Full review
SpectraCal’s CalPC software was designed for photographers, graphic designers and other people working in colour-critical areas involving viewing, creating and editing digital content on a monitor screen. Based on the award-winning CalMAN commercial software used as the industry standard in display calibration, CalPC works with all popular colorimeters, including the Colorvision/DataColor Spyder series, X-Rite ColorMunki and X-Rite i1 Display. (A full list is included in the specifications.)
The CalPC boxed software with the Datacolor Spyder4 colorimeter, which was used for our review. (Source: SpectraCal.)
Having recently, reviewed the Datacolor Spyder4 Elite (INSERT LINK), we were interested in looking at how CalPC compares with the software bundled with the Spyder4 colorimeter. If you already have a suitable colorimeter, the software is available for downloading from http://store.spectracal.com/calpc-software-only.html and can be accessed as a 30-day trial.
For those starting out in workflow colour control, CalPC is also offered with a SpectraCal C1 colorimeter (which looks a lot like the Spyder4) for US$229 or with an OEM i1Display colorimeter for US$299. Both these colorimeters have been pre-calibrated by SpectraCal to provide the highest accuracy with the CalPC software.
Add-on software licenses for business users are available for US$99 each. Current purchasers will be able to download the latest versionof CalPC (CalPC 2) when it is released later in the year.
Preconditions
We’ve been advised by SpectraCal that CalPC was not meant to work in tangent with other calibration software because each application would try to overwrite the other. To prevent potential conflicts, it should be installed on a clean system with no other PC calibration software installed.
Once you’ve downloaded and purchased the software,you need to enter your license key (which is emailed post-purchase) in the License panel. When the license key appears in the Existing Licenses frame, the software is ready to use.
Entering the license key.
At the time of our review, CalPC was only available for Windows (Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Vista or Windows 7) and it required the .Net framework 3.5 plus DirectX v9.0c or v10. It works best on a computer with 2Ghz Dual Core processors and requires at least 1GB of RAM (2GB recommended), 200MB of free disk space, a display with at least 1024 x 768 pixel resolution (1280 x 1024 recommended) and a graphics card with at least 256MB of RAM. A USB port is required for connecting your colorimeter to your PC.
As with all colorimeters, your monitor must be warmed up before you start making measurements. At least 30 minutes is the time generally recommended for luminance and colour values to stabilise, although if you’re after the highest precision, you may prefer to wait for an hour after switching your monitor(s) on. By that time the percentage change in brightness and colour values is less than 1%.
Features
While it does many of the same things as the software supplied with most colorimeters, CalPC works a little differently and has a couple of features that help it to stand out. The most useful is the Direct Display Control (DDC) function that allows you to tweak monitor settings (brightness, contrast, and colour temperature) inside the software interface, without having to adjust individual monitor controls (which are often hard to see in normal working light levels).
Adjusting monitor brightness within the software.
Adjusting monitor contrast.
Some users could also find the CalPC ClientICC Profile hot-swap tool handy, particularly if they are involved in multi-media production. With a simple click of the mouse, it lets you select different monitor calibration and profile settings for viewing photos and video clips or evaluating shots taken in different lighting conditions.You can also create dedicated profiles for sRGB and Adobe RGB colour spaces and switch between them easily to match different output requirements.
Otherwise, the software isn’t much different from other bundled applications. It’s wizard-based, just like its rivals (more on the interface, below) and enables users to create ICC profiles that can be used by editing software and for optimising display parameters. It also works with multiple-monitor set-ups.
The User Interface
CalPC’s user interface isn’t as slick as the GUI in the software supplied with the Spyder4 Elite and the software itself is more complex to use. Although instructions are provided on each page, you have to read them carefully and make sure you’ve covered everything to avoid delays and inadvertent errors.
