Review : Spyder 3 Pro

We recently upgraded our computer. I am absolutely NOT a computer guy as far as processor speeds, video cards, megahertz, etc. goes, but I can tell you when what I have isn't doing the job anymore, so our 4 year old PC was passed down to our 8 year old and we got with a friend who loves playing computer nerd on the side and told him what we needed. Basically, first we wanted something that could have Lightroom 2, Photoshop CS4, and Capture NX2 all up and running and be able to move at will between them all with out stalling the engine! Second, we wanted more than the 500GB hardrive of our old PC, plus a little extra storage to internally back-up to. Third, we wanted a good monitor that would give us a high definition view of our photos so we could work on them a little easier. Other than that, we just left it in his hands and let him go as crazy as our budget would let us...and he gave us exactly what we wanted. Everything works smoothly and quickly! We have the operating systen on a 70 GB hardrive, store all the main stuff on a 1 TB hardrive, and back it all up on another 1 TB hardrive. He also gave us an Asus 22" HDMI monitor which is just beautiful to work on and look at...but also is why I'm doing this review!

Right from the very first look at our photos, I knew we were having color issues with the new monitor. Everything looked beautifully alive and clear but all of the colors were just not quite right, in particular the reds and oranges...just way, way over-saturated. I've known for quite awhile that to save ink and assure you were being accurate with the photos you were sending out you really need to calibrate your monitor with something other than just your eye, so after reading a few online reviews I decided to give the Spyder 3 Pro display calbrator made by Datacolor a try, so brought up our favorite vender, B&H Photo's site, and placed our order. Three days of just working on Black and White photos later, our new toy arrived.

When I first opened it up, I must admit I was a little worried. The instructions didn't say much more than "stick the CD in" and there was a CD and the little triangley spyder thingy...I don't know for sure what I was expecting but this wasn't it. So since there wasn't anything else exciting to read or to do, I just put it in. A little screen comes up, asks you a few questions, gets you registered, shows you where to stick the little plastic Spyder thingy and then takes off. That's it!!! I went down, got an iced tea, came back up and it was done. It had a screen up where you could click and see the before view of an image and the after view...and it nailed it!

So all in all, this was one of the most anticlimactic experiences that produced EXACTLY what I wanted I've ever had.

Morristowne Review of Spyder 3 Pro : 9 out of 10 ... minus 1 just because of no WOW factor in the instructions. Definitely recommend!!!

Jeffrey