Nature, Science, and Macro Imagery

Spyder 3 Express with laptop + external monitor

I’m using a Spyder 3 Express from Datacolor for my monitor calibration. I’ll probably upgrade the software to Color Eyes when I have some more cash, but for right now the basic software that comes with the puck is good enough. I want accurate color, but I don’t think anything I’m doing is that color critical, so “good enough” is good enough.

One problem I ran into was getting it to calibrate the right display. I have a Dell U2410 wide gamut monitor (awesome display, by the way), attached to a Vostro 1500 laptop. It’s not my ideal workstation computer, but it works pretty well, so like better calibration software, upgrading it isn’t my highest priority right now. But the Spyder 3 Express, with the bundled software, only wants to measure the primary display, which it wrongly believes to be the laptop screen instead of the external. No amount of fiddling with display properties would convince it otherwise, but I did figure out how to do it.

Go into Power Options, and change the setting for when the laptop’s lid is shut from “Sleep” or whatever it is to “Do Nothing”. Then close the laptop, and open the Spyder 3 software — you only have one display now, so it picks the monitor. Easy as that.

This entry was posted on June 10, 2010. It was filed under how-to and was tagged with , , , , , , , .

  • october_red

    I just got a Spyder3 Express, and when I discovered I couldn't calibrate my main working display attached to my laptop, I was about ready to throw this thing out the window.You just saved me a lot of frustration and time trying to find another device or software solution to make this work. Thank you.

  • http://www.blogger.com/profile/09710599069625723913 Michael

    That's great, I'm glad it worked for you. My own laptop bit the dust not too long after I wrote this post, but it really was frustrating before I figured it out.