Monitor callibration 101

[Tannin]

What's the go with monitor callibration, people?

Me, I've never bothered with it, on the theory that I soon get used to whatever colour cast any given screen introduces, just as you quickly adjust to the different colour temperatures of (e.g.) sunlight vs incandescent light.

But now that I'm often wanting to prepare stuff for broader consumption - not just photographs, web pages with background colours too - I wonder if it isn't time I did something about getting my screens correctly callibrated.

(A confession. Despite my love of photography, I am not very switched on to colour, certainly not the subtlties of it. Much more a form and line man than a colour man. So maybe I better work on that.)

Adobe put a gamma correction thing into your startup when you install Photoshop or Acrobat. I always take it out again by reflex (because it is in my startup and I didn't put it there.)

Should I stick that back in and do something with it? Or go further with a proper callibration tool, such as (for example) .... damn it, now I can't find the example I had in mind. But the general idea is to have a bit of hardware that reads your exact screen colurs and allows you to callibrate it correctly. If I get a tool (they cost a few hundred dollars) can I reasonably expect it to remain useful for (say) 5 to 10 years? Is this something I need to do/ought to do?

 

[LunarMist]

Tony,

Yes, you need a calibration device. There are three consumer level ones that provide results sufficient for most users: Pantone Colorvision Spyder2, X-rite/Monaco and Gretag Macbeth. I don't know all the current models and cannot make a specific recommendation, but most work on the same principle. The software and measuring device create icm files (ICC) for the monitor in use. I doubt that the software will run on Windows 10 years from now.

Presumably you are using the appropriate color space in PS and in yuor printer setting as well. For web images, keep in mind that browsers are not aware of the color spaces available to PS and other imaging software, so you may need to change the working space or do conversions for specific projects. There are a gazillion books about color workflow by people such as Tim Grey. Perhaps Gary will stop by and give some insights on how to do things right. I'm just a dilettante.

 

[Bozo]

Would this help?

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography/prophoto/colorcontrol.mspx


Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[mubs]

Tony, you may want to read the thread I started a while back.

 

[Tannin]

Thankyou guys. The advice and links has been very useful, I'm learning quite a bit. Since Tea's little buying frenzy the other day I've put this on the back burner till after xmas, but I'll return to it then. (Oh, my aching wallet.)