Datacolor Spyder4Elite S4EL100 Colorimeter for Display Calibration

CUSTOMER REVIEW



Vine Customer Review of Free Product (What's this?) I use both the Spyder4 Elite model and the Xrite EODIS3 i1Display Pro and so I can compare the different calibration systems.



If you are a professional or just serious about digital photography, you will probably be interested in the Xrite i1 Display Pro in addition to the Spyder4 Elite. The Xrite calibration default settings are more advanced than the default settings of the Sypder4 calibration systems. However, the Sypder4 Elite does offer the same features as the Xrite systems if you are willing to dig through the advanced settings. In addition, the Sypder4 software is more user friendly and easier to use than the Xrite software. With the Xrite software, you really need to spend time getting the settings correct and I am always frustrated that my calibrated display doesn't match so many of the swatches used in the Xrite analysis.



A very significant advantage of the Spyder4 Elite is that it can have one profile for each monitor attached to your computer. As far as I can tell, the Xrite software only allows for one profile to be used at a time. This is fine if you swap between monitors (such as a laptop monitor and an external monitor where you only use one at a time) but results in not being able to calibrate two or more monitors if you use them all at the same time. If this is unacceptable to you, then you should consider the Spyder4 Elite instead of the Xrite systems.



First Impression of the Spyder4 Elite

The first time that I used the Spyder4 Elite, I thought it was too simplistic and many of the features that I have come to expect after using the Xrite colorimeters were missing. However, after I used the Spyder4 for a while, I found that most of the features that I thought were missing were there but hidden in the advanced settings or the tools pull down menu. The hidden features include the ability to use the monitor's controls to adjust the RGB gains individually. Before I discovered the advanced settings, I was going to recommend the Xrite system instead of the Spyder4 Elite. However, once I discovered the Spyder4 advanced features, the advantages of the Xrite i1 Display Pro over the Spyder4 Elite became negligible in my opinion.



Setup

The software installed easily on my Windows 7 64 bit and Windows XP 64 bit computers. After registering online, I was prompted to download an update (version 4.5.4 which is about 70 MB) which also installed easily. The software also alerted me that I had another calibration program in the Startup folder. This was important to know so that there weren't conflicts between different calibration programs.



Once the software was installed, I plugged the colorimeter into a USB port, but found the device was not recognized. The documentation specifically states that the colorimeter should not be plugged into front ports, powered hubs, monitor or keyboard ports. The documentation also recommends unplugging all of your peripherals, but that seemed overkill to me and I left my keyboard and mouse plugged into their USB hub. My laptop only has three USB ports and the Spyder4 Elite colorimeter would only work if plugged into one of them. If found the same problem when I plugged in my Spyder4 Pro colorimeter. However, I had no problem with desktop computers not recognizing the colorimeter, even when I used the front USB ports which the Spyder4 documentation recommends against using.



Calibration

A nice feature about the Spyder4 software is that calibration is straightforward for simple calibrations. You simply choose the type of monitor that you want to calibrate (laptop versus external LCD or a CRT). You set the target values that you would like for the calibration and recommended values for the Gamma, Brightness and Temperature are noted and you choose which monitor is to be calibrated if more than one display is attached to your computer.



The first step of the calibration is an ambient light check. However, during the process, there is no indication about how the sensor should be positioned during the ambient light measurements. It would have been nice to know if it should have been in front of the screen or which way to face it. Based on the ambient light, new values for the brightness and temperature are recommended. You can choose to use the recommended values are the original values that you selected.



You are instructed to use the monitor controls if applicable to adjust the RGB settings. The default setting of the Spyder4 software only allows you to use the monitor controls to adjust the RGB gains if your monitor allows you to set temperatures. This in my opinion is a problem since other calibrator allowed you to change each RGB channel. However, under the advanced features, there is the option to adjust each of the RGB gains. Although setting the temperature is faster, I have found that setting the individual sliders brings the RGB gains more in line with what you are trying to achieve than the monitor's temperature settings. I certainly recommend only using the sliders and not the temperature settings.



