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Hi,
I have bought a Datacolor Spyder X pro to calibrate some screens for hobby photography. Im running in to an issue when calibrating my Macbook Pro 2012 mid retina. The whitepoint seme to be off by alot. I have attached files from both the adjustment dialog and the report after the calibration is complete. All input is appriciated!
-Jonas
SpyderX Pro on Amazon
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.It’s a laptop, it’s a mac. 2 handicaps.
You need to choose if to leave undesired whitepoint (native) or to correct it (to D65 for example) limiting output in some channels in GPU (loosing unique grey levels).
Also since its a mac doing 2nd option it may result in some visual issues in macos apps due to the extremely buggy & limited color management engine by apple, apps that do nt use apple color management engine won’t be affected by those issues, like Adobe suite (it uses its own engine).Choose the lesser evil, it’s computer’s fault.
Also Spyders X are inaccurate.
Thanks for the reply!
Now i managed to calibrate the display to D65, did the same to my Dell U2515H. Now they look quite similar(before the macbook screen was way more blue/cold). The odd thing im seeing is that they back/gray tones on the macbook screen is a lot brighter than what they are on my Dell screen. Is this what you are talking about on loosing unique grey levels?
What is prefered from the point of view of begin able to edit photos in Lightroom on the go and also at home on my Dell screen?
As for the Spyder X, what is a better option in the same price range? Are there actually comparisons done on the different meters?
I don’t know for sure if that Mac duality also represents my current dilemma, but when calibrating my late-2015 27” iMac (P3) with DisplayCAL and a Spyder4 I seem to get two options encompassing great but not perfect results:
1) Opting for a P65 Gamma 2.2 configuration (P3 99% correction), I often get ICC profiles with all doubled Oks yet pure black lingers with 1.5-1.8 deviation; everything on screen appears brighter, slightly yellowish and a bit washed out (lower contrast i.e 1050:1); reds are off a bit, but all colours fall mostly in range w/ average Delta E of 0.37-0.41;
2) Setting up DisplayCAL with the native whitepoint of my Mac at 6730 K (and its native Gamma of 2.28), I get a much more “white-looking” white on screen and a somewhat darker (more pleasing) panel w/ less flatness (contrast up 1100:1); in this scenario, however, some colours other than black get a slightly worse deviation than in the first scenario above…
For photography post-processing purposes, using mostly ACDC for Mac, Exposure X, SilkyPix Pro, Pixelmator Pro, but NOT Adobe Lightroom (often said to have its own colour management), which one of those two scenarios’ ICC should I rely upon?
Is this what you are talking about on loosing unique grey levels?
No, unique grey levels are related to banding or pushing harder the limits of dithered outputs
What is prefered from the point of view of begin able to edit photos in Lightroom on the go and also at home on my Dell screen?
Default settings using proper built in colorimeter corrections are the sweet spot between severe limitations due to Apple and limited functionality of SpyderX
As for the Spyder X, what is a better option in the same price range? Are there actually comparisons done on the different meters?
i1Display Studio. Better low light and above all it is upgradeable to new balklights without buying an spectrophotometer. Spyder X has not those features hence nobody who cares about accuracy buys Spyders.
There were threads abiut this when Graeme added SpyderX compatibility to ArgyllCMS.For photography post-processing purposes, using mostly ACDC for Mac, Exposure X, SilkyPix Pro, Pixelmator Pro, but NOT Adobe Lightroom (often said to have its own colour management), which one of those two scenarios’ ICC should I rely upon?
Retire that Spyder, get an i1d3, use proper CCSS for each display, run DisplayCAL on macOS with default settings to avoid issues in all apps that use the limited/buggy color management engine from Apple.
