Datacolor Spyder X Elite – Monitor Calibration Designed for Expert and Professional Photographers and Motion Imagemakers SXE100

I new I'd have a problem when I bought a new computer with Windows 11. My old Dell Optiplex was well beyond its useful like but my photography workflow requires a calibrated monitor. My 15 year old work horse GretagMcbeth iOne Professional system does not work with Windows 11 (so much for Microsoft's claim of backward compatibility with prior Windows OS).This colorimeter/sensor/calibrator is significantly easier to use than my old one. It is much more compact. I am very pleased with the ease of installation, ICC profile creation and ease of application to the NVidia graphics card my new computer uses.

I have two monitors on a Mac Pro that have always looked slightly different no matter how much time I spent on calibration. Though they are the same model, they were purchased a year apart, and their differences in brightness and color temperature were not small.About fifteen minutes after installing the Datacolor software and calibrating both with the Spyder X Elite, both of those monitors now look absolutely IDENTICAL. I can take a photo and enlarge it across BOTH monitors and it looks no different than if it were just on one or the other.I had tried to achieve that same effect manually for literally years with no success; five minutes on each monitor with the Spyder X Elite and it's done!The best part is I also have a newer iMac, and after calibration it looks identical to the monitors on the Mac Pro!This device does exactly what it says it will with no issues whatsoever.The only note is that the software warns you to only connect the device to a USB port on the computer, but that's simply not possible for computers with external monitors, but as long as your monitors have a GOOD built-in hub that can supply the Spyder X's power needs, it all works as it should.VERY highly recommended for anyone that does design, photography or video editing.The downside is now I can see how far off photos I processed in Lightroom previously are. :-)

Every professional photographer and graphic artist needs to use this tool.

This is a great tool and supported by software that is both easy to use and pretty sophisticated. I use it on 2 computers with 2 screens each. The first step is to set your desired setting and the unit defaults to a screen brightness of 120. The second stop is to measure room brightness and I've found that even in a reasonably low lit room, the unit changes the default brightness to 180. Don't do that. Go back to step one and enter a number between 80 and 120, (I use 90). Then do the room brightness step and select the option to keep your settings. If you allow it to go to 180, your photo processing will very likely come out too dark. There is a slightly cheaper unit that doesn't measure room brightness ... I'd go that way if I were to buy it again.

I recently picked up two LG 32UL950-W monitors and was a bit underwhelmed with the out of box picture compared to the other LG 4K monitors I have owned. I did a lot of research and tried calibrating manually, but after quite a bit of effort, it still wasn’t right. This colorimeter was delivered next day, and within 20 minutes of unboxing I had both displays calibrated and looking amazing, giving me the performance I had expected. The option at the end of calibration to show some reference images with calibration on/off to see the difference is nice as well.Overall, if you’re spending the money on high end displays, make sure to spend a little extra on this colorimeter to get every bit of performance out of them. It was a night and day difference once calibrated, and both displays match perfectly. Highly recommended!

This is a review of the Datacolor SpyderX2 Ultra. The device works ok if you use the default calibration settings using the Spyder calibration app. However, if you try to calibrate for anything other than the default the app will crash an corrupts the display's ICC profile rendering the computer useless.I launched the Spyder X2 Ultra calibration software and selected the Display Calibration option. I changed the Target from the default Gamma 2.2 (Recommended) settings to L-Star and for the Grey Balance Calibration I selected "Better" which will take longer but provide better calibration. The software started calibration, then asked me to adjust the brightness to a as the device measured. When the brightness was within range I clicked "Continue" and the device continued its calibration. Midway through, the application froze up and sat there. I thought it was just processing so I left it for a few minutes only to return to the same screen it was on when I walked away. At this point the computer was unresponsive and I shut it down. Upon reboot, I was taken to the normal Mac login screen that looked normal. Once I logged on the screen was all white and I could see graphical aberrations on certain parts of the screen. Thinking it was just an issue since the app previously crashed, I rebooted again only to login to the same unusable display. I could not see anything just a white screen with some gray aberrations. I then shut down the computer again holding down the MacBook power button and rebooted into Safe Mode, again the same issue. Finally it dawned on me that maybe connecting my 2nd external monitor I may be able to see the 2nd screen. I was finally able to reboot, login to the same unusable display, I connected my external monitor and it displayed my Extended screen ok. I was able to get the Finder up on the 2nd display and opened the Mac Color Sync Utility and determined that the Macbook's LCD Display's ICC profile was modified during the calibration process and was corrupt. I was able to set it back to factory which allowed me to see my primary display again.For $300.00 this should NEVER happen, the software should work properly and should not crash and if it does, it should never corrupt the display's ICC profile to the point that it's unusable. I should have expected this from Datacolor. This is going back and I'm going with a Calibrite Display Pro HL after the recommendations from several colleagues after I told them of the issues I've had with the Spyder X2 Ultra.