Although each application can produce decent ICC profiles for many different display devices (including TV panels and digital projectors), they work slightly differently and include different features. The table below highlights the key features of each application.
|
Measurement device |
CalPC |
Spyder4 Elite |
|
Gamma choices |
Unlimited |
Unlimited |
|
Colour temperature choices |
Unlimited |
Unlimited |
|
Special targets |
sRGB, Adobe RGB, rec.709, |
PAL/SECAM, NTSC, Cineon, L-Star* |
|
ICC profile support |
ICC2, ICC4 |
ICC2, ICC4 |
|
Multiple display calibration |
Yes |
Yes |
|
TV calibration |
Upgrade available on website at additional cost |
Upgrade available on website at additional cost |
|
Front projector calibration |
Upgrade available on website at additional cost |
Yes |
|
Recalibration wizard |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Direct Display Controls |
Yes |
No |
|
Display Setting modes |
Unlimited |
1 |
|
Expert console |
No |
Yes |
|
Custom B/W luminance control |
Yes (white level only) |
Yes |
|
Display history utility |
No |
Yes |
|
StudioMatch |
No |
Yes |
|
Gamma curve editing |
No |
Yes |
|
L-Star workflow option |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Curves import function |
No |
Yes |
|
Iterative grey balance |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Create look-up tables (LUT) |
Yes |
No |
|
Printable Reports |
No |
Yes |
|
Operating system support |
Windows only |
Windows and Mac |
On the surface, Spyder4 Elite appears to provide more functions than CalPC. However, CalPC offers a wider range of adjustments within parameters.The Expert Console in the Spyder4 Elite software gathers more complex adjustments (gamma, luminance, colour) into a single page that can be ignored if you simply want a quick calibration.
With CalPC you have to step from page to page, adjusting values one as you go. Photographers who are into fine-tuning everything will find CalPC gives them plenty to adjust. Newcomers to colour control could be out of their depth as CalPC doesn’t provide mouse-over help for any of the menu selections. In addition, the software we downloaded came with nothing in the Help folder – and the SpectraCal website provided no help files for viewing or downloading.
CalPC also loses ‘Brownie points’ when it comes to making the results of the calibration accessible. Whereas Spyder4 Elite provides lots of charts and printable reports that can be saved for future reference, we couldn’t find a way to access this data in a usable format in CalPC.
On the plus side, the CalPC software walks you through all the steps needed to produce an ICC profile for a monitor in a straightforward and logical fashion. If you can resist the urge to tweak settings unnecessarily, you should end us with good results because the software appears to carry out a deeper and more thorough level of analysis and adjustment than most competing applications seem to provide (although we can’t guarantee this).
But the calibration process is slow. Our average calibration time with Spyder4 Elite was around five minutes. With CalPC the best we could manage was 11 minutes, although it took roughly 45 minutes initially as we came to grips with the software.
Unlike competing applications (which normally recommend monthly re-calibration), CalPC says re-calibration is only required every three to six months. So you could save a little time on the basis of annualised measurements.
Calibration
Launching the software opens a welcome screen with an overview of what the software can do.
The Welcome screen.
Clicking on the Next button takes you to a screen outlining the steps you must take before embarking on any measurements.
Setting up the colorimeter.
The next step is to select the monitor you want to calibrate. Users with multi-monitor set-ups can choose which monitor to begin with and also produce different calibrations to suit different light levels in the working environment (for example, day and night settings).
Monitor selection.
Then you need to ensure CalPC Client is running in the background to generate the source patterns needed for calibration and manage monitor adjustments and the video adapter Look Up Table (LUT).
Connecting CalPC Client.
On the next page, the software recommends default options for the gamut target, grey scale data points, and other settings You can accept the default recommendations or change them via dropdown panels in the Options area on the right of the screen.
Default options.
The Miscellaneous Options page allows you to regulate how closely CalPC will attempt to calibrate white balance. The software aims to adjust each grey scale level to a popint where deviations from the ideal value are invisible to the human eye.
Miscellaneous options.
Having run through the preliminaries, you move on to actual calibration. The first step is to select the calibration workflow from a choice between single and multiple monitors. For demonstration purposes we have selected the Single option as this is likely to be the one chosen initially by most potential users.
Workflow selection.
Clicking on the Next button moves you on to the Monitor Setup page, where you select CalPC Client from the Display window on the right, click on the Connect button to link the software and monitor and select the profile you want to calibrate from the Display Setting drop-down list. CalPC provides three options here: Standard Mode, Day Mode (for a bright environment) and Night Mode.