Hello Vincent,
Thanks for the advice regarding the adoption of a more reliable X-Rite i1D3 device (called i1Display Pro or i1Display Pro ‘Plus’ here in Canada?) which could indeed be a major step forward for photo-editing accuracy. In the meantime, with my restrictive instrument (Spyder4) and untamed monitor (late-2015 iMac 27″ Retina display w/ RG Phosphor / GB-LED technology), I’m really trying to decipher the rather intricate albeit fascinating world of calibration & profiles. Towards that end, DisplayCAL as well as this particular forum have been great learning tools!
I have taken several routes as far as ‘Whitepoint’ and ‘Tone curve’ are concerned, varying from 6500 K to Native (As Measured) and Gamme 2.2 to Native (2.28 from “Report on uncalibrated display device”). No matter the resulting (DisplayCAL/ArgyIICMS) ICC, the overall tonal brightness of my screen always appears boosted versus my macOS (default P3) ICC even at gamma 2.28. Is this normal? (if not, does it matter?)
Among the few ‘Verification’ reports below, selected after several trial & error sessions, WHICH one(s) could I trust more AND WHY? (Best color accuracy -versus- best grey balance -versus- highest constrat ratio -versus- ideal D65 -versus- Display/Measured/Assumed whitepoint???) Any of these profiles better than nothing?
[Please note! Since that soon-to-be-retired Spyder4 doesn’t provide any relevant ‘Mode’ corresponding to this iMac (GB-LED Wide Gamut) in the DisplayCAL interface, I had to take a bet on a proper CCSS (99% P3 Macbook 2016). Any better choice? I understand that those corrections were meant to be used in conjunction with X-Rite products only, not Datacolor. Yet, verification results seemed to be worse with ‘None’ selected…]
Sincerely,
iMacs are not GB-LED, never were that way. They were WLED sRGB (a bit more but sRGB in essence), now they are WLED PFS P3, like the CCSS bundled with DisplayCAL.
Spyder4/5 never supported GB-LED backlight, same for all flavors of WLED PFS. Closest choice using Datacolor built in corrections would be RGB LED or widegamut LED (I do not remember Datacolor namimg)
Regarding configuration choices with an innacurate device, use the one which gives you better visual white “expected to be white/close to some D65 reference” and lower combined Δa*00 and Δb*00 range (RGB+gray balance). This means, “white looks white”, “all greys look like the white with few color oscilations”
Thank you again. I’ll do a few more tests using LCD RGB-LED (there’s also the choice of LCD White-LED) and compare with the above. You’ve certainly convinced me to retire the Spyder, though! Have a nice weekend.
“White-LED” => WLED sRGB, common LED monitors. W-LED PFS are those new P3 or AdobeRGB+P3 monitors.
You can try also the Retina P3 CCSS bundled in displaycal for i1d3 (WLED PFS flavor with exactly P3 gamut), but CCSS accuracy depends on non fading filters & accurate spectral sensivity data and I’m afraid Spyder 4/5 cannot provide it at such accuracy (and SpyderX has not such data in firmware, just a few built in corrections as far as we know)Is this what you are talking about on loosing unique grey levels?
No, unique grey levels are related to banding or pushing harder the limits of dithered outputs
Okey, so the grays when calibrating on this screen D6500 should still be fine?
What is prefered from the point of view of begin able to edit photos in Lightroom on the go and also at home on my Dell screen?
Default settings using proper built in colorimeter corrections are the sweet spot between severe limitations due to Apple and limited functionality of SpyderX
With default settings you mean i should not set Whitepoint to D6500 but rather let it be default as in the first post, “as measured”?
As for the Spyder X, what is a better option in the same price range? Are there actually comparisons done on the different meters?
i1Display Studio. Better low light and above all it is upgradeable to new balklights without buying an spectrophotometer. Spyder X has not those features hence nobody who cares about accuracy buys Spyders.
There were threads abiut this when Graeme added SpyderX compatibility to ArgyllCMS.Okey, sounds like its a good upgrade, only 30 dollar more. One thing i was feeling that id like to be able to measure is the color temperature in a room, either from natural light or from the room lighting, is this something these colorimeters are capable of?
