* photo is from product images on Amazon.com
Well, the title of this post might be a little deceiving if you thought I was going to talk about setting goals for the new year and the challenge of sticking to them. Actually, this is not the kind of resolution I am focusing on, but rather screen resolutions! Anyone who has worked on digital art or just taken photos of their work and needed to make adjustments or touch-ups on their computer knows how important it is to get the color balance settings on your screen just right. I found this out the hard way when trying to get reproductions printed of some of my paintings.
After sending off photos of my paintings to an online site that specializes in fine art prints and getting back dark, muddy, green-tinted reproductions I contacted their support desk to ask what I was doing wrong and how I could remedy the issue so as to not waste time having to resend bad prints back over and over by making sure everything was perfect for printing in the first place. As far as I could tell, everything looked great on my screen at home so why I was getting the poor results I wound up with baffled me. That's when they recommended getting a Datacolor Spyder. It's a device you hold up to your computer that "calibrates your monitor to ensure color accuracy and consistency."
While not cheap, I did wind up getting a Datacolor Spyder5PRO and I must say, it was well worth the cost! The process of calibrating a monitor only takes a few minutes, but it makes a huge difference. Now when I send off photos I am confident that if I like the way it looks on my screen, that's the way it will look when I receive my copies. I run a check every so often (as in every few months or so) to make sure everything is still calibrated correctly, but other than that I don't need to use it every time I want to edit photos. Of course, there are other makes and models on the market that do the same thing so there may be other brands that you want to try for yourself. I can only speak to my experience and say that I love my Datacolor Spyder5PRO and would recommend it to anyone who wanted to make sure their artwork is ready for printing with as little aggravation as possible.
Also, I should note that I am not receiving any compensation for my endorsement of this particular product. I just like to give my review on items I own or tired and have found to be helpful in my artwork process. If anyone finds my reviews helpful in making a decision as to whether or not to purchase these products - great!