datacolorSpyder5PRO - S5P100

Overall it’s very easy to use the Spyder 5 Pro and it does deliver a good outcome.Having bought a second hand Apple 27” Thunderbolt Monitor I wanted to ensure consistent settings and colours across my Retina MacBook Pro and the external display.Initially I baulked a bit at the cost but was pleasantly surprised at the improvement in the depth and consistency of colour, particularly in blues and greens, and the overall clarity of the external display after calibration. I also checked the calibration of my MacBook at the same time.Fortunately my early 2013 15” Retina MacBook Pro did not need any adjustment or the setting up of a new profile and looking across its display to the external monitor shows a consistency of colour, detail and brightness that was not there before calibration.I’m not convinced that most hobbyist photographers, including me, need a calibration device if using just one high quality display for photo editing and subsequent image viewing but I will be editing on both displays in future so consistency of colour became important for me.The device comes in a small box and all the software is downloaded from a website that is well laid out and has good intro videos so no surprises and it was easy to follow the software prompts during an initial process that took about fifteen minutes for both displays.So, it delivered what I wanted, was easy to use and although a bit costly I have it and can recalibrate as needed.

I shoot for several magazines so colour fidelity is essential for me, as colours on an uncalibrated monitor can be unpredictable when working with something that's ultimately headed for the printers, and I obviously want my work to look as good as possible. Datacolor's Spyder units are well known in the photography and film industries (my main line of work) for their quality, so I figured I'd buy one for my Macs at home.Oddly, the product doesn't come with an installation disc, but rather a link to download software. Not a major issue, but a slightly odd thing to encounter. I downloaded the software, but was initially unable to install it, as the installer kept crashing. I emailed Datacolor's technical support - 12 hours later I've yet to have a response, which doesn't exactly make a great impression; but anyway, I figured I'd try re-downloading the software and that did the trick, as the installer then worked fine.The actual calibration process is very simple and pretty quick. The software basically runs a wizard and all you have to do is occasionally click or make adjustments to your monitor controls. Once done, it saves the calibration data as a profile on your computer. Simple.

The function of the Spyder5 is good, and I achieved very good results across three screens particularly in terms of consistency.The big caveat to this was that I achieved this with DisplayCal instead of the Spyder5Pro calibration software as I was unable to get past driver issues. A read through the forums indicated other users had encountered the same issues and the resolution of ensuring newest display drivers and ensuring displays were correctly identified did not resolve the issue.Fortunately DisplayCal was compatible and did the job nicely, so I rate the hardware highly and mark down for the compatibility issues of the supplied software in my case.For reference it was used with.- Windows 10 Pro 64-bit Ver. 1803- NVIDIA GTX 970 w/ driver versions 419.17 & 419.35 (419.67 not tested)- 3x AOC I2369Vm

Easy to install and use with Spyder5Pro software. Had read about better results when using DisplayCAL software so gave that a go. Both softwares improved my monitor's colours but they gave visibly different results so at first I thought which one is right? I then took a photograph of a multi-coloured picture I have (using sRGB pallette) and viewed that using both calibration profiles. DisplayCAL is the more accurate software, the Spyder5Pro software gave more of a blue tint. I only noticed this by doing A/B comparisons. DisplayCAL is open source and free to use, though the author does ask politely for a donation. DisplayCAL does take a lot longer, about 2 hours, whereas the Spyder5Pro takes a few minutes.

The device is ok. The software is terrible. Don't bother with the "pro" which only has the additional monochrome light meter - get the "express" and use it with DisplayCal, which is light years ahead of the clunky crappy software with the Spyder.I have a Dell U2717D and a Dell U2711H, and quite honestly, I am not sold on this whole calibration thing. For lightroom and amateur photos, my newer U2717D was factory calibrated very well (can't tell the difference between calibrated and non-calibrated) my older Dell didn't really need a lot doing - I think the RGB values were worth tweaking over the presets to get the white balance how I like it (maybe due to age), but I can do that pretty well by eye - the actual ICM profile doesn't make a lot of difference. I think this is a money spinner as people (like me) feel like they ought to get calibrated to save having to redo my photos in lightroom...