Btw, is this i3Display Studio the same thing as “i1d3”?
Is this what you are talking about on loosing unique grey levels?
No, unique grey levels are related to banding or pushing harder the limits of dithered outputs
Okey, so the grays when calibrating on this screen D6500 should still be fine?
Depending on GPU. On an iMac with a Radeon it should be OK.
What is prefered from the point of view of begin able to edit photos in Lightroom on the go and also at home on my Dell screen?
Default settings using proper built in colorimeter corrections are the sweet spot between severe limitations due to Apple and limited functionality of SpyderX
With default settings you mean i should not set Whitepoint to D6500 but rather let it be default as in the first post, “as measured”?
Try both.
As for the Spyder X, what is a better option in the same price range? Are there actually comparisons done on the different meters?
i1Display Studio. Better low light and above all it is upgradeable to new balklights without buying an spectrophotometer. Spyder X has not those features hence nobody who cares about accuracy buys Spyders.
There were threads abiut this when Graeme added SpyderX compatibility to ArgyllCMS.Okey, sounds like its a good upgrade, only 30 dollar more. One thing i was feeling that id like to be able to measure is the color temperature in a room, either from natural light or from the room lighting, is this something these colorimeters are capable of?
Read ArgyllCMS uinstrument compability
Btw, is this i3Display Studio the same thing as “i1d3”?
i1d3 is a family, ArgyllCMS sees the whole family as equals. i1Display pro and i1display studio belong to that family. HW speed limitations for i1Displaystudio and colormunki display cannot be solved by ArgllCMS, it’s hardware
This is full of inaccuracies. At least it’s consistent 🙂
It’s a laptop, it’s a mac. 2 handicaps.
Wrong. There’s nothing wrong with Macs, or Mac laptops. A few of us, at least, have been using them for decades and we still like them. 🙂
The new M1 Macs change the game even more seriously, but that’s a different discussion.
The 2012 MacBook Pro is actually still just “fine”. The newer ones are “better” in some ways, not quite as flexible (surprisingly) in others. 2012’s are still great because you can easily swap in a 2.5″ SSD of any capacity, boot from externals, and you get a ton of flexibility in that regard.
MacBook Pro mid-2012 isn’t Retina. (I know this because I have one 🙂 Here are the specs.
https://support.apple.com/kb/sp694?locale=en_US
So the starting premise is already a little bit wrong. If it’s Retina, it’s a later model than mid-2012 (and the 15″ would also be wide gamut) and with SpyderX, the proper backlight setting would be Wide LED. If it’s truly a mid-2012 (and not Retina, and standard gamut), then the proper backlight setting for SpyderX would be Standard LED.
The true mid-2012 MacBookPro doesn’t have a Retina wide gamut built-in display, but that’s not what you’d be using it for. If you’re doing work with photography, you’re should be using one or more external displays. You can’t use Retina displays (4K) because the older 2012 doesn’t support them, but you can certainly use one or two wide gamut LCDs, 2.5K resolution or so, if you want. It’s possible to run 2 external displays if you daisy chain a couple of older Thunderbolt 2 docks together (and those will also give you many higher speed USB3 ports). You can attach one external display per dock. Assuming you swap in a modern SSD (say, 2TB, but nothing wrong with 4) for the original drive, and max out the RAM, you can still have a very viable and flexible system that’s upgradeable all the way through Catalina 10.15, and all the most recent versions of Adobe software will run on it. It has FW800; slow USB2 ports; a built-in SD card reader, CD/DVD drive if you need it; more importantly, the TB2 port breaks out for “better” speed and extra displays via TB2 docks (harder to find now but still available) and you can get decent speed for extra old-style drives as well as SSDs (up to around 400+ MB/s) through dock-provided USB3 ports that way. Bandwidth still has overall limits but it’s far better than daisy chaining external drives through FW800.
