Product Reviews

DataColor's Spyder3Studio SR is a complete colour calibration and profiling solution that aims higher than the regular Spyder monitor device on its own. This kit, which comes in a compact flight case, is aimed at creative professionals, particularly photographers.

It comprises three different products: the Spyder3Elite display colorimeter for calibrating and profiling monitors and projectors; the Spyder3Print SR reflective colorimeter for creating profiles from sample prints; and the SpyderCube, which is used to help make accurate samples and adjustments when processing Raw digital photo files.

Using the Spyder3Elite is easy. The Spyder3Elite software can deal with multiple displays, to the point of moving the window from one screen to the next during the profile process if you like. Calibration of gamma, brightness and colour temperature is done first, followed by a moderately lengthy process of measuring displayed colours. This can be done with CRT and LCD displays, including laptops, and also with projectors using the supplied stand.

The SR in the kit's name stands for Strip Reader, referring to the Spyder3Print SR device that reads printed samples in strips to build printer profiles. This device, referred to as the 'spectro' in the documentation, is a big part of the kit. It ties colour printers tightly into the colour management workflow, and it manages to remove a fair amount of the tedium from the process of sampling the hundreds of different colour swatches printed from even the 'EZ' target swatch sets. Rather than having to point the device at each swatch in turn, clicking a button before

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moving to the next, the device is swiped slowly across a full row of swatches at a time. A plastic guide device helps keep the spectro aligned. There's also a patch-by-patch option, but that's best avoided, as there are from 225 to 729 patches plus optional grey patches depending on which target you print.

The results are saved as a profile for that printer, although this is based on the paper and ink used as well. If you use multiple media types, profile each one and again whenever you change inks. You can use the profile to perform on-screen softproofing as well as getting more accurate prints. Any printer that uses an RGB-based driver can use these profiles, so some PostScript drivers and Rips may not work with this directly. This process proved exceptionally good at optimising the greyscale output of inkjet and dye-sub printers, which will help get exhibition-quality results for black-and-white photography.

The SpyderCube is as simple a device as it gets in this field, but it does a very useful job - as long as you're able to put the device into a shot. This means it's most useful for controlled studio photography, but with a little imagination and legwork, you could employ it elsewhere as well. The SpyderCube is a small cube with a 1/4in tripod mount socket on one corner and black, grey and white segments on the cube faces, and a 'black trap' hole in one side. These define absolute black, the shadows, colour temperature and midtone, and the highlight. There's also a small chrome ball on the top to show catchlight for specular highlight measuring. This goes a long, long way beyond a simple 18% grey card.

We had one small niggle with the documentation. The kit is presented as a cohesive unit, but the information is clearly for three unconnected products; the Spyder3Elite and Spyder3Print have separate installers and on-screen manuals. These are good but have no cross-referencing, and the SpyderCube has a single multilingual printed information sheet. It would be more useful to the end user if these were integrated. Finally, the cost might be an issue: at not far short of £400, this isn't a casual purchase by any means, although it's cheaper than buying the parts individually.