Photography

Spyder 4 Pro Display Calibration

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Automatically calibrate your computer's display

I realized a couple of years ago that photos I’ve tweaked on one screen looked different, even crappy, on other screens. Some research followed and I ended up with Datacolor’s Spyder 4 Pro Colorimeter – a USB-connected device that calibrates the color profile used by my screens (with an installed application on the computer).

Couldn’t be simpler to use – start the program, connect the thing and hang it so its sensor is in the sweet spot and let it go (it’ll prompt you to do it again periodically (I do mine every six months)). I’m sure professionals with these things (and fancier versions) can get really into the details of hard-core corrections, but just my half-assed, passive let-it-run approach has made the whole on-line experience much better.

And if you put any effort at all into your digital imagery, I think this is a relatively small price to pay (in the big picture) to get a new level of confidence that what you create has a better chance of being seen as you intend.

-- Wayne Ruffner 02/19/16

(The Spider 4 Pro has been replaced with the Spider 5 Pro. — editors)

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