Some of the monitors that I calibrated had the awkward problem of showing their monitor control panel in the middle of the screen which is just where the calibrator wanted to be placed. At first I slid the calibrator to one side to reveal the monitor control panel and kept it there as I tweaked the settings. However, then I found that while I had set the RGB gains and the brightness correctly for the location where the monitor had been moved, they were not correct for the center of the screen. Obviously, these monitors had issues with screen uniformity. So, I then began the process of tweaking the gains while the calibrator was pushed to one side and then moving the calibrator back into place to take the reading. This is not the fault with the Spyder4 system, but it was annoying. It is because of problems like these that I assume the Spyder4 system requires you to click a button to tell it to sample after you change the gains rather than to continuously sample from the screen.



In addition to setting the RGB gains, you are asked to adjust the brightness of the display to the desired target. Instead, you need to change the brightness using the monitor controls and then click a button and wait for a new measurement. Once the brightness is set, the calibration resumes. You are asked to change the display's brightness again before the presentation of the color swatches begins.



At the end of the calibration process, the software displays an image that you can view both with and without the new color profile. It is possible to tweak the calibration using SpyderTune which allows you to use sliders to change the white point, gamma and brightness. It is also possible to see how well the calibrated monitor matches the sRGB, CMYK and Adobe RGB color spaces. I really appreciated being able to determine how well my monitor produced the color spaces. You can also compare past calibration results to the current calibration to see which better matched the color space. The best that I was able to achieve was 98% sRGB and 76% Adobe RGB. However, I also like to view the RGB curves to be able to see how much each needed to be adjusted to match the desired Gamma and temperature. Fortunately, this is possible under the Tools pull down menu at the top of the screen.



Analysis of the Profile

The Elite versions offer an advanced analysis option for analyzing how well the calibration met the settings you selected. The analysis includes:

- Gamut

- Tone response

- Brightness and contrast - at different settings of the brightness but only brightness, not contrast settings

- White point at different OSD settings

- Screen uniformity

- Color Accuracy

- A final report card of the monitor's performance based on the results of the tests



I found these tools to be very useful for helping me to understand how well my monitors were matching the temperature, Gamma and brightness that I wanted. However, a limitation is that you can not change the set of colors which are used for the assessment. The Xrite software allows you to choose different patch sets for the analysis.



Profile Chooser

A separate program which is installed under the Datacolor directory is called Profile Chooser. This program allows you to choose which calibrated profile you would like to apply. This is especially useful if you have a bad calibration and want to return to an older version. A list of available profiles is show on each of the monitors attached to the computer which is a nice feature.



Online Support

I found the FAQ and knowledge base on the Datacolor website to be limited and not straightforward to use. For example, searching the database for "ambient light" results in lots of hits including information for prior versions and in other languages. You then need to sort through all of the retrieved information which makes the online FAQ pretty much useless. Fortunately, the Spyder4 software includes instructions which I found to be helpful most of the time.



Recommendations

The Spyder4 Elite offers a very effective means of easily calibrating your monitors. Overall, I was really impressed by how well the Spyder4 Elite worked using the advanced features. The whole calibration experience was a lot less frustrating than that using the Xrite software. I would recommend the Spyder4 Elite over the Xrite i1 Display Pro due to:



- the Spyder 4 software is more user friendly than the Xrite sotware

- both offer the same features if you are willing to look for them in the Spyder4 software

- the Spyder4 can calibrate multiple monitors on the same computer



However, be prepared for your laptop not to recognize the Spyder4 colorimeter if it is plugged into certain USB ports and the online support is limited. Furthermore, in my opinion, an important step in the calibration process is the adjustment of the monitor controls (applicable to external monitors but not to most laptops) to adjust the red, green and blue (RGB) gains towards the desired temperature so that the profile does not have to make a large adjustment to set the correct temperature. By default, Spyder4 prompts the user to set the temperature of the monitor rather than to use the sliders. I believe that the use of the RGB gains should be the default rather than the temperature. However, I think that setting the temperature was set as the default since it is easier but at the cost of being less precise.



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