Software : ColorVision Spyder2 Express

Rating: - A good simple and effective product
I have installed the software and I found everything easy to understand.

I wanted to give this product a good rating and one which I feel it deserves.

I managed to successfully calibrate my monitor with no problems in a small amount of time.

It's simple and effective and there was no complicated procedure involved.

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Rating: - First-time Proper Calibration
I had done software calibration on my Mac before but didn't think anything else was really necessary. However, I got some feedback that my photographs viewed differently on other people's calibrated monitors, and a picture printed for an exhibition came out very differently from what I expected.
On advice, I decided to properly calibrate my monitor to ensure consistency in the processing of my digital photographs.

I was shocked at the price of these devices and settled on this 'home user' model as a result. The downside is that the calibration is only basic and not Industry-standard. If you are looking for a professional level, you need to buy the more expensive version. The software in the 'pro' versions is much more complex and there are additional options and configurations.

It arrived promptly and was very simple to set up and use. You will need to know how to change a few monitor settings before you start (such as Brightness, Contrast, etc.). As others have said below, you need to have your monitor set to default to start with otherwise it can throw the calibration off. The instructions explain this in more detail.

The calibration/profiling takes about 5 minutes and is very simple. On a CRT monitor the Spyder has suction cups to stick it to the screen, on a LCD/laptop screen it simply dangles over the top and you align it as required.

One useful thing is that after it runs the calibration it shows you a range of 'before and after' images. I was surprised to see that my monitor had quite a strong 'blue' tinge that made images look quite cold. The new settings are much warmer and whites are clean. However, without the direct comparison I don't think I'd be able to see the difference.

Hopefully, images should now look consistent and give me a standard point from which to configure printing. I obviously can't control how other people have their monitors calibrated but I should at least have a benchmark for processing.

This is simple enough for pretty much anyone to use, though it isn't necessarily something that everyone will feel the need for.

You do need to remember to re-calibrate every so often though (monthly possibly) as the settings 'drift'.

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Rating: - Good basic bit of kit, works well.
Having spent 15+ years as a film based photographer. I got one of these as I am starting to work with a D-SLR and want to be able to get good consistent print results.

I have to say this is very simple to use, you just install the software and follow the on screen promps from the wizard. The only thing to remember is to remove the existing colour profile from the monitor before you start calibration the first time so as to have clear base values for the meter to work from.

The screen will look a bit dull and warm (yellow) when calibrated ( well mine did ), but after a few minutes using it you get used to this, and the colours are actually spot on. This will pay for itself with the savings in wasted paper and ink in no time. If you do digital photography get one.

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Rating: - Solved My Colour Management Problems
Ordered yesterday, arrived this morning and monitor calibrated one hour later. Initially it gave me wierd results even though I had reset the LCD monitor to factory settings (as advised in the Spyder software). Then I realised I had the graphics card (Nvidia) set to use the previous Adobe Gamma profile (which was never that successful as you had to do it by eye). Reset the card to the "standard" profile re-calibrated using the Spyder and the monitor is now perfect. Best it has been and I have checked it against several websites that show calibration charts.

The previous reviewer may not have set his graphics card correctly before calibrating as this is what I did wrong and got some weird colours on the screen.

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Rating: - Disappointing Experience
I bought a ColorVision Spyder2express in hope of properly calibrating the display of my Apple iMac computer. Unfortunately, I found many aspects of the product disappointing and ended up returning it. To summarise my experience and the problems I had with the Spyder2express:

- The sofware installation process was old fashioned, installing 4000 individual items on my iMac, instead of using the more modern "package" system. It took a long time to install and seemed messy.

- The software itself seemed old fashioned, like it had been written years ago for much older Macs, before Tiger existed.

- The calibration process itself turned all the dark greys on my display green! Yes, green. I tried the calibration several times, and every time I got green greys. Everything looked much better BEFORE the calibration.

- Once calibrated, it was impossible to switch from my Spyder2express display profile, back to the original iMac profile, without the Spyder2express profile disappearing from the list. This meant I couldn't go back and forth between what I had before, and what I had after.