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Easy Spyder Datacolor’s new X2 range offers a simple way to ensure colour accuracy in all your monitors
Y ou might always carefully colour chart for every shot; then in post, check your RGB parade, vectorscopes and waveforms to make sure your whites and blacks are perfect and colours true. But if your monitor is not correctly calibrated to show accurate colours, then you’ll fall at the final hurdle. That’s especially true if you’re starting to look beyond basic colour correction and matching shots between cameras, and moving into serious grading with custom settings and LUTs. It’s where your creativity can really shine as you tweak hues and saturation for every shot, gaining the maximum impact and harmony between cuts. This is where your judgement of what looks good calls for a colour-true monitor. set white-balance in camera, check your waveforms and false colour tools religiously, shoot a
While it’s true you can’t know what devices your viewers will be using to see your work, it’s important to have accurate reference colours to know you’re working from an accurate base setting before you go wild with looks. It’s no good thinking your expensive reference monitor will be perfect right out of the box – and keep its colours accurate forever. And if you’re viewing your work in a darkened room, perhaps one that has colour-accurate low-intensity lighting or is open to the changing nature of daylight throughout the different times of the day, these will all affect how well you can see your screen. Colour accuracy quickly What you need is a fast device to make sure all your monitors are accurate and just the right brightness for the ambient conditions you are working in. Datacolor’s “It’s no good thinking your monitor will be perfect out of the box and keep its colours accurate forever”
Spyder X2 range, consisting of the Elite and Ultra, only take a few minutes to use and the results are total accuracy. And you don’t need to be a colour management professional to understand how to use them, although if you do know what you are doing then an advanced mode lets you see, set and record all the parameters in a variety of colour spaces. The whole calibration process is faster and easier than ever thanks to the improved software. If you use a high-brightness HDR display, you definitely need the new Spyder X2. And if you work with two monitors, it’s essential they are identical in terms of colour and brightness, or else you’ll never be able to gauge your work. Compared to the older model, the new Datacolor Spyder X2 has an expanded lens-based light sensor with support for high-brightness HDR displays, redesigned software and native USB-C connectivity although a USB-A converter is included if you need to connect your X2 to an older computer. It takes less than five minutes to plug in the device and put the puck over the target on the screen, with its sensor cover hanging over the back of your monitor
SLICK SOFTWARE The all-new interface of the Spyder X2 leads the user through a simple process, but experienced users can dig deeper. A ‘before and after’ view shows how much accurate calibration can make a difference
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