datacolor-Spyder5PRO-Designed-Photographers-Designers/dp/B00UBSL31Q/

You can google for a monitor calibration guide for your specific model monitor, or look for an ICC profile that'll do it automatically. Though all panels have manufacturing defects that are individual to each monitor so there will always be variance between your monitor and another users meaning calibration guides or ICC profiles aren't perfect. You could try calibrating your monitor manually using online tools. Otherwise, for best results you'd want to buy something like a Spyder5 calibration tool.

Xiaomi notebook pro is very good for its price :) Perhaps reinstall windows to get rid of the bloatware and possibly get a calibrator like this if you need a very precise colour accuracy for your work: https://www.amazon.co.uk/datacolor-S5P100-Datacolor-Spyder5PRO/dp/B00UBSL31Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537471172&sr=8-1&keywords=spyder+pro

If you get the 13R3 OLED you can calibrate the color with a SpyderPro device. They are expensive but it would be worth the investment. But with it being a hobby, I wouldn't worry about it too much. I love my 13R3 for photo/video work and gaming is awesome on it.

Hi 'currently using bockingford inkjet watercolour paper for my unicorn prints(my only prints atm) which allows that lovely paper texture to shine! I have also printed sketches on to arches hot press paper and painted over them with great success! Both these papers need to be set to "other fine art paper". You can usually tell which setting to use depending on the thickness and weight of the paper. Although a lot of papers have their own profiles which you can download too. Also the borders come out straight!! So I am very happy with it!

Oh I should mention, although you probably know this, but if you decide to do home printing, get a monitor calibration tool! Then your prints come out exactly like they appear on the monitor. I use this https://www.amazon.com/Datacolor-Spyder5PRO-Designed-Photographers-Designers/dp/B00UBSL31Q

I only have 4 prints at the moment which are a set of unicorns that I did for myself. They do have thick white borders, but I designed them that way for easy framing. I'm not sure if I will do it for the new series yet. If you are curious my Etsy is https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KneeleyPillustration?ref=seller-platform-mcnav it really needs updating A LOT! Lol. But maybe you can see the paper texture from my printer?

I would love to see your work too if you feel like sharing! Although I understand if you don't. I'm usually pretty shy at sharing my work too, but I'm trying to get over that lol :)

Haha yes! It does feel like we have to wander around blindly a lot! But it's part of the fun I guess. Plus it is really nice to meet other artists too! It's also nice to share stuff with others who are interested, as my friends tend to glaze over a bit if I go off on a tangent about art supplies(I think I have an addiction to pens! lol)', im DAD.

It's actually a really nice printer! Although quite expensive I guess, but I got it in the january sale as I knew I'd be eventually branching out to prints. Here's a link https://www.canon.co.uk/printers/inkjet/pixma/pixma_pro-10s/ It actually has 10 cartridges! Which is pretty insane! But the quality is definitly there! I actually ordered some prints from a print on demand place(I think it was printful) before I bought the printer, and the quality and colours weren't as good, and my borders weren't even straight. Being a perfectionist, I just decided to buy a printer lol!

So as for paper, it seems to print on just about anything(including canvas apparently, although I haven't tried that yet)! I am currently using bockingford inkjet watercolour paper for my unicorn prints(my only prints atm) which allows that lovely paper texture to shine! I have also printed sketches on to arches hot press paper and painted over them with great success! Both these papers need to be set to "other fine art paper". You can usually tell which setting to use depending on the thickness and weight of the paper. Although a lot of papers have their own profiles which you can download too. Also the borders come out straight!! So I am very happy with it!

Oh I should mention, although you probably know this, but if you decide to do home printing, get a monitor calibration tool! Then your prints come out exactly like they appear on the monitor. I use this https://www.amazon.com/Datacolor-Spyder5PRO-Designed-Photographers-Designers/dp/B00UBSL31Q

I only have 4 prints at the moment which are a set of unicorns that I did for myself. They do have thick white borders, but I designed them that way for easy framing. I'm not sure if I will do it for the new series yet. If you are curious my Etsy is https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KneeleyPillustration?ref=seller-platform-mcnav it really needs updating A LOT! Lol. But maybe you can see the paper texture from my printer?

I would love to see your work too if you feel like sharing! Although I understand if you don't. I'm usually pretty shy at sharing my work too, but I'm trying to get over that lol :)

Haha yes! It does feel like we have to wander around blindly a lot! But it's part of the fun I guess. Plus it is really nice to meet other artists too! It's also nice to share stuff with others who are interested, as my friends tend to glaze over a bit if I go off on a tangent about art supplies(I think I have an addiction to pens! lol)

I literally bought a device to do it for me:

https://smile.amazon.com/Datacolor-S5P100-Spyder5PRO/dp/B00UBSL31Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1467949443&sr=8-1&keywords=spyder+pro

I don't believe you can calibrate the phone, but you can calibrate your laptop using something like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Datacolor-Spyder5PRO-Designed-Photographers-Designers/dp/B00UBSL31Q

Get a Z270 board instead, and maybe grab an H115i AIO liquid cooler since you'll probably doing high-end overclocking with that CPU.

Replace the PSU as well with an EVGA SuperNova G2 650W instead as well.

And if you're doing professional editing, why not grab a Spyder5PRO for a hundred bucks while you're at it?

Datacolor Spyder5PRO – Designed for Serious Photographers and Designers (S5P100) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00UBSL31Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_HX7UCbCVYNXAY