Tell Me The Truth - Does This Colour Make My Monitor Look Fat? Spyder...

Still looking at the same screen, are we? The one we bought from Harvey Norman three years ago? The one that has never been calibrated or colour corrected in all that time?

Well, congratulations - you are an adventurer. Boldly going where most of us would never venture. I'll bet you eat meat pies from roadside stalls in tropical countries. I'll bet you pet strange dogs in back alleys. I'll bet you contract marriage in cocktail bars and buy gold bricks wrapped in newspaper.

The rest of us are cowards. We know that the colours in the screens of our computers are a variable feast  - and that leaving the thing unattended for three years is like leaving yoghurt open on the table for the same length of time. Most of us have chickened out and bought screen calibrators.

I chose the Spyder 4 Express since my computer is a stand-alone model and sits in a uniformly dim room - no changing lights. I fire it up every two months and it returns the screen to a fixed normality. Sometimes there is very little correction needed over the period - sometimes considerably more. The program that runs the calibrator shows me a before and after image for each cycle it goes through.

If I was running a series of computers or had weird lighting or strange desires* I would select the Spyder 4 Pro or Elite models. They do more but you have to know what you want.

Watch in the next little bit as we feature these Spyder 4 models at bargain prices. In the meantime, if you STILL have not calibrated your screen, it might be safest to convert everything to monochrome and grow a hipster beard. Then no-one can look at you funny.

* Don't ask. I might tell you.