Datacolor’s Spyder3 series offers advanced calibration and profiling solutions for professional and amateur photographers and home-cinema enthusiasts. The product family covers monitors, printers, and television displays.
“Slimmer, faster, and more precise are the strengths of our Spyder3 line,” says Christoph Gamper, general manager EMEA for Datacolor’s Consumer Business Unit. “The new series sets a new standard for the digital darkroom. Spyder3 technology, the redesigned software, and straightforward operation show that efficient color management does not have to be complicated.”
The central component is a new colorimeter supplied with the Spyder3Pro, Spyder3Elite, and Spyder3TV monitor and television calibration products. Its 372 mm² measurement aperture is several times larger than those of comparable devices and is intended to produce more precise results.
Datacolor says Spyder3 is the only colorimeter in its class with seven color detectors. Compared with the previous model, light sensitivity has increased by 400 percent, while measurement accuracy has improved by 29 percent to an average Δx,y of 0.0025.
An integrated ambient-light sensor can continuously monitor workplace lighting when the device is mounted on its dedicated support. The unit is considerably smaller than its predecessor and has a redesigned enclosure.
Reworked Software
The new hardware is accompanied by completely revised software. SpyderProof supplies 16 sample images covering landscapes, portraits, details, and other subjects. These provide before-and-after views of calibration results for color and monochrome material.
Four menu windows allow users to evaluate color saturation, skin tone, gradation, and black and white values after calibration. A small Spyder icon in the taskbar indicates whether the monitor still meets the calibration standard or needs recalibration.
For professional photographers, Spyder3 provides finer control of white point and gamma matching. The ReCAL function completes recalibration in two and a half minutes, less than half the time required for an initial calibration.
The Spyder3 Range
Spyder3Pro is designed for serious amateur and professional photographers and includes the principal Spyder3 functions.
Spyder3Elite targets professional photographers, studios, and other professional users. It supports unrestricted user-defined gamma and temperature settings. StudioMatch establishes a luminance reference for calibrating multiple monitors in one workspace.
An expert console places all parameters in a single window. The integrated LStar option uses patented technology to generate a dedicated tone curve as an alternative to conventional gamma values, with the aim of retaining open shadows and detailed highlights. Spyder3Elite also supports front-projector calibration.
Spyder3Studio combines Spyder3Elite monitor calibration with Spyder3Print printer profiling. A Datacolor spectrocolorimeter measures test-print color values, after which the associated software creates a printer profile. Spyder3Print is also available separately.
Spyder3TV combines the Spyder3 colorimeter with television-calibration software. The USB-connected sensor can be attached directly to a screen with a suction cup or suspended against the surface using a counterweight.
A supplied DVD provides test images that the sensor analyzes and the software evaluates. Instructions shown on the connected laptop guide the user through television adjustments. The process takes around 25 minutes and produces a detailed report so that changes remain traceable.
Spyder3TV supports LCD, plasma, rear-projection television, DLP, LCOS, and CRT displays, as well as front projectors. It will be available at the end of March for a recommended price of €129.
