Help with Spyder - I calibrated my LCD..

I recently bought a Spyder (and a GretagMacBeth color checker chart) to calibrate the LCD monitor on my Thinkpad. In the process of calibrating, the Spyder software changed the display significantly, leaving the colors noticeably toned down and more subdued. (Although this LCD has Red, Blue and Green controls, they are set in software, from the Windows Control Panel. Since I could not access the control panel while the Spyder software was running, I had to bail out of the program when it asked me to manually adjust color values. I re-ran the program, telling the Spyder program that my monitor had no color controls. It then took over the computer and made whatever changes it made itself. The curves in the monitor color controls remained unchanged.

After calibration, as a test, I took an image I shot at Tulamben this past week-end, converted from RAW and then took the image into Photoshop where I followed my usual procedures. The final result looked great on the screen. But when I printed the image on my HP Cx970cxi, the result was garish and truly awful.

Uncalibrated, my LCD monitor and the printer were closely matched when printing on HP premium photo paper - all I had to do was lighten the image slightly for printing.

I now rather regret I ever started this exercise. If nothing else, I'd like to get the monitor back the way it was before I calibrated, but I'm not sure how to do that.

Any help or advice would be gratefullly appreciated.

Robert Delfs

Hey Robert,

What are your settings in Photoshop? Under "Print with Preview" the settings should be:

Adobe RGB (assuming this is your working space)

Profile is set to: Printer Colour Management or whatever your Printer profile if you have custom paper profiles.

Intent is set to Perceptual.

Everyone I've talked to who uses the Spyder has been very happy with their purchase.

HTH,

Stu

Thanks, I'll try that.

I missed the option box set under print-with-preview last night.

Robert

Oh yeah, make sure your working space is also set to Adobe RGB....

stu

Epson have a list on their site of the workflow for digital file to print on a color managed system (in PDF) which basically covers what scubastu has said, but in much more detail. It may be helpful to you, or HP may have their own equivalent. Do you have a custom profile or means of obtaining one for your printer?

Hi Robert,

I had some trouble calibrating my monitor too.

First check if your monitor is using the profile you are creating with your Monitor Spider.

Go to your display properties of your monitor and make your current monitor profile is PhotoCal.

If not, you can check it from a list of available profiles if you had created one.

If you can adjust your red, green, and blue guns of your monitor separately you’ll get a much better color calibrated monitor.

If you continue to have problems why don’t you call tech support at Color Vision. I called them a dozen times before I got mine straighten out. In the long run I think you’ll be very pleased, I am.

Marc