(Shorter: that’s my working configuration for a large RAW image library in Lightroom. It still works, and Lightroom performance on 30+ MP raw image files is still fine. Eventually there will be better upgrades, as in, swap in a 16″ M1 or later laptop later in 2021. I’m using a set of ASUS and BenQ 24″ wide gamut displays and normally keep the lid of the laptop closed in “clamshell” mode, but it’s also calibrated if I open it).
The built-in display calibrates well with all 3rd party sensors and software, between DisplayCal and manufacturers’ software, and also other 3rd party sensor software such as basICColor Display, if you set and use them correctly. “Well” doesn’t make it into a wide gamut LCD with better brightness and viewing angles. But there’s nothing wrong with calibrating it.
Likewise, the two external wide gamut displays also calibrate well.
You need to choose if to leave undesired whitepoint (native) or to correct it (to D65 for example) limiting output in some channels in GPU (loosing unique grey levels).
You don’t need leave the built-in display at native whitepoint. Calibrate to 6500K and it’s fine, with all 3rd party sensors, software, and combinations of them. You’ll get a shifted white point- there will always be slight variations in what you get, based on the hardware/software combination you’re using, and how you configure it. (backlight-specific settings for the sensors in some cases etc) It’s going to be difficult to match it “exactly” to external wide gamut displays, like what I’m using, no matter whose hardware/software/whatever combination you use. Differences in brightness, backlight technology, gamut, and how the different sensors interpret it.
Also since its a mac doing 2nd option it may result in some visual issues in macos apps due to the extremely buggy & limited color management engine by apple, apps that do nt use apple color management engine won’t be affected by those issues, like Adobe suite (it uses its own engine).
Build matrix-based profiles, and MacOS handles them correctly. It works. (Compare to Windows, which even today, doesn’t even load display profiles on its own and needs background software to do the job for it).
The only known issue is with Mojave 10.14.x not proper handling the shadows for display profiles, (in MacOS applications and the Finder only – not in 3rd party color managed applications like Photoshop and Lightroom). MacOS 10.13.x and earlier; and 10.15.x and later (including Big Sur 11.x) don’t have this issue. (I’m running Mojave on the 2012 laptop, so that older 32-bit software still works). Photoshop and Lightroom, using display profiles, work correctly on images in this configuration – no issues with shadows. That’s what matters most.
Choose the lesser evil, it’s computer’s fault.
Shorter answer: you can calibrate a 2012 MacBook Pro built-in display using DisplayCal with many different sensors; also XRite software with their own sensors; Datacolor software with their own sensors; and basICColor Display with many different sensors. It’s a reasonably good 2012-technology display with limited resolution and gamut compared to more modern displays, but that doesn’t mean you can’t calibrate it.
For real photo work, you can plug in and calibrate any more modern external display, standard DPI or High/Retina DPI, standard gamut or one or more wider gamuts, using the same wide variety of technologies listed above, and you’ll have something that’s much more suitable, over a wide variety of price ranges. Like the configuration I’ve described above. Since you’re limited to “2.5K” displays and can’t run 4K displays as Retina, this also keeps the price down. It also helps speed in Lightroom Classic because your images and previews are being displayed at lower resolution; Retina displays on modern Macs increase the performance requirements.
Also Spyders X are inaccurate.
I’ll disagree. If you connect XRite sensors, and the SpyderX, and calibrate the same displays inside of software that supports sensors from multiple manufacturers (DisplayCal, of course; also basICColor Display 6), using the same number of patches and technique, and using the proper backlight settings (this will depend on which sensors you’re using), you’re going to get calibrated white points that are very close to one another, visually – you can switch back and forth between the profiles and see very little change to the color on the screen. You need to possess multiple physical sensors to do this. You can also, for instance, run an i1Display Plus in XRite’s software; and a SpyderX in Datacolor’s software; on the same display, and get the same sort of result.