The Monitor Setup page.
The next two pages are used to adjust the monitor’s brightness and contrast controls, as shown in the Features section above. On each page, measurements are initiated by pressing the Action Button on the top right corner of the screen. If the measurements displayed differ radically from the reference pattern on the Action Button you should adjust the monitor’s contrast until you can just discern a difference between the blackest level (for brightness) or lightest grey (for contrast) and the next level indicated in the on-screen diagram.
Pressing the Next button moves you on to the actual colorimeter measurements. First position the colorimeter in the Measurement Window on the screen and adjust it to ensure the measurement head stays in close contact with the screen
Positioning the colorimeter on the white box.
Click on the Continuous Read button in the lower right hand panel to initiate Luminance (brightness) measurements. A sound like a shutter click is heard each time a measurement is taken and the value is recorded as a Luminance level in the right side column. Once this level stabilises, you must stop measurements by pressing the button with the square box icon (next to the Read button).
The next step involves adjusting the monitor’s colour temperature. As with the previous measurements, you click on the Continuous Read button and wait for the colour value to be plotted on the graph in the right side column. The ideal value is around 6500K. Adjustments to tweak the monitor’s colour levels can be made directly from the screen or through the monitor’s controls.
Adjusting the monitor’s colour temperature.
Colour values are refined by adjusting the monitor’s RGB balance. Again, this can be done directly from the screen or through the monitor’s controls. The aim is to bring the red, green and values in the RBG balance graph as close to level as possible (which can take a lot of tweaking).
Adjusting the monitor’s RGB balance.
Grey scale calibration can now be performed by clicking on the Next button, which displays the screen shown below.
Grey scale calibration.
Measurements are initiated by pressing the AutoCal button in the lower right corner. The software initiates a sequence of measurements, the results of which are plotted in the Gamma balance graph left of the measurement window and a table of red, green and blue values to the right. Once the values have stabilised, pressing the Next button updates the values.
Updating the monitor grey scale values.
The final two pages measure the colour gamut and create an ICC profile. This is initiated by pressing the AutoRead (>) button, which displays a sequence of colour patches in the measurement window so the colorimeter can check them and produce a profile.
ICC profile creation.
Pressing the Create ICC Profile button in the right column saves the just-created ICC profile.
Conclusion
The complexity of the user interface, lack of on-screen help and the overall sluggishness of the software will make CalPC unsuitable for beginners or photographers wanting a ‘quick-and-easy’ calibration tool. However, the depth of the measurements and accuracy of the profiles make it ideal for discerning photographers and anyone who requires high levels of accuracy in colour reproduction, regardless of whether they are producing images for printing or viewing on-screen.
CalPC will be equally suitable for photographers who work in colour and those who mainly produce monochrome images. It will also suit those who edit video on monitor screens as well as anyone involved in display calibration for image viewing.
In summary
Buy this device if:
– You want a powerful screen profiling system that delivers consistently accurate profiles.
– You have multiple screens you would like to profile and match.
Don’t buy this device if:
– You’re a newcomer to monitor calibration.
SPECS
Hardware requirements: Minimum CPU: Intel Atom 1.00GHz or AMD Sempron 2200+ (2Ghz Dual Core Recommended); Net framework 3.5 & DirectX v9.0c or v10
Systems compatibility: Windows XP 32/64, Windows Vista 32/64, Windows 7 32/64
Hardwarecompatibility: Colorimeters supported include all Spyder meters, the M2, X2, D2’s, Extech light meters v1/2/3, Sencore ColorPro 2/4, ColorMunki (all), DTP-94, X-Rite i1Display OEM, and X-Rite i1Display Pro (retail)
Display support: Minimum Size: 1024 x 768 Recommended 1280 x 1024 (256MB RAM Graphics Card Recommended)
Disk space requirement: 200MB
Minimum RAM: 1GB (2GB Recommended)
Computer interface: USB: 1.1 or 2.0
Warranty: 1-year CalPC maintenance and support
RRP: US$149 (software only)
Distributor: SpectraCal; http://store.spectracal.com/calpc-software-only.html
Rating
RRP: US$149 (software only)
- Features: 9.0
- Ease of Use: 8.0