Spyder2express 2.3 6

i bought my Spyder2Express a few days ago. i installed the software that came with it which is version 2.2.. ran the calibration and everything was fine.. colors are amazing..
i then came across Color Vision's website and saw that the software version 2.3.5 was supposed to work flawlessly with Windows Vista which is what i am using.. i downloaded that, ran the calibration and ended up with a monitor with a really strong cyan cast.. i did the recalibration atleast 5 times with the same result.. i then reinstalled the software that came with my device.. but after that, it would not detect my sensor.. no matter how many times i un-plugged and plugged it in, the software would not detect it.. when i reinstalled the new version again, it detected the unit again but it was still giving me that cyan cast.. i finally did a Windows system restore.
this brought me back to the original version 2.2 install.. without doing any reinstall, i plugged my sensor back in and successfully did a recalibration.. this tells me that the new software is not working properly.. it gave me ugly colors while at the same time, managing to somehow corrupt the drivers of the sensor..
i was wondering if anyone has experienced the same problem..? i would really like to install the updated software, but if it is not working properly, then why did Color Vision even released it in the first place..

I'm running Spyder2Express V2.3.5 on my Intel Core 2 Duo laptop with nVidia 7950 GTX graphics and my AMD Athlon 64 desktop with ATI 9600 graphics. Both have Vista Ultimate installed (dual booted with XP MCE 2005 just in case). I have not run into any problems using the software or with hardware/drivers etc.
On the laptop, running the profile takes out a blue cast and at first it does look like the screen has turned reddish but after a few seconds my eyes adjust and it looks a nice neutral tone. I have a B&W image as my desktop wallpaper so I can immediately perceive any odd cast to the colour (or so I might think!). It's a B&W conversion from a picture I took so I know it is 'proper' B&W and free of any colour artefacts.
On my PC I have the exact same B&W wallpaper and the PC is connected to my 40' 1080p LCD TV as my media center device. Both machines are in the same room and it is easy to compare screens. When I apply the profile to the PC/TV there is a noticeable colour shift towards green and it looks pretty yucky at first. After a while the eyes do adjust and the image looks fine.
Unfortunately the resulting colours of the screens do not match and the PC/TV combination actually looks a better match to the laptop without using its profile. As I edit on the laptop and view on the TV it would be nice if the temperatures matched perfectly. The scientific way, by calibration, clearly doesn't work for me.
As an experiment I just tried placing the laptop screen right up in front of the TV and took a photograph of the pair with WB set to 6500K in my camera to correspond to the target temperature of the calibration profiles. I tried this once with the laptop profile loaded and the PC unprofiled and then repeated the shot, this time with the PC's profile loaded as well. I completely defocused the camera lens before shooting, to avoid picking up individual RGB sub-pixels on either display, and then did some eye-dropper sampling of the displays. The results were..
The profiled laptop is still strong on the blues and light on the greens, with red roughly in the middle. Taking a few readings from the brightest area of the display I get RGB values of something like 65.7% 64.6% 68.2%. That's a spread of 3.6% between RGB channels.
The unprofiled PC/TV gives RGB = 82.0 80.0 84.2 so, while brighter than the laptop, the relative RGB values are really quite close, with B strongest, G weakest and R in the middle. That's a spread of 2.4% between the RGB channels, so not too bad I suppose.
The profiled PC/TV from a similar part of the picture gives RGB = 84.8 84.4 81.7 so R & G are very close but B is lacking. That's a spread of 2.7% between RGB channels but a very different tint from the unprofiled version.
I'm not sure quite what this tells me other than that profiling will only take you so far but is not the be all and end all. It is possibly better than nothing, depending upon how good your equipment is and how lucky you are in the first place. I think for my laptop it was especially important to calibrate as it was way too blue to begin with and even now is still a little too blue. As for the PC/TV, all I've really done is swapped one small colour cast for a different one. In order to maintain a close visual appearance between the edits on my laptop and the displayed picture on the TV I may as well not bother with the profile on the TV as, while close to neutral, it actually creates a bigger gap between the laptop and the PC.
Another thing to ponder is that when making adjustments you probably need to give your eyes a moment to adjust because any swing in tint will look odd if you're used to something else. Did your screen really go cyan or was it just too red to begin with? How do you know? Can you trust your eyes?
First image is profiled laptop and unprofiled PC/TV. Second image is profiled laptop (again) and profiled PC/TV.

i think i've isolated the problem.. i think it is because of the white point setting between the programs.. in version 2.2, which came with the device, the white point is set by default to native white point.. in 2.3 onward, according to the website, the white point is set to 6500K.. Color Vision's software recommends that i set 2.2 gamma and 6500K white point.. it only recommends setting native white point for projection screens.. but at the recommended 6500K my screen looks terrible.. what gives..?

