They can take anything from five to 15 minutes depending on the level of manual interaction involved. Post-calibration you're given the opportunity to then carry out a series of advanced tests to check display aspects such as the gamut (colour saturation), tone response, brightness, contrast, black levels and screen uniformity. The results may be dramatic or subtle depending on the display's colour accuracy out of the box, and profiles can then be applied to different dispays to ensure a consistent look across devices. The results can be viewed and you have the opportunity to "SpyderProof" the results by tweaking them using a series of sliders and checking them against a set of stock images until satisifed. Once complete, a profile is created and saved in a default location on the machine. Just hanging out, calibrating some pixels Advanced calibration The process takes around five minutes during which you may be asked to tweak brightness settings manually using the monitor's menu controls. The software then takes a series of measurements against a series of changing colours on the screen. The calibration process begins once the device has been positioned over a marked area on the display, done by adjusting the device's weighted cord to fix it into position. These aren't mandatory, and if you're not sure of them you're better off not chancing your hand as getting it wrong can negatively impact the end result.Īs a final step, the wizard requires the calibrator to be inserted into its plastic holder in order to measure ambient light, as too much light shining on the display can skew results. It then asks what type of display you're calibrating, along with specific information that can aid the process - such as its make, model, contrast and brightness levels and kelvin presets (warmth levels). They include warming up the monitor for half an hour, checking lighting conditions and resetting displays to factory default settings. After firing up the software you're presented with the calibration wizard, which begins by checking that you've carried out a number of steps to help achieve optimal results.