Calibrating your monitor and creating an ICC profile of your monitor ensures that your monitor doesn’t display any red, green, or blue color casts and that it provides as neutral a gray screen as possible. Calibration is incredibly important if you want to standardize your image display — knowing that how you view your image today will be how you view your image tomorrow or next week.
If you really want to do a great calibration job, consider investing in a combination hardware/software calibration package. These products used to be really pricey, but you can get a decent package for around $250. You can choose from several manufacturers. ColorVision (www.colorcal.com), for example, offers more than one program. The package includes software that displays color swatches on your screen. Then a photoelectric device, called a colorimeter, attaches to your monitor with a suction cup. The sensors in the colorimeter measure the color, brightness, and other characteristics of the monitor. The software then takes the data, adjusts the monitor, and creates a profile from the data.
If more software isn’t within your budget, you can use the simple calibration tool that comes with Photoshop (Windows) or your system software (Mac). Turn on your monitor and let it warm up at least an hour. Then, if you’re a Windows user, you can use Photoshop’s Adobe Gamma utility. (Look for it in the Control Panel on the Windows Start menu.) You can either use the Gamma utility’s wizard, shown in Figure 3-6, which walks you through the calibration process by asking you a series of questions, or manually calibrate your monitor by using sliders in the Adobe Gamma control panel.
If you’re a Mac OS X user, you can use the Display Calibrator Assistant. Choose Apple➪System Preferences➪Displays➪Color. Click the Color tab and then click the Calibrate button. Answer the questions in the Display Calibrator Assistant.
Both utilities, Adobe Gamma and the Display Calibrator Assistant, help you remove any color casts and get as neutral a gray background as you can. They also create a profile of your monitor for Photoshop, Illustrator, and other programs so that those applications know how your monitor displays color.
When you calibrate your monitor, display an image for which you already know the color values. For example, use an image that you’ve worked with and for which you have a good print and then use that image each and every time you calibrate. Your goal is to match the digital image on your screen to the printed image. You should calibrate every so often because monitors can drift and degrade. Some experts say weekly; others are more liberal and say monthly is fine.
You can also find various calibration utilities on the Web. Here are just a few. Do a search and I’m sure you’ll find a ton more.
-www.viewsonic.com/support/calibration.htm
-www.easyrgb.com/calibrate.php
-www.risingphotography.com/calibration
-www.praxisoft.com
If you really want to do a great calibration job, consider investing in a combination hardware/software calibration package. These products used to be really pricey, but you can get a decent package for around $250. You can choose from several manufacturers. ColorVision (www.colorcal.com), for example, offers more than one program. The package includes software that displays color swatches on your screen. Then a photoelectric device, called a colorimeter, attaches to your monitor with a suction cup. The sensors in the colorimeter measure the color, brightness, and other characteristics of the monitor. The software then takes the data, adjusts the monitor, and creates a profile from the data.
If more software isn’t within your budget, you can use the simple calibration tool that comes with Photoshop (Windows) or your system software (Mac). Turn on your monitor and let it warm up at least an hour. Then, if you’re a Windows user, you can use Photoshop’s Adobe Gamma utility. (Look for it in the Control Panel on the Windows Start menu.) You can either use the Gamma utility’s wizard, shown in Figure 3-6, which walks you through the calibration process by asking you a series of questions, or manually calibrate your monitor by using sliders in the Adobe Gamma control panel.
If you’re a Mac OS X user, you can use the Display Calibrator Assistant. Choose Apple➪System Preferences➪Displays➪Color. Click the Color tab and then click the Calibrate button. Answer the questions in the Display Calibrator Assistant.
Both utilities, Adobe Gamma and the Display Calibrator Assistant, help you remove any color casts and get as neutral a gray background as you can. They also create a profile of your monitor for Photoshop, Illustrator, and other programs so that those applications know how your monitor displays color.
When you calibrate your monitor, display an image for which you already know the color values. For example, use an image that you’ve worked with and for which you have a good print and then use that image each and every time you calibrate. Your goal is to match the digital image on your screen to the printed image. You should calibrate every so often because monitors can drift and degrade. Some experts say weekly; others are more liberal and say monthly is fine.
You can also find various calibration utilities on the Web. Here are just a few. Do a search and I’m sure you’ll find a ton more.
-www.viewsonic.com/support/calibration.htm
-www.easyrgb.com/calibrate.php
-www.risingphotography.com/calibration
-www.praxisoft.com
By the way, not only is letting your monitor warm up a prerequisite before you calibrate, it is also a good idea before you sit down to tackle any image adjustment work.
Calibrating your monitor for Photoshop
![Calibrating your monitor for Photoshop]()
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