You're right about the change in target Kelvin between 2.2.x and 2.3.x. With Spyder2Pro you can pick all sorts of temperatures and there are loads more controls but Spyder2Express should get the job done if you want a 'standard' calibration.
If your results are truly out of whack are you performing the calibration in dimmed conditions and is the puck touching lightly but completely against the screen? If your monitor is vertical then you may need to lean something gently against the puck to press it gently against the screen, otherwise ambient light can seep in round the edges and destroy any hope of getting accurate results. But don't press it too hard either - if you have a TFT screen a little too much pressure can distort the pixels and cause all kinds of bizarre colour shifts at the individual pixel level and you may never know because the puck is hiding the 'damage' going on beneath it. You might notice the problem (as I discovered it on my TV) when you remove the puck and see for a second or so that you have a weird kaleidoscope pattern on your screen.

more information.. i just got a hold of a copy of the Spyder2PRO from a friend.. this confirmed that my problems all along was the white point settings..
i set my monitor to native white point and calibrated the Spyder2 software to native white point.. it didn't have a color cast, but when i used the Spyder2 sensor as a colorimeter and read what was supposed to be white, the reading i got was at around 5400K.. i thought the standards was supposed to be closer to 6500K..? should i be worried that i might not be color correcting my photos to industry standards..?

I guess the answer depends on what you want to do with your photos. Are you selling them? Do you share image files with family and friends? Do you print? If they're for personal use only I guess it won't matter hugely so long as you're happy that the pictures look good on your monitor (and if you print, that your prints match what you see on the monitor).
If you do use the photos commercially then I think it would be worth aiming for industry standards (but isn't the standard for the Mac world a bit different from the PC world? I thought Mac folk used a different gamma and possibly a different temperature target. So which standard do you aim for? Does it in fact matter that much? I don't know.
If only family and friends get to see your photos then what are the chances that their monitors are calibrated properly? It's probably anybody's guess whether they will see what you see, regardless of how well set up your system is.
Hopefully someone with more knowledge can chime in here. If it was me I would strive for as much conformance to 6500K and 2.2 gamma as I could get. At least that way I know that my pictures are correctly balanced and toned, even if nobody else can see that.
I suppose the other side to the above is if you are critiquing other people's photos or just wanting to enjoy what others have done then a 'standard' calibration must be the way to go. Otherwise you won't be in a position to comment on colour casts and contrast in other people's work.
Wow, that was a lot of waffle! Short answer - go for 6500K, 2.2 gamma. Try to use your monitor hardware to do as much of the colour/contrast/bright​ness adjustment as possible in order to achieve the result and then fine tune the job with an ICC profile from the Spyder software once you've got the monitor close to target.

the final output for my pictures that i want to correct to is lab prints to be sold to customers.. so you're saying to set my calibration software to 6500K even though it looks terrible on my monitor..?

If a 'proper' calibration looks bad, perhaps there is a problem with your monitor and it simply can't be colour profiled accurately. I did try calibrating my older laptop (6 years old) and frankly it was a waste of time trying to get 6500K out of it. All contrast vanished and everything just looked watery grey coloured. Terrible!
But I'm really no expert so I suggest you hold out for someone more knowledgeable to answer. Sorry I can't offer more help.

i hate bringing up old threads but wow so much installing and re-installing i have done to get my spyder to work and it turns out it was the front USB ports, plugged the s2e in to the rear and the sensor was detected, grr damn pc's

Michael.. So how's it working now?
I had mixed experiences with the Spyder2 Express. I first used it a couple years ago on a Dell LCD monitor and I too got that 'Cyan cast' and my prints looked bad. I called ColorVision's support number and they updated my software to the Pro version for free! My Dell then calibrated beautifully and my prints matched nicely.
I later started using a larger Samsung LCD and as before, even with the newest Pro software, I got a bad Cyan cast and muddy prints. I uninstalled the Spyder2 software and 'emulated' the Spyder's calibration settings with the monitor's controls and now the display looks pleasant and my prints are just fine. So I no longer use the Spyder2.

