Having just started printing a few months back, the thing I'm struggling most with is getting my monitor calibration correct.
I started out buying a Spyder 5 Express, thinking that was all that was needed. But when my initial print results came out much more saturated than I was expecting, I posted here looking for help and was pointed to
this article, which I read thoroughly. However, the bundled software with the Spyder 5 express doesn't allow for any of the adjustments mentioned in the article.
After a bit more reading it seemed that the concensus was that Datacolor's software is garbage for all product levels of the Spyder 5, and it was recommended to us 3rd party software DisplayCal instead. Upon downloading and installing DisplayCal though, I found it didn't recognize my Spyder 5. Some more reading, and it turned out I apparently need to install an Argyll CMS driver on the Spider 5. But that process turned out to be a lot more technically involved that apparently I'm capable of.
Now I'm stuck, considering several different options for how to finally get my monitor calibrated correctly. Should I
- Just bite the bullet and upgrade to a more expensive version of the Spyder 5 software that offers the options I need to properly adjust the monitor calibration
- Switch to a different calibration tool that offers a better software package (and if so which one)
- Switch to a calibration tool that's more compatible with DisplayCal
Honestly, I would prefer to get my current Spyder 5 working with DisplayCal. But I'm getting to my limit with the amount of frustration it's causing, and unless there's a simpler way to get it working that I'm just not seeing, I'd probably rather just spend something that will work out of the box without all the headaches it's caused me.