Monitor Calibration

“Accurately calibrating + characterising your monitor is the crucial first step in developing a colour managed workflow.” [1] 

Because each monitor displays colour differently you need to create a monitor profile to compensate for colour inconsistency.

Monitor calibration is a two stage process.
Stage One = calibrate
Stage Two = profile
In most cases monitor calibration and monitor profiling occurs simultaneously.

Adobe recommends that you use third party software like E-Color Colorific or Apple ColorSync 2.5 or greater. However, if like me you don’t have any third party software than Adobe recommends that you use Adobe Gamma which is bundled with recent versions of Photoshop. Both Johnson and Harradine suggest you use Adobe Gamma if you don’t have a third party software as well.

Eyeballing it
Harald Johnson likes to call the first software based method “eyeballing”. He explains that the problem with the eyeballing is that the software relies on peoples ability to compare and evaluate colours as well as viewing conditions. But he goes on to say that, eyeballing is better than no calibration at all. So far I have come across two ways that I can calibrate and profile my monitor. These are using adobe gamma and online calibration. 

Adobe Gamma
Adobe Gamma is a visual calibration process. With it you adjust your monitors
- white point
- contrast and brightness
- and the Phosphor and RGB levels 
By the end of the process you end up with a monitor profile that can be used to display colours correctly on screen in any ICC enabled applications.  I did find one major drawback however, if you have a flat screen monitor than adobe gamma will not produce a reliable profile for a colour managed workflow. According to Adobe. As I have an LCD screen I am hesitant to try this method however, I do know some people who have LCD screens and use adobe gamma and say that it works for them. So I have decided to at least test it.

Online/download Calibration 
EasyRGB-PC Ver. 1.30 is a windows based application that is free to download. Go here for all the specks
http://www.easyrgb.com/easyrgbpc.html
I have also come across this website that allows you to calibrate your monitor by eye using its test images. http://www.imagescience.com.au/ColourControl/monitorCalibration.html

Device Calibration 

The second method to calibrate a monitor is with a device that does it for you. This is the more recommended way to calibrate your monitor. It’s far superior because it’s based on an objective opinion unlike the subjective eyeballing method. The draws back to these devices are that they can be expensive. So it’s not going to be something that I am going to be testing out.

 

Calibrate regularly!

It takes about 10 mins to calibrate and profile your monitor and experts say that this should be done on a regular basis. Some sources recommend that you do this weekly and others recommend that you do it monthly. So you should really make this part of a weekly or monthly routine. Note that it is recommended that you should allow your display to warm up for an hour before you calibrate your monitor.

Some of the questions at the end of my seminar concerning monitor calibration were…

Why do you have to calibrate your monitor regularly? You need to calibrate your monitor regularly because the characteristics of your monitor will change overtime.
Why do you have to let your monitor warm up for an hour? at the time i did not know the answer, and yes i have been trying to find that out and as soon as i do i will post it up. i have read this in a few places and one of them is http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/monitor_calibration.htm, but it dosn’t say why.

[1] www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/32106.html – accessed 10/08/06