User s Guide
Overview SpyderGallery is a free mobile App from Datacolor, designed to provide color accurate viewing of images on your mobile device. The Image Viewer can be used with no special preparation; but color managed viewing requires building a color profile for your device. This process uses a Datacolor Spyder (Spyder3 or higher for ios; Spyder4 or higher for Android) and a Mac or Windows computer (see Tech Specs for Requirements). Following the built-in process to download and run the Mac or Windows communication app is easy. Find a Spyder to use with this App. Consider getting a Spyder for your Photo Club or User Group, so that all the members can calibrate their mobile devices. Help Files Selecting the Help (?) button will bring up the Help Menu. Select any section from the Help menu to read its contents. Reading all the Help Files before using SpyderGallery can be useful, but every attempt has been made for this to be a user friendly App, that can be run without any advance study. Viewing Photos Selecting the View Photos Icon from the Home Screen will take you to the Photo Viewer. The SpyderGallery Photo Viewer allows you to view the photos in your device's native photo library; no need to import images into an applicationspecific library, which simplifies photo management by avoiding having multiple libraries and requiring frequent updates to keep them in sync. The Galleries button at the upper left of the screen allows you to choose any of the galleries in your photo library. Selecting a gallery will bring up thumbnails of all the images that gallery contains. If there are more images than will fit on the screen at one time, scrolling will make more images appear from the bottom of the screen. Double tapping on any thumbnail will bring a full size version of that image up on screen. There are multiple methods of navigating among the images in a Gallery. Swiping left or right will bring the adjacent image onto the screen. Using the left and right arrows will do the same thing. Or drag a finger across the filmstrip bar at the bottom to quickly scroll through the thumbnails, and let go at the desired image to see it full size. Native ios and Android gestures can be used for functions such as zooming in or out. The left/right arrows, filmstrip bar, and top bar will disappear after a few seconds, to leave an uncluttered full screen view of any image. To regain these navigation controls, tap anywhere on the screen. Moving to another gallery is as simple as
choosing the Galleries button again, and picking another gallery in the popdown list. Buttons in the right corner of the top bar navigate to the Home Screen, to the Calibrate Screen, the Help Files, and the Settings Screen. The use of each of these options is explained under its own Help Topic. There is also a Help section covering the Calibration On/Off switch, which is the key to color managed viewing. Color Managed Photo Viewing The Calibration On/Off switch in the lower right corner of the Image Viewer controls the color correction of your images. Selecting Calibration Off displays the color of your images exactly as they would be seen in the native photo viewing App on your device. Choosing Calibration On will apply your custom device display profile, to color correct your images for viewing on your mobile device. Calibrating Your Viewer The Viewer Calibration process uses a Datacolor Spyder to measure the colors of your mobile device, and builds a special profile for it which can then be used to view your images in the Photo Viewer. For ios devices a Spyder3 or higher is needed. For Android, due to the wider variety of screen types, a Spyder4 or higher is necessary. This process consists of several steps, which should occur automatically, complete with any directions needed to continue. This process is also detailed here, for those who prefer to read about it in advance, or for situations where extra assistance is needed. Step 1: System Setup The first step is to download the communication App from Datacolor.com. Selecting the "Email me a Link" button will prompt you for the email address to which this link should be mailed. If this email does not appear shortly in your computer's email folder, please check your Spam folder, to be sure it has not been mistaken for Spam. Be sure to open this email on the desktop or laptop computer that you will use to connect the Spyder; opening it on your mobile device won't allow you to download the small Mac or Windows App required to drive the Spyder and communicate with your mobile device. Once you have selected the correct platform, and downloaded the communications App, you are ready to link your computer and mobile device. Be
