Setting up NEC 271w with a colour munki photo

[SunnyUK]

I am a keen, but very much amateur photographer. I'm one of those people who can't get my prints to match my monitor, so whenever I print, I end up spending an hour (okay, maybe it's only 15 minutes, but it feels like an hour) tweaking curves in Photoshop in order to get a print that looks the way I want it to. Needless to say, by then the "thing" on my screen looks horrible.

I have in the past bought a Spyder 3 and tried to profile my old Dell monitor. No use. I've probably been doing somethng wrong, despite having spent numerous hours reading material that is way beyond my comprehension. And that's probably the core of my mistake - it's not that I haven't tried to educate myself, it's that I've tried to prep for a a marathon before I could crawl.

I've bought a new monitor - NEC Spectraview Reference 271w (I believe it's called SV in the States) and a Color Munki Photo. Both are sitting in their boxes in the living room. While I'm keen to get my new flashy monitor operational and start to print soft-proofed pictures, I'm also worried. Worried about things still not working right. Worried about spending hours going through motions I have read about but still not understand completely, only to be full of buyer's remorse and wonder why on Earth I spent all this money on something that is clearly too good for me.

So I'm looking for advice. Can anyone recommend a fairly simple article/process/guide to get me up and running? As I said, my problem is not that I don't want to educate myself, my problem is that I tend to get dragged into details that are too deep for me.

Thanks in advance

[SunnyUK]

I should have realised that our host has a guide about this. So I shall be downloading the LuLa guide to colour management and watching it tonight. Having said that, I'm still happy for any practical advice or how-to that it might benefit me to read through.

Thanks in advance

[Onslow]

I am a keen, but very much amateur photographer. I'm one of those people who can't get my prints to match my monitor, so whenever I print, I end up spending an hour (okay, maybe it's only 15 minutes, but it feels like an hour) tweaking curves in Photoshop in order to get a print that looks the way I want it to. Needless to say, by then the "thing" on my screen looks horrible.

I have in the past bought a Spyder 3 and tried to profile my old Dell monitor. No use. I've probably been doing somethng wrong, despite having spent numerous hours reading material that is way beyond my comprehension. And that's probably the core of my mistake - it's not that I haven't tried to educate myself, it's that I've tried to prep for a a marathon before I could crawl.

I've bought a new monitor - NEC Spectraview Reference 271w (I believe it's called SV in the States) and a Color Munki Photo. Both are sitting in their boxes in the living room. While I'm keen to get my new flashy monitor operational and start to print soft-proofed pictures, I'm also worried. Worried about things still not working right. Worried about spending hours going through motions I have read about but still not understand completely, only to be full of buyer's remorse and wonder why on Earth I spent all this money on something that is clearly too good for me.

So I'm looking for advice. Can anyone recommend a fairly simple article/process/guide to get me up and running? As I said, my problem is not that I don't want to educate myself, my problem is that I tend to get dragged into details that are too deep for me.

Thanks in advance

I have the NEC MultiSync LCD2690WUXi2 and its paired with the Color Munki Photo. I originally had the Spyder 3 and thought it was junk.

I then got the Color Munki photo and thought it was far better. The dealer I bought the NEC from really pushed the NEC Spectraview software to go with the monitor. I was really not convinced as the Color Munki software was pretty good. Anyway, I ordered the Spectraview software and can only say that it it far better than the OEM software from X-Rite. It is setup to work directly with the NEC products. It makes changing color spaces so easy now, Drop it in and out of various spaces at the drop of a hat. I can lock out all or some screen controls so kids cant alter settings etc. It really is in my opinion a must have software. You've gone to the trouble and money of getting these two items. The spectraview software completes it. It really is that good.

Hope this helps.

[SunnyUK]

That's really encouraging, Onslow. Thank you very much for your reply.

I think the Spectraview software comes with my monitor (still haven't dared to take it out of the box), but if not, I will definitely bear your recommendation in mind and order it. I guess I have come to the point where I just want it work as effortlessly as possible, and if that means shelling out a bit (?) of cash to achieve that, then so be it. I am so fed up with the hours and hours (week after week) attempting to get my current monitor/spyder to play ball.

Thank you again.