| | |  | Graphics | Home » » » SPYDER3 Studio | | | | | | | Description: | | Spyder3Studio redefines color management, offering you new levels of accuracy and control for the best performance across all of your digital imaging tools. It's the cornerstone of any digital darkroom allowing you real-world colors you can rely on. Solutions from color management on-screen to complete studio solutions that let you create custom color or black & white ICC profiles geared for your printer and media selections. From start to finish, you'll get results professional studios rely on and the ease of use serious photographers demand. Includes Spyder3Elite for professional, high-precision color calibration On-screen color management | | | Features: | |
• Includes Spyder3Print gives gallery quality prints in color and black & white
• Create custom profiles in minutes with standard color or black and white targets.
• Unique SpyderProof? function gives you a series of carefully selected images to evaluate detail from a photographer's point of view. Softproof the images using your own custom profiles
• Total control over Color and Black & White Tinting curves in your Image Editor
• Extended Grays Target allows you to add precision gray and near gray data to profiles, enhancing quality of Tinted and Black and White prints
| | | Product Details: | | | Product Length:
| 17.25 inches | | Product Width:
| 12.75 inches | | Product Height:
| 8.25 inches | | Product Weight:
| 9.1 pounds | | Package Length:
| 16.22 inches | | Package Width:
| 12.44 inches | | Package Height:
| 6.06 inches | | Package Weight:
| 6.66 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 6 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
 Profiles for Pro Files. .Dec 12, 2009
..and Pro Prints.
After using the spyder2, I found the Spyder3 Elite to be much quicker to use. And with the addition of the print profiling capability of this kit, I am immediately much closer with the first prints I've tested. A bit of minor fine tuning may yet be necessary, but basically I consider this kit a success, especially at the price I paid for it, from Electronica Direct, for $382.00, new. Now, I can also profile both dual monitors without an iffy workaround, too.
I wound up making two versions of the printing profile for the same paper, since two ink colors were nearly depleted before I even started the process with my Epson 1400 printer, so that the new replacement inks would be accounted for in the second profile. As my black ink is now nearly gone, too, I'll be going through the somewhat tedious process of using the print colorimeter again, but at least I CAN, now, eh? And as reliably as I feel I can expect, too.
3 of 3 found the following review helpful:
 Great ProductOct 05, 2009
I was trying to decide between this product and the Colormunki system. I am glad I chose this. You have a lot more choices when scanning color blocks for your printer and the monitor calibration was very easy. In fact, using both the monitor calibrator and the printer profiler was very very easy. I had no problems following directions and I was able to do profile both in a short amount of time. I haven't explored all the options yet. However, I noticed an immediate difference in my prints. They are very close to what I see on my monitor now and the prints are highly improved.
I would definitely recommend this product.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Great Prints from SpyderJul 05, 2009
After struggling trying to make proper prints and wasting paper and ink, I did further research into a profiling kit. I had seen that they were expensive when I looked into them before. I heard about the Color Munki and saw people comparing it to the Spyder Studio. Both products are affordable but the Spyder duo (separate monitor and a print profiling equipment) seemed to have more features and was a more professional system. Other reviewers in blogs seemed to think so. I purchased the Spyder Studio kit not long ago and have been amazed at the accuracy of the prints. They are virtually identical to what I see on the monitor. An affordable, accurate kit for achieving properly profiled images. Highly recommended.
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
Great time and material saverMay 17, 2009
The Spyder3 Studio has proven itself to me quite wonderfully. I recently took over as manager in a print shop and there was no color management in place. One of the hardest tasks I had was making artist prints because the screen wasn't even close to the print and if I had to print it to a different paper or printer then I would have to readjust the image again. The Spyder3 Print lets me profile each paper on each printer and then print the same image to many different papers and printers and the prints match very well. I would recommend this product to anyone that wants an easier way to print high quality images to many different papers without having to fuss with the image every time. Just keep in mind that to take advantage of the icm and icc profiles created with this software you need to be using programs that are icc-aware.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
An absolute MUST for black and white printersFeb 21, 2009
I shoot 4x5 large format black and white and for the time being I use an Epson R2400 printer (although I'm thinking of upgrading to the 3800). I discovered Quadtone RIP and thought I would try it to improve my prints. I couldn't get it to work that well - the shadows were muddy but the highlights looked quite nice. Researching this on the internet, I found this to be a not uncommon complaint about Quadtone and the solution was to somehow read the test strips created by the Quadtone software and feed these readings back into the software to improve the result. This led me to exlore different profiling tools and Datacolor's product seemed to have some affordable products that received good reviews.
I started by profiling some Epson papers - namely their Ultra Premium Presentation Matte (UPPM), Ultra Smooth Fine Art (USFA), and Velvet Fine Art (VFA) papers. I resisted doing this in the past becuase conventional wisdom has been that Epson profiles are supposed to be near perfect. I was stunned by the difference in prints made using Epson's canned profiles and those created by the Spyder3 Studio software and spectrocolorimeter. More detail in the deep shadows and more vibrancy in the lighter shadows and darker grays. The highlights didn't change that much. So far I don't see much of a difference in color but the test matrix that the Spyder software prints out at the end of the profile-building process includes three color strips that look near perfect with the Spyder profiles and not so good with the Epson profiles.
I was never able to get a satisfactory result using glossy-surface papers and Epsons photo black ink and I now realize it was due to less-than-adequate profiles. I just profiled Hahnemuhle's Glossy Fine Art Baryta paper using photo black ink and cannot detect any improvement over Epsons's USFA paper using matte black ink which I found quite interesting - I love Epson's USFA paper.
Bottom line is that the Spyder paper-profiling tools work amazingly well and I regret not having done this sooner.
Warnings about using the product - 1) I downloaded the latest version of the software which was listed as beta. At the end of the profiling process you can view the software's matrix of 16 small photos merged into a large 8x10 sized image. You can toggle back and forth to see the 'before' and 'after' versions using the new profile. The 'after' image appeared washed out and gave me the impression I messed up somewhere and didn't run through the process correctly. After repeating the process a number of times and not getting past this stage, I decided to gamble and try the profile anyway. It worked very well so this washed out 'after' image must be a bug in their program. 2) The spectrocolorimeter seems to be quite picky as to how you set it up. It sometimes will work when plugged into a powered hub and sometimes it won't (using the button on top of the meter itself). It will also sometimes (sometimes not) work when plugged into a USB port in the front of my computer. This must be a common problem because Datacolor's FAQ says it should be plugged into a USB port in the _back_ of the computer. For me this always works if I want to use the button on top of the reader itself. You can also capture readings using the 'Enter' key on the keyboard. This seems to work no matter where I connect the reader.
Recommendations: If you want to print black and white, print out and measure the gray scale test strips as well as the color ones. Also, view the video tutorials on Datacolor's website. Finally, read the reviews of the product on Datacolor's website because many of them contain detailed instructions as to how to use the product. The more preparation you put into it, the easier it will be to get the desired result.
The monitor profiling process was easy and it does result in obtaing much closer matches between what I see in Photoshop and what I finally get from my R2400. I'm looking forward to not wasting so much expensive paper and ink.
Now - back to tackling the Quadtone RIP to see if I can get even better results (the Spyder software outputs readings into a text document just for this purpose).
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