Why Do I Need To Calibrate My Monitor?

If you primarily use your computer to surf the web, or for word processing, spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, playing video games, or even streaming TV shows and movies, calibrating your monitor is probably not a high priority. It may make little to no difference at all.

On the other hand, if you are engaged in printing graphics products and desktop publishing, or are an advanced amateur or professional photographer routinely correcting RAW and JPEG images, calibrating your monitor should be a top priority.

Like any other skill, digital photography requires mastery of certain tools. Sure, it starts with your digital camera, but so much of the “magic” happens after downloading the images to your computer.

Learning to calibrate your monitor is probably the single most important component of your professional color correction workflow. If calibration is not done correctly, your monitor will only frustrate you and result in costly mistakes and wasted time. 

Of course, you can process, adjust, modify, and crop the image in Lightroom or PhotoShop, without a properly calibrated monitor. But, that is a lot like trying to bake a cake without having measuring cups, a timer, or a temperature setting on your oven. There is no reliable way to know what you will get!

What if My New Monitor Comes Pre-Calibrated?

You can not assume your shiny brand-new monitor is perfectly calibrated for your workflow and computer. Even the very best models will still need to be calibrated to properly display images in the specific environment in which they will be used.

What Difference Does That Make?

The color quality and amount of light present at your workstation will determine the optimum brightness setting of the display. The entire calibration process depends on this critical first assessment and adjustment.

OK, How Do I Calibrate my Monitor?

Although you can achieve a close “general purpose” calibration with the file at the bottom of this article and a hardcopy print we can provide, the best way to calibrate your monitor is by using a sensor and software profiling kit.

Affordable monitor profiling kits, such as the Datacolor “SPYDER” (or similar unit) will save you many times their initial cost in lost time, money, and frustration.

Can I Calibrate My Laptop Computer Display?

While a few high-end laptop models like the Macbook Pro may work fine, most portable displays can be problematic due to their lack of screen adjustment controls which are often required during calibration setup.

Additionally, because of their portable nature, laptop, and tablet screens will generally display different brightness levels for power conservation purposes, depending on an environment’s ambient brightness and whether battery or AC power is in use. 

Disable the “auto-brightness-adjustment” in the device control panel if you can. It is also essential that you ONLY use the device for image correction when it is AC-powered. Alternatively, an AC-powered desktop external monitor will provide the most reliable results.

Can I Calibrate Without a Probe and Software? 

The most reliable calibration is achieved using a commercially available calibration tool like the Spyder Pro to set up your monitor. If this is unavailable, you can achieve a “limited” calibration by manually adjusting your screen to match the provided sample print.

The following procedure assumes that you will be using some version of Adobe PhotoShop but can be adapted to similar image editing programs.

Launch Photoshop (or a similar program) and open the “Target Print File” you downloaded from the bottom of this page to your computer.

While visually comparing the screen and the reference print, “fine-tune” your monitor screen controls (contrast, red, green, and blue) to match the reference print. The print must be viewed under an ambient light source that is close to a “daylight” color balance.

Once the print & monitor comparison is in close agreement, send us one of your corrected files for test printing. Once you receive the new print, compare it to the screen image and “fine-tune” the screen again as necessary. The images may not EXACTLY match, but they should closely approximate each other.

Once this evaluation has been completed and the screen and reference are in close agreement, any prints we make for you in the future should be a reasonably close match to your screen.