i dont like the results the s2e produces with Vista, XP it was great but with vista i am just not sold, i too have Samsung LCDs, i have a dual setup on my processing PC and one LCD has the cyan tinge, the other a blue tinge, so far prints have turned out ok but i think i may revert back to the monitor controls like you

i bought my Spyder2Express a few days ago. i installed the software that came with it which is version 2.2.. ran the calibration and everything was fine.. colors are amazing..
i then came across Color Vision's website and saw that the software version 2.3.5 was supposed to work flawlessly with Windows Vista which is what i am using.. i downloaded that, ran the calibration and ended up with a monitor with a really strong cyan cast.. i did the recalibration atleast 5 times with the same result.. i then reinstalled the software that came with my device.. but after that, it would not detect my sensor.. no matter how many times i un-plugged and plugged it in, the software would not detect it.. when i reinstalled the new version again, it detected the unit again but it was still giving me that cyan cast.. i finally did a Windows system restore.
this brought me back to the original version 2.2 install.. without doing any reinstall, i plugged my sensor back in and successfully did a recalibration.. this tells me that the new software is not working properly.. it gave me ugly colors while at the same time, managing to somehow corrupt the drivers of the sensor..
i was wondering if anyone has experienced the same problem..? i would really like to install the updated software, but if it is not working properly, then why did Color Vision even released it in the first place..

I'm running Spyder2Express V2.3.5 on my Intel Core 2 Duo laptop with nVidia 7950 GTX graphics and my AMD Athlon 64 desktop with ATI 9600 graphics. Both have Vista Ultimate installed (dual booted with XP MCE 2005 just in case). I have not run into any problems using the software or with hardware/drivers etc.
On the laptop, running the profile takes out a blue cast and at first it does look like the screen has turned reddish but after a few seconds my eyes adjust and it looks a nice neutral tone. I have a B&W image as my desktop wallpaper so I can immediately perceive any odd cast to the colour (or so I might think!). It's a B&W conversion from a picture I took so I know it is 'proper' B&W and free of any colour artefacts.
On my PC I have the exact same B&W wallpaper and the PC is connected to my 40' 1080p LCD TV as my media center device. Both machines are in the same room and it is easy to compare screens. When I apply the profile to the PC/TV there is a noticeable colour shift towards green and it looks pretty yucky at first. After a while the eyes do adjust and the image looks fine.
Unfortunately the resulting colours of the screens do not match and the PC/TV combination actually looks a better match to the laptop without using its profile. As I edit on the laptop and view on the TV it would be nice if the temperatures matched perfectly. The scientific way, by calibration, clearly doesn't work for me.
As an experiment I just tried placing the laptop screen right up in front of the TV and took a photograph of the pair with WB set to 6500K in my camera to correspond to the target temperature of the calibration profiles. I tried this once with the laptop profile loaded and the PC unprofiled and then repeated the shot, this time with the PC's profile loaded as well. I completely defocused the camera lens before shooting, to avoid picking up individual RGB sub-pixels on either display, and then did some eye-dropper sampling of the displays. The results were..
The profiled laptop is still strong on the blues and light on the greens, with red roughly in the middle. Taking a few readings from the brightest area of the display I get RGB values of something like 65.7% 64.6% 68.2%. That's a spread of 3.6% between RGB channels.
The unprofiled PC/TV gives RGB = 82.0 80.0 84.2 so, while brighter than the laptop, the relative RGB values are really quite close, with B strongest, G weakest and R in the middle. That's a spread of 2.4% between the RGB channels, so not too bad I suppose.
The profiled PC/TV from a similar part of the picture gives RGB = 84.8 84.4 81.7 so R & G are very close but B is lacking. That's a spread of 2.7% between RGB channels but a very different tint from the unprofiled version.
I'm not sure quite what this tells me other than that profiling will only take you so far but is not the be all and end all. It is possibly better than nothing, depending upon how good your equipment is and how lucky you are in the first place. I think for my laptop it was especially important to calibrate as it was way too blue to begin with and even now is still a little too blue. As for the PC/TV, all I've really done is swapped one small colour cast for a different one. In order to maintain a close visual appearance between the edits on my laptop and the displayed picture on the TV I may as well not bother with the profile on the TV as, while close to neutral, it actually creates a bigger gap between the laptop and the PC.
Another thing to ponder is that when making adjustments you probably need to give your eyes a moment to adjust because any swing in tint will look odd if you're used to something else. Did your screen really go cyan or was it just too red to begin with? How do you know? Can you trust your eyes?
First image is profiled laptop and unprofiled PC/TV. Second image is profiled laptop (again) and profiled PC/TV.

i think i've isolated the problem.. i think it is because of the white point setting between the programs.. in version 2.2, which came with the device, the white point is set by default to native white point.. in 2.3 onward, according to the website, the white point is set to 6500K.. Color Vision's software recommends that i set 2.2 gamma and 6500K white point.. it only recommends setting native white point for projection screens.. but at the recommended 6500K my screen looks terrible.. what gives..?

