Hi, all.

I just received my new Spyder 4 monitor calibration device and used it last night. My monitor is a 5-year old 22-inch LCD (Dell 2208 WPF).

First of all, (and no big deal) it reccomended a brightness that my monitor couldn't even achieve on 100% brightness, but it adjusted for that when it realized that was impossible so I guess that is OK.

I also don't have direct controls for color temperature, only for brightness and contrast.

I did "reset" the monitor prior to calibration.

Anyway, here's the unsettling part: After calibrating it (twice) it offers you an array of 16 photos so you can "Spyder-tune" your monitor. I had to move the red slider all the way to full red, and i had to turn the purple slider all the way to purple just to get flesh tones to look human. That seems too drastic for a mere "spyder tune". And the kicker is, when I "switch" from the uncalibrated view to the calibrated view, the uncalibrated view still looks better to me. Post-calibration it still looks a little less bright and vibrant than I would like. And it is possibly (or maybe not) still a tiny little bit green?

I have by no means ruled out the possibility of blatant user error, b/t/w, but I did assiduously follow the directions it gives you. I have not sent any test shots to the lab yet so I have no idea how that would look post-calibration.

My questions, then:

1.) Any obvious screw-ups on my part?
2.) Is it ok to have such a drastic "spyder tune" in effect, and can that in any way hurt my prints?
3.) Could this monitor be too old to work well on this?

Thanks!