colormunki or Spider 3

I need to purchase a calibration tool for computer at work, most of the day to day images are for advertising copy and web design usually produced in Photoshop cs3 and Illustrator cs3. I have two potential choices the Colormunki or Spider 3 and cannot make my mind up, any suggestions.

Both are fantastic and do the job very well.
I have the Spyder3 Pro and it works perfectly, I like the profiles it creates and the ease of use. It takes ambient light readings constantly and I calibrate my screen 2-3 times a week (personal choice). It does inform you on a bi-weekly basis when it recommends you recalibrate.

Like I say, they both do pretty much the same job and I think its more down to personal choice.

Paul

I purchased a Heuy Pantone from the local apple store, I asked for a discount and they reduced it to £34! bargain. Before that I had used my mates spider but find this just the same, may be worth a look.

I've used the Spyder 1 Pro then the Spyder 2 Pro. Both were pretty good... then I discovered ArgyllCMS and dispcalGUI (Google for them). Both GPL/free to use software. Argyll produces some of the best colour profiles I've seen - and works with Spyder, Huey, EyeOne etc, etc.

Did a friend's laptop this week. He has a Huey Pro that wouldn't calibrate properly with the Huey software. Profiled using his Huey unit and used the "LUT" (colour look up table) profiling (rather than the more simplistic "Matrix/Shaper" profiling) - the profiling was quicker than the Spyder 2, and the result was fabulous!

If you can get a Huey for £34 then I'd say do that and use the free Argyll CMS + dispcalGUI

Additional advantage - it runs on Windows/Mac/Linux

HTH,
Matt

Thats why I brought it, it came from an apple store so may be worth popping into one if you have one locally.

I will have a look at the free Argyll CMS + dispcalGUI. Thanks for the info

Jon - I meant ArgyllCMS + dispcalGUI runs on Mac/Windows/Linux
The other advantage you'll have of using Argyll is that you can install it on as many machines as you want

Links:
http://www.argyllcms.com/ - AgyllCMS
http://hoech.net/dispcalGUI/ - dispcalGUI

On the Apple Mac it's an absolute doddle to install - especially with a Huey (it's a fair bit harder with a Spyder). Just unzip the Argyll files into ~/bin/Argyll_V1.0.4, then install dispcalGUI - and when asked, point it to ~/bin/Argyll_V1.0.4/bin

You can just click "Calibrate & Profile" (or you can change the "Profile Type" to "LUT" near the bottom). You'll see a terminal window appear - just press "7" to continue onto calibration.

Pretty easy - but be warned the LUT profile is time consuming - and you should disable screen savers etc!
Leave the display on for at least 1 hour before starting, then allow about 1 or 2 hours for decent profiling.

It's not until you find a display that won't calibrate with the software supplied with the hardware that you realise just how good Argyll is!!

Matt

If you are using Vista, everytime a pop up window alert shows up, it brings the monitor to default settings. A real pain...

On it already

many thanks

As ever the help on this site is outstanding. You have all given me something to think about. I've downloaded the Argyll & DispCalc software, this looks very interesting, however my first attempts have crashed, a windows vista x64 bit glitch I think.

With regards the Huey unit, that’s a new one on me. I'll have to do some more reading

I've also got a Spyder 3 Pro and it does an excellent job, very pleased with it

Graham, you still need some hardware for Argyll to use - which may explain the crashing. It worked fine on 32bit Vista though.

On Windows there is a fiddly installation for some hardware devices. But the Huey was a breeze under Windows (it already appears as a HID USB device, whereas some of the others, Spyder included, appear as custom devices and need to have their device driver assigned to the Argyll HID drivers).

The author of Argyll has been extremely helpful in sorting out various minor glitches and issues. It may be worth checking the Argyll forum for any news on x64 issues with Vista.

Failing that... get yourself a Mac (I'm a long-time Windows user and programmer, but loving the iMac 24" - wish I'd switched ages ago!!!)

Matt

Thanks Matt,

Re the Mac, If I shouted that around our IT dept I would be laughed out of town. However they have always been good at what they do i.e. Graphics & Music and so on. Although the cost of purchasing new software would break the bank for me.

Re the calibration, I'm gradually leaning towards the spider. Does anybody know if the software supplied is tied to one pc or does it have a more lenient licence agreement, for instance 70 / 30 pc & laptop license? This does seam an almost irrelevant question due to the availability of the Argyll system as open source.

Matt, does the ArgyllCMS + dispcalGUI software cope with dual monitors?

You still need a calibration device like the Spyder etc.

I've just taken Matt's advice and used the ArgyllCMS/DispcalGUI to profile my monitor. Very much better results than using the supplied Spyder2 Pro software. It does take a while though. 2 Hours in my case to profile my monitor. But it was worth it.