Datacolor Spyder Studio S4SSR100

I spent the weekend setting up my new spyder4 studio bundle, and I must say I am very very happy with my purchase. I'm a visual effects student who does photography on the side, and after school ate into my budget I found myself unable to afford a calibration solution for my monitors. It got really irritating trying to explain to my teachers that it looked right on MY monitor. Anyway, I got my tax return and bought a spyder4 studio with it. Initially I was aggravated because nothing worked. Every time I tried to run the Spyder4Elite software it locked up to the point that I would have to reboot the computer. Eventually I found that the software was clashing with my amd graphics cards Catalyst Control Center software. I uninstalled all of my amd software and drivers, downloaded the newest drivers and reinstalled without the catalyst control software. So far I haven't had any problems with the lack of that software, and unless you like to overdrive your gpu for gaming I don't see any reason why you would have problems not having it. After that the spyder ran perfectly, and it's made an amazing difference. I've also been able to try out the spyderprint, which also works very well. Overall I'm stunned with how well it worked. If you want to work professionally in any kind of visual field you're taking a big risk not owning something like this.

This is the most exasperating computer product I can remember buying, and my short recommendation is to consider the competing "Color Munki". For starters, my first "SpyderPrint" gizmo was defective, and neither my email nor my phone call to support was answered. (Well, OK, two days later I got a unhelpful and unrelated form-letter email from Switzerland). Hardly any instructions come with the product, and the screen interface is balky, cryptic, and buggy. The product comes with an 18 character serial number, and 19 character "codes" for each the "Spyder" and "SpyderPrint". Presumably Datacolor so afraid someone will build their own hardware and steal their code as to require fifty six characters of proof that I really paid for the product. In my case Amazon provided a replacement product, I had to install a replacement product, which really freaked out their system, telling me to click the (nowhere to be seen) "activate" button, which I finally discovered within the pull-down help menu. Then there are the visits by the hour glass symbol, meaning wait one minute to see whether it's busy or whether it has crashed. I won't quibble about the things one eventually finds out for themselves, such as that their instructions to scan the test print upside down mean to scan it right side up, and to scan it vertically means scan it horizontally, and that press the SpyderPrint button down to scan a line means to press it momentarily. Executing the scanning process takes a little patience because the reader doesn't easily slide in its guide. It took me half a day to get this far, only to encounter, hundreds of patches into the calibration process to be greeted by the pop-up message, to the effect of, "unexpected software error... quit this program and start all over again". I think this number of problems is excessive.

I must echo some of the other reviewers in that the monitor calibration was easy and effective, but the ICC profile generation was terrible. I have made efforts to contact Datacolor with no response. I get better results just ignoring the ICC profile and using the native printer profile that is closest to the kind of paper I am using regardless of the paper vendor. That is, for semi gloss I just tell my printer (Canon) that I am using Canon semi gloss paper, no matter whom the paper vendor was.

It does the job, but the printer calibration is very difficult. I am sorry I did not pay more for equipment that would be easier to use.

Recommended by a photo pro and does what I want. Have installed on three of my computers. Generates a consistent color profile on each machine.

Great product and it does what it supposed to do. But beware of some of the mixed advice pertaining to the proper work flow to use, it is not always made clear which version of Photoshop is being referenced. Data Color needs to develop a SIMPLE chart with work flow for the different versions of Photoshop. I wasted a lot of paper before I got it right.

Can go wrong with this kit! I have calibrate monitor, printer since many years with this.

Had the Spyder2 Pro until I upgraded to a 64-bit OS. This system is great and even supports CRTs.