SpyderStudio calibration kit

<p>Hi Guys,<br>

With my Epson R3000<br>

I'm thinking of buying a SpyderStudio calibration kit. I believe the newest version is the S4, and includes the spider Elite 4.<br>

I have a couple of questions though.<br>

1) The Spyder Studio S3 can still be bought new and is about haqlf the price of the S4 generation. Is there a notable difference between them?<br>

2) Does the spyder studio S3 generation also include a spyder Elite 3 or is that a spyder pro 3?<br>

3) I read several reports where people complained that they couldn't get it to work out of the box, and either needed help from support, or just gave up. This sounds to me as if the instructions ar eopen to intepretation and general user understanding of the toolkit rather than actually a defective product. As such, could someone point out the areas that need some attention when working the calibration?<br>

4) I use 2 monitors, an iMac display, and a cinema display. At the moment they have a different tint that I cannot seme to get rid of. Would the calibration kit help me with that?<br>

Thanks!</p>

<p>Might want to also look into the ColorMunki Photo from X-rite (an actual Spectrophotometer!). You only measure 100 patches and it's quick, easy and builds very good profiles. </p>

<p>I didn't have a very good experience with Spyder 2 software. It wasn't reliable (for me). They wanted to sell me one of their newer products. But instead I switched to ColorMunki Photo and I'm much happier. That's been several years ago, and obviously there are probably a lot of happy Spyder users out there. It just didn't work for me. </p>

<p>wow, so that's 2 out of 2 that are in favour of the munki... curious if there are other experiences.<br>

From what I read the Munki is the better all in one solution and easier to use, but more difficult to fine tune, and doesn't provide consistent neutral greys when comparing colour to B&W images... At least, that's what I read elsewhere...</p>

<p>I needed the software to create profiles for my printer. I bought Color munki and created profiles from it. The profiles were a bust. I print a lot of nature elements, including flowers and munki could not resolve the tones needed.</p>

<p>I then bought Spyder3. I bought the non-SR version but it had some problem so Datacolor sent me the SR version. It created much better profiles then the ColorMunki. The Spyder3 suit also includes Spyder3 Elite. I use it for display profiling. Initially I did not see much difference but then I upgraded my video card, and it made a big difference. Now the colors on my display are pretty accurate (my monitor display a color shift from left to right, but there is nothing Spyder can do about it).</p>

<p>I will recommend Spyder4 only if you are interested in profiling iPad and other non-computer devices. Otherwise Spyder 3 is good and it uses latest software version (the same that Spyder 4 uses). I am quite satisfied with Spyder 3 SR. It is not perfect but pretty good and when a color is out of gamut, it does a good job of mapping it to something close to it.</p>

<p>Of course, the Gold standard in this is i1 Profiles, which is about $1400. However to get full advantage of it, you should also be investing in an automatic patch reader also which is about 2-3000 more.</p>

<p>thanks guys!</p>

<p>I recently bought me a Spyder 4 studio (against lots of Colormunki biased info).<br>

I had the chance to compare both and must say the Colormunki is easy to use and is rather foolproof. Results are pretty good, but with Black & White printing on my Epson R1800 there was always a distinctive (and different on different images) colorcast, even refining the profile with b&w images.<br>

The Spyder 4 profiles (729EZ patches) are giving me almost neutral Black&Whites on every paper and image tested. Testing QuadToneRip for the R1800 (QuadR1800) did not improved the neutrality.<br>

So I am happy with the Spyder 4 studio results. Be aware there's a lot more room for errors with the Spyder - checking profiles for regularity in Colorsync Utility is not a waste of time and i had to remeasure quite a lot in the beginning!<br>

Only if someone could explain me why the profiles in Colorsync utility from the Spyder are showing a much smaller gamut for prints and a much larger for screen than those from the colormunki?</p>