There are certain aspects of photography that stay the same regardless of the level of the photographer's experience, the artistic value of the image or the significance of what is being shown. Photography is profoundly subjective and it is always going to be one of the mediums that has the ability to leave emotional marks on viewers.
While a professional photographer may go to great lengths to create or capture emotion, any regular person with a camera will take highly emotional shots of their close ones throughout their lifetime. They are, of course, different types of emotions, but equally important.
Color is one of the most important means to transfer emotion to the viewer, and color accuracy is crucial in this matter. It's a lot easier to trust a new product like a camera and a computer monitor to do the job correctly as soon as you take it out of the box, but unfortunately things don't really work that way. No matter how good or expensive the camera or computer monitor is, you're going to get very different results when you put the same image on two different screens side by side. You're also going to get a third version of color rendition on paper once you print.
So, what is the solution to inaccurate colors that ultimately take away part of the beauty of your great photographs? It's called monitor calibration and it's time you were introduced to it. Historically, monitor calibration tools have been used mostly by pros, but as advanced technology has become more affordable and every family can now afford a decent camera and computer, the need for color calibration has become more obvious than ever.
Ultimately, every time you buy a camera or a computer, you invest in memories one way or another, and I think many will agree you can't really put a price on memories as the years pass. Vivid memories are made of true color, and a company called Datacolor has understood that and as a result has introduced the Spyder5 Colorimeter. The questions that are probably in many readers' mides are, "Do I really need one? What are the advantages it brings?"
Let's start with a simple fact: monitors display colors differently and their color rendition also shifts over time. You can take a photo now and look at it again on the same screen sometime in the future and it could look different. The next step in dealing with this is editing, or better said, unnecessary editing that often takes time. With editing, as I'm sure some of you know too well, comes fatigue and it's not too long before your eyes can't be trusted to see true color.
The Spyder5 takes less than five minutes to calibrate your monitor at an industry standard that ensures accuracy and consistency. You will immediately start noticing how the details in shadows and highlights are protected and how skin tones will look natural, just the way they should be.
Again, this isn't just a tool for the professional, but one for all camera users who cherish their memories and we highly recommend it to all digital photographers, from first time camera users to long time pros.
Learn more about the Datacolor Spyder5 here.