Spyder 2 Pro, No difference in Calibration

Hi everyone,

I bought the Colorvision Spyder 2 recently (?330) and the

calibration does not appear to make any positive difference to my

monitor. At first I thought the monitor profiled very well,

especially when combined with dedicated printer and paper profiles.

But recently I don't like it at all. In particular, what appears as

a saturated green on the monitor prints as green brown. The printer

is a canon i9900, and I use Ilford Galerie Classic Pearl with

Ilford's profile (Bravo Ilford! Excellent skin tones!).

I believe I'm following all the instructions correctly, but when I

run the software I get a screen after the calbration routine which

allows the user to switch between two test screens which show the

colors before and after calibration. I haven't been able to tell any

difference between the two screens at all. Is this normal? Just to

fill in some more detail, I use a Dell Latitude D600 (Bad choice to

use laptop LCD I know, but convenience of laptops is a must). Could

someone tell me if they'd had any similar experience, or know of a

solution, before I box it up and return it to Colorvision?

Thanks. -Ian

True, the printer profile could be at fault for the difference between the print and the monitor, although I believe the print profile is accurate. But that still does not account for the lack of a difference between the uncalibrated and supposedly calibrated sample screen given at the end of the colorvision's calibration routine.

As I write, I have found something on Colorvision's website which may fix the problem. But I'll have to try it and see.

changing your monitor profile will NOT change your prints. A monitor profile changes the way you see images on screen but the same colour information goes to your printer driver. My analogy of this is as follows:

On a warm sunny day you have three pairs of sunglasses with you. tinted red, orange, and green. Whenever you put a pair of glasses on (your monitor profile). Your view (your image)seen by you changes colour. But the view (your image)actually stays the same. hope this makes sense.

Hi Ian,

I too have a Spyder2Pro, and in fact I do notice a difference between the two test screens at the end of a calibration run.

When you toggle between the screens, the software loads or unloads the calibrated LUT values from your VGA card. If you dont notice any difference, there is no noticable difference between the default LUT values and the loaded LUT values.

There are two possible explanations for this. The most obvious but unlikely explanation is that your laptop LCD already is (almost?) perfect and needs (almost?) no adjustment. In this case, the calibration will result in (almost?) identical LUT values, and of course you wont notice any difference.

The other explanation is that maybe the LUT loader doesnt work with your VGA card. In this case, the software tries to present two different images, but in fact you will see the very same image two times. This is probably the case with your laptop (and its integrated VGA chipset).

Before you proceed, you should verify which one of the two explanations are true for your situation. There is a simple way to do it:

1. calibrate for whitepoint 6500K (D65) gamma 2.2 (the default setting)

2. safe the profile as "my laptop at 6500k 2.2"

3. calibrate for whitepoint 5000K (D50) gamma 2.2.

4. safe the profile as "my laptop at 5000k 2.2"

5. start the "profile chooser" from the Spyder 2 start menu entry

6. toogle between the two profiles

As you toggle between the profiles, the screen should change colors from "neutral" to "yellow cast". This includes the Windows task bar, and any open non-color-managed windows application.

If you can not notice any difference, the LUT loader is not compatible to your laptop VGA chipset and Spyder2 doesnt work for you. You might want to talk to Colorvision, maybe they have an update or are willing to improve their software with your help (ie: laptop spec and testing labor).

If you DO notice a difference though, everything is fine and has been fine all along.

Marc

PS: in case you are interested, here a few additional technical hints.

I have installed the Spyder2 successfully on a GHz laptop once, so modern laptops can (and should) be compatible.

OTOH I installed it in a virtual machine once, where the emulated VGA "card" has no LUT. Spyder2 complained rightfully about the incompatibility and refused to run. So your laptop most probably has a LUT - you would know already if it hadnt.

Loading the LUT with other programs is possible, there are some on internet. Maybe its even possible to load them with Adobe Gamma. However, Spyder2 changes the LUT at some point during the calibration process. If your VGA card doesnt execute this change, maybe the resulting profile is not accurate - and loading it with a different tool maybe would not result in an accurate display.

Good luck!

Got an answer from Colorvision

"In most cases, this problem is corrected when the user updates the driver software for their video card to the current version available from the video card manufacturer's website.

Please go to the website for your video card, download the current driver software for your video card model and install. Then try rerunning Spyder2 again."

Worked a treat, Thanks Colorvision.