You're right about the change in target Kelvin between 2.2.x and 2.3.x. With Spyder2Pro you can pick all sorts of temperatures and there are loads more controls but Spyder2Express should get the job done if you want a 'standard' calibration.
If your results are truly out of whack are you performing the calibration in dimmed conditions and is the puck touching lightly but completely against the screen? If your monitor is vertical then you may need to lean something gently against the puck to press it gently against the screen, otherwise ambient light can seep in round the edges and destroy any hope of getting accurate results. But don't press it too hard either - if you have a TFT screen a little too much pressure can distort the pixels and cause all kinds of bizarre colour shifts at the individual pixel level and you may never know because the puck is hiding the 'damage' going on beneath it. You might notice the problem (as I discovered it on my TV) when you remove the puck and see for a second or so that you have a weird kaleidoscope pattern on your screen.

more information.. i just got a hold of a copy of the Spyder2PRO from a friend.. this confirmed that my problems all along was the white point settings..
i set my monitor to native white point and calibrated the Spyder2 software to native white point.. it didn't have a color cast, but when i used the Spyder2 sensor as a colorimeter and read what was supposed to be white, the reading i got was at around 5400K.. i thought the standards was supposed to be closer to 6500K..? should i be worried that i might not be color correcting my photos to industry standards..?

I guess the answer depends on what you want to do with your photos. Are you selling them? Do you share image files with family and friends? Do you print? If they're for personal use only I guess it won't matter hugely so long as you're happy that the pictures look good on your monitor (and if you print, that your prints match what you see on the monitor).
If you do use the photos commercially then I think it would be worth aiming for industry standards (but isn't the standard for the Mac world a bit different from the PC world? I thought Mac folk used a different gamma and possibly a different temperature target. So which standard do you aim for? Does it in fact matter that much? I don't know.
If only family and friends get to see your photos then what are the chances that their monitors are calibrated properly? It's probably anybody's guess whether they will see what you see, regardless of how well set up your system is.
Hopefully someone with more knowledge can chime in here. If it was me I would strive for as much conformance to 6500K and 2.2 gamma as I could get. At least that way I know that my pictures are correctly balanced and toned, even if nobody else can see that.
I suppose the other side to the above is if you are critiquing other people's photos or just wanting to enjoy what others have done then a 'standard' calibration must be the way to go. Otherwise you won't be in a position to comment on colour casts and contrast in other people's work.
Wow, that was a lot of waffle! Short answer - go for 6500K, 2.2 gamma. Try to use your monitor hardware to do as much of the colour/contrast/bright​ness adjustment as possible in order to achieve the result and then fine tune the job with an ICC profile from the Spyder software once you've got the monitor close to target.

the final output for my pictures that i want to correct to is lab prints to be sold to customers.. so you're saying to set my calibration software to 6500K even though it looks terrible on my monitor..?

If a 'proper' calibration looks bad, perhaps there is a problem with your monitor and it simply can't be colour profiled accurately. I did try calibrating my older laptop (6 years old) and frankly it was a waste of time trying to get 6500K out of it. All contrast vanished and everything just looked watery grey coloured. Terrible!
But I'm really no expert so I suggest you hold out for someone more knowledgeable to answer. Sorry I can't offer more help.

i hate bringing up old threads but wow so much installing and re-installing i have done to get my spyder to work and it turns out it was the front USB ports, plugged the s2e in to the rear and the sensor was detected, grr damn pc's

Michael.. So how's it working now?
I had mixed experiences with the Spyder2 Express. I first used it a couple years ago on a Dell LCD monitor and I too got that 'Cyan cast' and my prints looked bad. I called ColorVision's support number and they updated my software to the Pro version for free! My Dell then calibrated beautifully and my prints matched nicely.
I later started using a larger Samsung LCD and as before, even with the newest Pro software, I got a bad Cyan cast and muddy prints. I uninstalled the Spyder2 software and 'emulated' the Spyder's calibration settings with the monitor's controls and now the display looks pleasant and my prints are just fine. So I no longer use the Spyder2.

i dont like the results the s2e produces with Vista, XP it was great but with vista i am just not sold, i too have Samsung LCDs, i have a dual setup on my processing PC and one LCD has the cyan tinge, the other a blue tinge, so far prints have turned out ok but i think i may revert back to the monitor controls like you