considering first step in complete color management

Hello everyone:

I am looking at two different device setups that supposedly do both monitor and printer calibration.

The two are:

X-Rite GretagMacbeth Eye-One (i1) Photo LT

DATACOLOR COLORVISION ColorVision Spyder v.3.0 Studio

With rebates/discounts they are approximately USD$600 each right now.

I have the Eye-One Display 2 right now for my monitors and it works well. I would sell it if either one or the other of the abovementioned systems is any good. I am starting to do a lot of very large panoramas and would like to try one of these calibrating systems in my workflow.

Does anyone have experience with these two systems?

Fred

Fred,

There are so many of these things out there right now it is hard to know what is the right choice now and I don't recall see any kind of comprehensive review in a magazine lately. I have the Monaco by X-rite OPTIX XR which seems to work good and the Spyder v2.0 which worked good.

I will be interested in other comments on this thread. Thanks for posting.

As I said, I have the X-Rite/Pantone Eye-One Display 2 and it has worked wonderfully for me. I have an Epson 3800 that I would like to make my own custom profiles for in future. It makes lovely prints but I want to try some other papers.

The DATACOLOR COLORVISION ColorVision Spyder v.3.0 Studio system is relatively new and less expensive than the X-Rite GretagMacbeth Eye-One (i1) Photo LT but X-Rite is offering some incentives right now, probably because of the introduction of the Spyder3 system. They seem to be targeted at the same set of users, in my opinion.

You say that you have used devices from both companies and that they both seemed to do the job. Any other comments on user friendliness, etc.?

Fred