Professional Photographer - USA (2019-12)

COLOR-MANAGED WORKFLOW

DATACOLOR SPYDERX STUDIO

by Stan Sholik

THE GOODS
PRO REVIEW

58 PPMAG.COM

COURTESY DATACOLOR

If you’re looking for a color management

system that covers everything from image

capture to print output and is affordable to

boot, Datacolor’s SpyderX Studio promises

the solution. The suite includes the Spyder

Cube for image capture white balance and

raw file conversion, the SpyderX Elite mon-

itor calibrator, and Spyder Print for print-

er profiling—all the necessary tools for a

completely color-managed workflow. I tried

the Studio suite in my own studio.

IMAGE CAPTURE

Why use a second-party white balance

tool when digital cameras have sophisti-

cated auto white balance? Because every

scene you capture may not average out to a

neutral gray, as camera white balance set-

tings assume. Daylight color temperature

changes throughout the day. Most any cam-

era white balance will be too cool for the

subject if it’s backlit and the camera cor-

rects for a bright sunlit background. And

in an area with the subject facing daylight

windows but lit with room light of any type,

forget auto white balance.

In these situations, the Spyder Cube is an

excellent solution for determining white bal-

ance. Topped by a chrome ball to show spec-

ular highlights, the cube has two sides with

light gray and white areas, a black lower

area, and a black hole to show deep shadows.

Photograph the Spyder Cube at the sub-

ject’s position for each lighting setup or

change of light. Set white balance by mea-

suring the brighter gray area with the

white balance tool in your imaging soft-

ware, and set your exposure and contrast

using the white and black areas. Highlight

and shadow exposure warnings are fine for