Monitor calibration

[CauseISaidSo]

Anybody have any experience with, recommendations for or advice against any particular monitor calibration products?

I’ve got two LCDs side-by-side, same brand and model except one’s about 4 years older and I cannot seem to get the colors right between the two, which leaves me wondering just which version of my shots everyone else is seeing.

I’m thinking it’d be nice to get both monitors and my laptop calibrated to each other so everything looks more or less the same, but calibration tools run from fairly cheap to somewhat expensive, with reviews both for and against just about everything I’ve looked at.

[Elsinore]

I had the same problem–dual monitor set up, same brand, but models from different years, plus laptop. We have the added quirk that we run linux, so a lot of the color calibrators don’t work for us. We found Color Munki, which has the ability to run under Linux (though it works under Windows as well), and I’ve been very happy with it. I will say that my one monitor is just slightly darker than the other at this point (I think it’s fallen out of calibration over the last several months), but the colors between monitors and laptop are much much closer. Unfortunately, there’s no way of knowing what photos look like on other people’s monitors, and no real way to compensate for it.

[CauseISaidSo]

Which version do you use? B&H shows three variants: ColorMunki Create/Design/Photo. Design & Photo are both $450 which I’m sure is worth it if that’s how you make your living but seems kinda pricey for non-professional work.

I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything about their HueyPro product?

[Elsinore]

Don’t know about HueyPro, but Zeke says the ColorMunki we got was the low end one. It’s apparently the same device as the high end one, but the software is different, and he said the low end software kinda sucks. He didn’t care about that since he was just going to use it under Linux with different software anyway. Also, I’m pretty sure he got it off Amazon.

[LeicaLens]

I’ve got two LCDs side-by-side, same brand and model except one’s about 4 years older and I cannot seem to get the colors right between the two, which leaves me wondering just which version of my shots everyone else is seeing.

As my LCDs aren’t calibrated, I can safely say that I doubt I am seeing the same version of your shots as you 😆

And seeing the price of ColourMuunki has put me off it slightly.

[Elsinore]

The low end version is only $69

[orionid]

Not that I condone this sort of behavior, but we’ve got/had a blankamera, a farkamera, and a farkholga…. Why not a farkolormunki?

[CauseISaidSo]

I’m not really familiar with the specifics of your references – are you suggesting that this would be something several of us could go in together and share via shipping?

If so, I’m not sure that would work for this one, unless it’s kept in pretty much constant rotation. Supposedly, you need to re-calibrate every few weeks or so as the monitor output changes as it ages.

[CauseISaidSo]

As my LCDs aren’t calibrated, I can safely say that I doubt I am seeing the same version of your shots as you 😆

Yeah, that occurred to me, too. But while the products I’m looking at don’t cover printer calibration, most of the reviews I’ve read said it also got them much closer and at least consistent.

Besides, it’d give me a good excuse for when I do poorly in the contests! Stupid farkers’ monitors aren’t calibrated properly, yeah, that’s the ticket. 🙂

I’m kinda leaning towards the Spyder 3 Pro or Elite. Mom-in-law is asking what I want for Christmas so maybe I’ll suggest that.

[Author]

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