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With Spyder 3™ Studio SR, Datacolor® provides a complete color management solution with three powerful color management tools:

• SpyderCube™
• Spyder3Elite™ Colorimeter
• Spyder3Print SR™ Spectrocolorimeter

Three Steps to Perfect Color

Step 1- Camera

Proper color management starts with proper white balance and exposure.  By using the 18% grey portion of one of the SpyderCube faces, a photographer establishes an accurate custom white balance  ensuring an accurate image from the start of each new photo session.  Highlights are checked with the shiny silver ball at the top of the SpyderCube.  Exposure can be selected based on the white and portions.  And the Black Trap for shadow detail control. The white and black reference values, and the Black Trap are also employed check and adjust RAW control settings in post processing.

Step 2- Monitor

When adjusting or color correcting an image on a computer monitor, it is critical that the monitor be calibrated.  Without using a calibrated monitor, the photographer is just guessing when making color and exposure adjustments in post processing.   The Spyder3Elite™ Colorimeter and monitor calibration software is an quick, accurate, and easy-to-use calibration tool.  With just a little effort two monitors were calibrated.  After calibration both monitors matched.

Step 3 – Printer

If you expect the print to look like the image on your screen, both the printer and the monitor must be calibrated.  First, print the printer profiling targets with the software.  Then read the targets into the software with the Spyder3Print SR™ Spectrocolorimeter. Presto,  a custom printer profile specific to printer, ink and paper used is created.  And soft proofing in most image editing applications is available after loading the new printer profile.

Pros:

• Powerful, yet easy to use
• Black Trap for shadow detail control

Cons:

• SpyderCube’s shape was awkward in my camera bag

System Requirements:

• Windows XP 32/64, Vista 32/64, Windows 7
• Mac OS X (10.4 or higher)
• USB Port
• Monitor Resolution 1024×768 or greater
• 16-bit video card (24-bit recommended)
• 128MB or available RAM
• 100MB of available hard disk space

Contact: Datacolor

Cost: $599.00

Every Photographer’s Compact
Care to dazzle your eyes with a suave green, or cool blue? And no, I’m not talking about eye shadows. Just as most women have some small makeup compact in their purse, or pouch – photographers, you should carry this nifty kit in your camera bag. It’s flat, compact and oh so functional! Quickly and easily, X-Rite’s Color Checker Passport allows beginning to expert photographers the ease of calibrating digital color from capture to edit.

Mind the Reds
How many times have colors in the field seem less vibrant, or washed out on screen? With the ColorChecker Passport, photographers can dial in accurate color on sight, and in their studio. The X-rite Color Checker combines three main features in the Passport:

• Creative Enhancement Target – enhancement patches that help photographers neutralize, check and evaluate details, highlights and shadows, plus check and control color shifting
• Classic Target – industry standard color reference target for creating DNG profiles and evaluating individual colors
• White Balance Target – allows custom in-camera white balance to establish a consistent white point within sets of images taken in the same lighting

In addition, X-rite provides a desktop application, plus an Adobe Lightroom plug-in and a portable protective case (with lanyard). This compact color kit provides self contained targets in a convenient, protective case.

Balancing Whites and Color
As part of the photo shoot using the Color Checker Passport, a photographer takes a picture of the color and the white balance targets under the same lighting conditions as the subject. Prior to shooting, the white balance target can also be used to set a custom white balance in the camera. If a custom white balance was not used in the camera, the white balance target can be applied to set the white balance from the photo shoot. After setting the white balance for the image with the color targets, the color target image is exported to the color checker plug-in (if using the Lightroom export button or menu comand). The color checker software will automatically generate a color profile that can be applied to the rest of the images. Photographers have the choice of uploading these images from the photo shoot into the desktop application, or within Adobe Lightroom 2.

The Color Checker Passport is not limited to photo shoots with fancy models. Capture that precious, spontaneous moment of toddler, teen, or sprinting pet. Then, take photos of the white balance and color targets within the subjects. And voilà, a perfect image is captured preserving this special memory.

Whether shooting RAW, or shooting for Jpeg images, the Color Checker Passport gives photographers the right tools to improve their images, and eliminate errors. It works great, and makes a great stocking stuffer, or surprise gift.

System Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4, ; Windows XP 32 or 64 bit; 512 MB RAM; minimum of 200MB of disk space, G4 Processor or Intel Pentium 4

Compatible Software Supporting DNG Profiles
• Adobe® Lightroom® 2.0 or newer
• Adobe® Camera Raw 4.5 or newer
• Adobe® Photoshop® CS3 or newer
• Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 7 or newer
• Adobe® Bridge CS3 or newer

Contact:www.xrite.com
Cost: $99.00 US