Monitor calibrator? Which would you recommend?

Minstadave · 19 Sep 2017 at 19:03

I have been contemplating one of these for ages. Usually use dual monitors for LR and would like to calibrate them.

I don’t need anything too fancy, it’s just family photos and sRGB colour space. What would people recommend?

Raymond Lin · 19 Sep 2017 at 20:33

Either Spyder or X-Rite

mrk · 21 Sep 2017 at 00:20

I've owned both Xrite and Spyder and personally favour Xrite for ultimate accuracy, but that does come at a higher cost. I also wasn't a huge fan of Spyder software, but since my monitor now has a hardware LUT, I have to use LG's software.

If it's just for general use and you just appreciate accurate colours without breaking the bank, then you could go for a Spyder.

voidshatter · 21 Sep 2017 at 17:24

Be careful with cheaper products like the i1 Display Pro. These are not compatible with OLED displays.

Also, colour management in Windows can be messy, resulting in different color spaces being displayed in different software (Windows Photo Viewer, Photoshop, Capture One etc). You adjust the colour in one program, but get inconsistent colour in other programs.

mrk · 21 Sep 2017 at 19:22

It's not so much an issue with sRGB monitors, it's more an issue where you have a wide gamut monitor. And nobody on this forum has an OLED monitor I can guarantee it. The only one that was briefly on the market was the Dell UP3017Q, but Dell seemed to have taken it off sale, I imagine due to issues, and it was in the £thousands in price.

I have been calibrating monitors from TN to IPS and VA for as long as I've been using a camera and have only encountered odd colour issues with calibration when doing it on wide gamut displays.

The Op will have no issues at all.

voidshatter · 24 Sep 2017 at 22:08

mrk said:
And nobody on this forum has an OLED monitor I can guarantee it.

I've been using ThinkPad X1 Yoga OLED for the 2nd year now (1st gen and 2nd gen).

In year 2017, simply just don't buy any more IPS screens. Even iPhone shifts to OLED eventually, after Android phones have been using AMOLED for a while.

mrk · 24 Sep 2017 at 22:18

Not really possible currently for a large monitor on its own though.

FloatingPoint · 25 Sep 2017 at 19:08

Spyder or i1 are both good, but seriously do the final proofing for digital output on an iPhone a MacBook and a basic office LCD as these are what most of your images will be viewed on anyway. Good rule of thumb is if it looks ok on iOS it’ll do for most digital situations. Print is a very different situation.