sure the Spyder is connected to the computer, then select the OK button on the Calibrate Screen. SpyderGallery will find your computer, and prepare to communicate with your Spyder. If you have difficulties connecting with your computer, see the Troubleshooting section of the Help. Step 2: Colorimeter Placement Now lay your mobile device flat on its back, and place the Spyder on the outline on its screen. Select the OK button, and Step 3 will begin. Step 3: Readings The Calibration App will now place a series of colors under the Spyder, which will read them, and send the color measurements back to the computer. These will be processed to form a custom profile for the screen of your mobile device. Once this process is completed, Step 3 will be replaced with Done: Congratulations! on the screen, letting you know the process was successful. Choose the Go To Viewer button to try out your new calibration. Home Screen This is the screen which appears when launching the App, or choosing the Home button. It allows users to navigate to the Calibrate Screen or Photo Viewer, described in their own sections, or other options. Settings Settings contains advanced controls that you may never need to access. Options such as Rendering Intent can be adjusted from the Settings window. Frequently Asked Questions Q: What is happening when Calibration is turned on in SpyderGallery? A: Every pixel in your image is being adjusted to be a more accurate representation of the intended color, based on the profile which was made when you read your mobile screen with the Spyder. Q: Why are all colors less saturated on my mobile screen with Calibration On? A: Colors are often displayed as more saturated than they actually should be on the small gamut of a mobile device, calibration reduces the saturation to make them more accurate. The calibrated view should be a closer match to a
calibrated desktop display than the uncalibrated view. Q: Why do highly saturated colors still not match my calibrated display even with Calibration On? A: Desktop displays can reproduce more saturated colors than most mobile devices. Colors outside the range of your mobile screen simply cannot be displayed correctly on that device. Q: Why is there a lag between when I open an image, and when the calibrated display of it appears? A: SpyderGallery is changing the color of every pixel in your image in real time. This is an intensive process, and takes a split second to process. On older, slower devices this lag will be more noticeable than on newer, faster devices. The lag can be eliminated by turning Calibration off, but at the cost of losing color accurate viewing. In some instances, it may be desirable to navigate through images with Calibration off, and turn it on only when the desired image has been brought up on screen. Q: Does it matter how I import images into my mobile device's library? A: Images imported through itunes will be automatically converted as they are imported. Images from the web are typically in srgb space already, and are ready for calibrated viewing. Images you are emailing to your mobile device should ideally be converted to srgb in advance, just as you would do before posting them to the web. Other import methods may have other results. Q: Can I use the profile SpyderGallery makes for my mobile device with other Apps? A: Apps are isolated from one another in mobile OSes. This means that unless the OS itself supports a given feature, it is only available in the App where it is developed. Until other developers build Datacolor color management into their Apps, those apps will not be able to utilize Datacolor Mobile Color Profiles. Ask your favorite developers to contact Datacolor for details. Q: How do I add more images to SpyderGallery? A: No need to import images into a SpyderGallery-specific library. Just continue importing images into the OS library, and SpyderGallery will access them automatically.
Q: Why does the color on my mobile device require calibration? A: For general use, the native color on your mobile device may be quite acceptable. But to assure maximum consistency and accuracy, viewing images in a color-managed environment is important. This way you can assure that what you see on your mobile devices is as close as possible to what is seen on calibrated desktop displays, and on other calibrated mobile devices. Q: Is there an Android version of SpyderGallery? A: Yes, SpyderGallery is now available for Android Phones and Tablets, as well as iphones and ipads. Q: Can I use SpyderGallery on my iphone? A: Yes, SpyderGallery is now available for the iphone as well as the ipad, and Android devices. Q: When I calibrate my Mac or PC, I have the option of adjusting the WhitePoint. Is it possible to do this with SpyderGallery? A: SpyderGallery target s a whitepoint of 6500k on Android devices. The result improves the warmness/coolness of Android screens, which tend to vary between manufacturers or devices. For ios devices, a whitepoint in the range of 6500k is already provided, so whitepoint adjustment is not performed. Q: How does the luminance level of my mobile device affect my SpyderGallery calibration? A: Mobile devices are designed to be used under a range of light levels, and are typically adjusted (or even auto-adjusted) to different brightness levels for different conditions. To improve the color matching with your mobile device, you may wish to turn off auto-adjustment. To improve it under a specific lighting condition, to a specific monitor, adjust the brightness control until whites in SpyderGallery are the same brightness as those on the computer display. Q: The documentation with SpyderGallery does not seem to be aimed at side by side matching between my mobile device and my computer monitor. Why is that? A: The goal of SpyderGallery is display an image, viewed at an appropriate brightness level for the current lighting, in most any situation, in a manner that will be perceptually similar to what a calibrated display under a controlled lighting condition would show. That is not the same as an absolute side-by-side comparison, where precise matching of whitepoint, luminance, and display gamut
