Monitor calibration - worth it?

I don't really do anything with my photos. Store them on a multitude of hard disks, look at them occasionally, never share them.

Notwithstanding, is it worth me calibrating my monitor?

For those of you who do calibrate your monitors, how often do you need to do it? I keep seeing calibration hardware on evil bay that's 'only been used once or twice.'

Are there benefits to monitor calibration other than photographic, i.e. games?

It depends. For some purposes, absolutely essential, for most amateur purposes, probably not. Using sRGB throughout the workflow covers most eventualities.

I have a huey pro, think it cost around £75, very easy to use.
Now when I print or I get prints back from shops they look the same as on the monitor.
Would definitely recommend it.
Davex.

If you do anything to your images, then yes, it's necessary.

Many monitors start out way too blue, too bright, etc and you have no way of knowing if the image adjustments you are making are correct! If your image is printed, displayed on other hardware, or on the web then you should get calibration done.

A regular Huey is a good bet, and personally I'd use dispcalGui+ArgyllCMS (which is OpenSource!). That way you can calibrate any machine (Win/Mac/Linux), and all your monitors
(Generally the difference between 'normal' and 'pro' calibration tools is just a software licensing issue - how many machines you can calibrate. The hardware is usually the same! But ArgyllCMS is often better than their supplied software anyway!)

Matt

If you view your photos on it then yes and even more so if you edit or print your photos.

For games there aren't real benefits only that the colours and the brightness are closer to what's real, same with movies.

Yes I use Spyder.

Forgot to say you do need a decent monitor though, some of the cheapest screens just aren't calibratable.

The regular Pantone Huey does not work well for windows 7 and 64 bit computers. The new Huey pro is designed to work in this environment

Dave

I also use a Spyder 3Pro. If your monitor can be calibrated then it’s well worth it. I did use Adobe Gamma (software only) back when I had a CRT but it was a bit hit and miss – much easier using a hardware calibrator.

The Spyder 3 system uses the same hardware for a range of different software options – so you could start with the basic model and upgrade the software latter.

If you edit your photos then some form of calibration is pretty much essential - I print all of my decent shots too and so many problems in this respect are caused by uncalibrated monitors, just look on the web at all the threads where people are complaining their prints from labs don't look the same as on their PC

Simon

I have wondered if calibration is necessary. I use a laptop to enhance my photo's using Photoshop/Elements, then I put them on this site for all to comment on. I assume that what everyone can see is the same as what I see. I am thinking of using outside agencies to print off my photo's, but I am concerned as to whether they will turn out OK.

I've two different monitors here, one LCD and the other an CRT, i have calibrate them both and they both still look different.

Most of the time LCD screens are set far too bright, you can actually check that quite well visually and most of the time the screen is to blueish.

A complete waste of money John ! unless you have a very poor, or old monitor

I found it made a very small amount of difference !! but others love em !

or maybe they just like spending money on gadgets

I'm all for using the SpiderPro 3. I have dual LCD monitors (Dell IPS 2209WA and LG IPS236, before calibration they showed completly differant colours, after calibration they are virtually identical.

Greg

simple yes how can you comment on pics if your monitors not calibrated.