What colour calibrator is best for my monitors?

QI have two monitors with my PC – one expensive, big IPS and a cheap, smallish one. I don’t have a colour- calibrated workflow but am thinking of biting the bullet and calibrating the monitor. I think it’s actually pretty close, based on some prints from Loxley, but it’ll ease my mind a bit.

I’ve read reviews of the various Spyders. There’s some discussion that calibrating two monitors on the same PC with the basic Spyders won’t result in them looking the same, but one of them with some extra software will align multiple monitors. That seems odd to me. Although I understand that two monitors can’t display exactly the same gamut, wouldn’t you expect them to be similar?

It’s put me off a ‘quick’ purchase and allowed me to continue to procrastinate. Are some calibrators better than others, for either single or dual monitors? EightBitTony (AP forum)

AYou should absolutely calibrate the main IPS monitor, regardless. A Datacolor Spyder calibrator will do a good job, as will others. Whether you will be able to successfully calibrate the smaller, cheaper, monitor connected to the same PC at the same time is uncertain. It really depends on the PC hardware. If your PC has two discrete hardware video controllers you may be OK.

If you are connecting the two monitors to one video card, it’s likely calibration profiles will only be accessible for one monitor. If that is the case, you’re best off using a visual calibration procedure on the second monitor. In other words, rather than using a custom profile to control the second display, like the primary one, you’d adjust the secondary display’s physical controls. In Windows 10 you can use built-in visual calibration tools in the Display section of System settings.