Just realized my color calibration was off for six months

I was showing my latest piece at a small gallery night in Portland last Thursday and someone pointed out my blues were way too purple. Got home and checked my monitor settings, turns out the color profile had reset after a software update. Now I need to recalibrate before my next submission deadline. Has anyone found a decent hardware calibrator that doesn't cost a fortune?

3 comments

3 Comments

ray5621d agoTop Commenter

Just realized my color calibration was off for six months" - man, that hurts. I read something in a photography forum a while back about how software updates can silently mess with your color profiles, and it seems like nobody talks about it enough. For a budget calibrator, I've heard decent things about the SpyderX Pro from people who do printing on the side. One guy I know said his blues were coming out muddy until he used that thing, and it sorted him out for under $200. Might be worth checking the secondhand market too, I saw a couple of used ones floating around on Craigslist.

adam1861d ago

yo same thing happened to me actually, I had this issue where my whole monitor was way too warm and I didn't even notice it til I printed out a photo and it looked like someone put a sepia filter on it. ended up grabbing a used Spyder on ebay for like a hundred bucks and it fixed everything instantly. the thing that really helped me was setting a reminder to recalibrate every couple months because apparently the profiles drift over time too, not just after updates. honestly the dim room thing jackson mentioned is huge, I used to just do it whenever and had to redo it a few times before I figured out the lighting consistency matters way more than I thought.

jackson.max1d ago

yo same thing happened to me lol. i was editing photos for months and couldn't figure out why my skin tones looked off, turns out an OS update reset everything. got a used spyderx pro off ebay for like 130 bucks, night and day difference. just make sure you calibrate in a dim room or at least same lighting every time, that part matters more than people think.