Datacolor SpyderX Elite

Who’d have thought Your monitor has been getting it wrong all this time? All that colour it shows in nice HD quality and the pictures you’re looking at don’t even look like that in real life! First and foremost, the SpyderX Elite is a monitor calibrator and a very good one at that. It adjusts the colours and tones coming out of your monitor to more accurately reflect whatever image is coming out of it. It knocks the socks off of its nearest competitors as far as speed is concerned taking about a minute and a quarter to do its thing making it the fastest one out there by far.

As well as the calibrating unit itself, you get the Spyder Checkr Photo (reviewed elsewhere in this issue) that is slim and fits easily in a camera bag. It includes 62 different colour and tone patches on 4 replaceable cards. The point of this is to set it up in the frame of the shoot for 1 picture. This image can then be used in either Adobe Lightroom Classic, Adobe Camera RAW or Hasselblad Phocus to calibrate the colours of the photos you are working on. Included with the software is an all-in-one calibration control panel, calibration targets for motion work, soft-proofs work with print previews and it displays side-by-side matches for visual fine tuning. Another feature of the calibrator is that it also monitors the ambient light in your room and can be set up to adjust automatically for this, ensuring your own perception doesn’t adversely affect the finished product.

Finally, there is Softproof. This software shows you what your images will look like on other devices, such as tablets, using a preview function. Great for those that offer digital photos as part of their package (and who doesn’t these days?). RRP £239

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