Calibratiing or a better monitor?

Stefana M

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Hi guys,
So I'm having a real struggle with my monitor. I have a Lenovo IdeaPad 110. I am not a pro so I calibrated my laptop just from the display settings. The photos look more or less the same on different smartphones and laptop. Now I calibrated my laptop with spider x pro and the photos look very saturated, no contrast at all and the colors are very washed. I re-edited a photo and sent it to my samsung s10 out of curiosity and they are very very contrasted. I'll print some photos tomorrow to see the truth. Since the calibration is probably not an option for my laptop, I'd buy a monitor for around 300€. Any suggestions? What do you guys use?
 

RVT1K

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The first thing I would do would be to repeat the calibration and see if the results are the same.
 

adamhiram

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Whichever option you go, calibration is always a good idea. As long as a monitor's colors and brightness/contrast remain fairly consistent over time and you can control the ambient light in the room, I have found that pretty much any monitor can be calibrated to be accurate enough for editing. The one drawback you may find is that laptop screen brightness is very dependent on viewing angle, where a fixed monitor typically won't have that issue.

I had a Spyder 4 Pro for a long time and was happy with the results, although I found that sometimes a calibration would be off and I would need to run it again. I replaced it with a Spyder X Pro last year when they ended support for the older version, and haven't had any issues with it.

Also, for what it's worth I have found that an iPad screen with adaptive color disabled and auto brightness enabled tends to be a pretty accurate representation of what the final image should like like on a calibrated display. I can't speak for other devices thought.
 

paigew

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I had a Lenovo laptop a long time ago and I was able to calibrate it with the Spyder pro. The Lenovo I remember being very blue. Why don't you edit a photo and post it here for us to see? The best way to test your monitor is to make a print and compare it to your screen.
 

weepete

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As adamhiram suggests, try re-calibrating. Very occasionally I get one that's a bit off too. I'd also make sure your sensor is sitting properly on the screen when you calibrate too.

I've got 2 monitors and a laptop just now and calibrate them with an old Spyder 4 pro and that gets them all very close to each other.
 

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