are used to attempt to create visually identical results under a single condition. Q: Does SpyderGallery correct my display's gamma? A: Yes, there is a gamma correction function in SpyderGallery, that can usually be seen when flashing from uncalibrated to calibrated state, even with a grayscale image. Q: My Mac and Windows computers don't offer display profile intent options. I just discovered that SpyderGallery does offer intents. Why is that? A: Given the more limited color gamut of mobile devices, SpyderGallery is designed to offer two different ways of displaying your images. The Saturation option offers the best color saturation throughout the image, but if large areas of a similar, highly saturated color are present, they may not show much color distinction in this mode, and can look flat or nonphotographic. The Perceptual option reduces overall saturation of colors, so that these out-of-gamut areas retain a more photographic level of detail, but at a cost in saturation of all the other colors in the image. The user is free to choose between these options based on what best suits the user, or the images being viewed. Q: Will SpyderGallery match one mobile device to another? A: The color corrections that SpyderGallery produces should increase the consistency between mobile devices. Q: I realize it s not reasonable to expect perfect spot color matches on a mobile device, even when calibrated with SpyderGallery. But I am noticing that a few of my client's corporate colors are significantly off-color, mostly in terms of saturation, in SpyderGallery. Turning calibration off does not solve this issue - in fact it seems to make it worse. Is there an explanation for why some colors are less accurate than others? A: There is a tendency to choose very saturated colors for corporate colors. Saturated spot colors, especially in the yellows and cyans, are hard for RGBbased displays to reach, and harder still for smaller gamut mobile devices. So warn clients that highly saturated colors in these areas will not display correctly, unless viewed on a wide gamut device. Q: I am interested in using SpyderGallery on my mobile device, even though I keep it set to German. Will SpyderGallery work under those conditions? And will there be a German version of SpyderGallery? A: SpyderGallery has been tested for compatibility on devices set to non-english languages, and no problems have been detected. So while the SpyderGallery app itself is always in English, it can be used successfully under many other
language settings. Q: I noticed a comment about "laundering" images through SpyderGallery for use in other Apps on my mobile device. What do I need to do this? A: This is accomplished by taking an OS-level screen-shot while the image is on screen, and calibration is enabled; and then retrieving that screen-shot from the device s image library. You may want to use a simple graphics app to crop the resulting screenshots before importing them into your presentation app. Q: SpyderGallery can't find my Spyder, which is plugged in a powered USB port of my computer. Do I need to change something? A: Please check you are using a Spyder3 or higher to communicate with an ios device, or a Spyder4 or higher to communicate with an Android device. Next ensure that your mobile device and your computer are both connected to the same section of the same WLAN, and that communication between devices is not disabled in the network. Public networks (e. g. in hotels, airports) don't allow device-to-device communication, so SpyderGallery can't communicate through this type of network. It is possible to create your own network on many computers, no extra hardware required. Please search the SpyderBLOG <blog.datacolor.com> for an article on creating a network on a Mac, for use with SpyderGallery. Q: I notice that Spyder4 is necessary for calibrating Android devices, but that Spyder3s can be used for ios calibration. Is there any advantage to using a Spyder4 for my iphone and ipad? A: Yes, Spyder4 offers improved accuracy and longevity over Spyder3, and is an improvement for most any type of calibration. Troubleshooting Please visit http://support.datacolor.com for more troubleshooting and knowledge base articles for SpyderGallery. Technical Specifications SpyderGallery requires a supported mobile device for image viewing, and a Mac or Windows computer. A Datacolor Spyder3 or higher is required for ios calibration. For Android for calibration, due to the larger variety of screen types available under Android, a Spyder4 or higher is needed.
Mac OS 10.5 or newer, or Windows XP 32/64, Vista 32/64, or Win7 32/64 are required for the Helper Utility. Android 3.0 or higher needed on Android Devices. ios 4 or higher needed on ios devices. Local WiFi network required for calibration.