Review on Datacolor DC SCK100 SpyderCheckr by Andrew Dinelli

For those who value accurate color reproduction in photography, this is a product! Many have heard of products for calibrating monitors and profiling their printers, but this only works to maintain color consistency between the monitor and the printout. Now another important component in this process is the accurate reproduction of colors when photographing. Until recently, most photographers thought that if they used a gray card or color checker to get a white balance, they would get accurate colors if they processed their photos based on the gray point/gray card. Unfortunately it isn't. Clicking on white balance simply fixes the white balance but does not take into account the nuances of color that each camera produces. When someone walks into a television store, they may see multiple televisions showing the same program, but realize that they may not be showing the same thing. Colours. Anyone can show a red ball, but the specific hue, brightness, and saturation of the red color can vary from TV to TV. This is a characteristic of many digital devices, including digital cameras. (If you look at the dslr reviews on dpreview.com you will see where they compare the cameras color reproduction to other similar cameras and they are never exactly the same.) profile his camera so he can complete the color management process - accurate and stable colors from capture (photos) - to monitoring - to printing. Spyder Checkr now makes it relatively easy to get accurate colors in the photos you take. This product has both a range of color targets and software that integrates with some major RAW processing software. The process involves photographing colored targets with your camera, loading them into a RAW processing software such as Adobe Lightroom, making a few simple adjustments to prepare the target, and then a few clicks take you to the product software where it presets in be saved in Lightroom. The next time you open Lightroom, you can apply this preset to your images and use it to get accurate colors—the actual colors your camera saw. No, I do not work for Datacolor or use their services. Products. Many years ago I bought a Spyder twice to calibrate monitors but have returned it each time as I did not find the products to be accurate. Over the years I've become an avid X-Rite/Gretag Macbeth user instead. As a professional photographer and co-owner of a professional color management photo lab, I have had to learn and use a variety of color management hardware and software. I have used colorimeters, densitometers, spectrophotometers and color charts and various software etc. X-Rite for many years. I have always been happy with their products and was delighted when X-Rite released their Color Checker Passport. Rite quality, I took it for granted that their product and software would accurately reproduce the colors in my camera shots. Unfortunately, I soon found that this was anything but accurate. Some colors, especially red and pink, tended to be oversaturated. Some blues also came across as sloppy and overly saturated. The majority of my work is fashion and beauty photography where color accuracy is critical. Unfortunately, the colors were very distorted when taking the photos, especially lipstick and other products with a red cast. I tried different permutations and settings with the color proof pass and the results were the same. I even tried other color check cards (just in case there was something wrong with my card) but the results were the same. Then X-Rite released updated color pass software, but the results deteriorated. The final straw for me was that I had to photograph a pink colored sponge, when using color profiles created through an X-Rite pass the pink was so oversaturated that the details of the sponge were washed out with bright pink colors. I wrote to X-Rite and despite their automatic reply that they would get back to me within a few hours, a month went by with no reply. I was looking for a similar product in search of a solution for photos with accurate color reproduction. and I found Spyder Checkr from Datacolor. I was hesitant at first due to the lack of reviews and my first experience of their products many years ago was not very good. But I decided to try! And boy! I'm glad I did. I followed their process which was simple and easy to follow and soon found that it reproduced accurate colors! I ran some tests and even compared shots with the same settings and then applied a profile created by X-Rite and by Datacolor Spyder Checkr. Hands down, the Spyder Checkr wins by the mile! I just tried again to remove the same pink sponge and applied the Spyder Checkr and X-Rite Passport profiles. Spyder Check = Accurate colors, texture details of the sponge visible. Passport X-Rite = Highly saturated and oversaturated pink and sponge details are washed out - it's just a solid pink shape. Congratulations Datacolor! Good product! An added bonus is that when I emailed them to ask a few questions, they responded! And very detailed answer!