Bad software renders the device useless The device gives consistent readings. But the software that comes with it is so poorly designed, and so buggy, that it makes the product completely worthless.
All of my monitor calibrations would come out very red in the highlights, and very green in the mid-tones. I verified this by using the "colorimeter" tool in the software, that allows for entering RGB values and obtaining readings. It confirmed what my eyes were telling me. Even immediately after color calibration, the resulting color profile was highly inaccurate. Obviously, the automatic calibration process was very buggy.
I tried to adjust the color curves target, to get a more accurate result. But bugs prevented me from doing that, as well. The help document states that one can click the "preview" checkbox to see the changes as one makes the adjustments. But there was no "preview" checkbox! I did see a preview as I adjusted the blue curve, but there was none as I adjusted the red and green curves. Then when I did not like the result, I hit the "cancel" button. But the cancel button does not work. The changes I made stayed, until I selected a pre-set color curve.
So I tried using the "colorimeter" tool in the software to set the calibration manually. Even this was buggy. Some color spaces (such as lab) have positive and negative possible values. But the "colorimeter" tool does not tell you if the result was positive or negative. When you have the value close to zero, you must experiment back and forth to see if you are off slightly by a positive number, or off slightly by a negative number. This makes using the tool extremely frustrating and time consuming.
Various other bugs exist. For example, the "X" in the window of the main application does not function. It does not close the application. One must choose "File" and "Quit" to exit. There are places where I accidentally started the wrong wizard, but the "back" button did not work. I was unable to close it from there, and had to open up the Windows Task Manager to kill the process. There are numerous factual, spelling, and grammatical errors in the help file.
It is inexcusable that a company would ship a product with software this bad. It is easily one of the buggiest software products I have ever used. It is so buggy, it makes the device largely unusable.
This product is not able to function enough to provide me any value.
Worst monitor profiler ever.... I tried this on my samsung 22" and got a different color cast each time. I tried getting help from the tech support on the spyder 3 site and no one ever replied back. I guess the support ticket didn't really mean much. I looked on their forum and their are tons of unanswered help questions from their customers. That was enough for me , i sent this piece of junk back . If you where like me and listen to people on photography forums like DPR , don't buy this thing !!! Its over hyped by people who don't know what their talking about . The software is buggy , it would lose Profiles . I got the eye one 2 and couldn't be happier .
The spyder 3 elite isn't even as good as the old pantone huey . Why this is considered a pro tool is beyond me.
If you see anyone calling this thing a pro tool. Laugh and then smack them over the head with a news paper.
edit* No idea why it won't let me give it 1 star.
Spyder Pro 3 Review doesn't work as advertised with Vista I bought the Spyder Pro 3. It work's quite well though there have been issues with compatability with Vista. The company has been somewhat helpful in attempting to fix problems though as of today 5/2/08 and one month of calls still no fix. The software works great when I start up the computer but all the settings are gone if I put the copmputer to hibernate mode and then wake it up. The software works great on my XP just not Vista. Another problem is there higher up technical support has yet to answer an e-mail or return a phone call. I have no problem getting through to the lower level tech's who are happy to help just unable to resolve anything. If you have vista wait until this problem is fixed....
How good is the calibration The only important issue is the quality of the color calibration and not, as some other reviewers seem to think, whether the software is easy to use or the service department is open after hours.
Using much more expensive and rigorous protocols with Gretag Macbeth equipment, I get very nearly the same results using this device on my Mac cinema screen. The device was comparatively easy to use, and the job was done quickly.
The question unanswered concerns whether the filters and sensitivities of the device will remain stable and continue to give good calibrations in one or two years time. We shall see.
Happy with My Spyder 3 I recently upgraded my home computer, main monitor and Spyder2 to Spyder 3 Elite. I have a Dell 30" HC monitor as my main and a Dell 17" Ultrasharp monitor as my secondary.
I have found the calibration software to be straightforward and easy to use for dual monitor calibration. I have to say that I feel the recalibration effort no longer makes it feel like a chore to keep my monitors calibrated.
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