Datacolor Spyder3Pro review

If you're a serious photographer, you'll know that the colours on your monitor don't necessarily match other monitors, or your printer.

This can be frustrating if you've retouched photos for printing only to find that, when you print them, the colours don't appear as you want them to. The Spyder3Pro is a colorimeter. This means it can measure the light, and therefore the colours, being emitted from your display. It works with CRT screens, LCDs, laptops and even projectors, thanks to a bundled stand.

The software is straightforward to install and the wizard takes you through the process of determining the colour controls in your monitor's menu. The wizard advises you to reset your monitor to factory settings at this point, and then adjust brightness and contrast so you can see the four gradations of blacks and whites.

You're then advised to set the colour temperature to 6,500K if the option exists, but you can use individual red, green and blue adjustments if your monitor supports this. Next, you can choose the target gamma value. If this means nothing to you, it's probably best to use the default choice. The Spyder3Pro also has an ambient light sensor, which you can use to suggest a value. You could use this to create two profiles: one for daytime and one for night.

Once these adjustments have been made, you can attach the Spyder3Pro to your screen. You can use the suction cup, which works well on LCD and CRT monitors, or remove it and use the counter weight to hang the device over the portion of the screen to be measured. The process takes around five minutes, and checks various shades of red, green, blue and grey to create a colour profile that Windows will then use for the monitor.

Check the difference between the before and after calibration settings using the SpyderProof screen, which shows 16 images. You can zoom into each one and click the Switch button to check for saturation, skin tones and any colour cast on monochrome images. In the preferences, you can set a reminder for recalibrating your screen, with intervals between a day and six months. The recalibrate option takes around three minutes.

The Spyder3Pro noticeably improved the colour accuracy on both monitors on our test PC. Skin tones looked more realistic, as did blue skies, grass and hedges. However, even with the latest version of the software, there was no way to identify which display was being calibrated on a PC with two monitors connected. We ran through the whole process only to realise we'd attached the colorimeter to the wrong display.

This aside, the Spyder3Pro is a worthwhile investment for anyone needing accurate colours from their monitor.