How do you calibrate your monitor?

[bellacat]

I have seen this posted all over the forums recently so I wanted to know how you calibrate your monitor. I this all done by eye or is there a tool?

 

[jedithebomber]

You can do it by eye, but it is unreliable. Look on your favorite tech site for "monitor calibration" or "colorimeter."

 

[EOS_JD]

I use a Spyder2 others use the Pantone Huey and there are other tools. I don't think anyone could do it accurately by eye. Always room for error.

Software like Adobe Gamma can help but nothing is as accurate as a colorimeter.

No two monitors are the same and each one varies over time. Your eyes become accostomed to the changes and regular calibration will make sure your monitor displays ccurate colour.

 

[bellacat]

i have seen the spyder but had no idea what it was for and I have never heard of the Pantone Huey. What's the difference besides price?

 

[doobs]

You know, I just tried to do this (before even reading this thread actually) because I just hooked up a new monitor and the color was off, and I think I messed it up even more. I used the one built into OS X Tiger.

 

[SpeedTrap]

I have been using a Spider 2, and I have to say thay it is great!
no matter how hard you try I have never seen someone calibrate a monitor that is anywhere near as good as using a coloromiter.

 

[Mike_E]

Try this link. http://www.drycreekphoto.com/index.html
look on the right side of the site.

If you are using photoshop then you can use an old Katrin Eismann trick and create 2 layer copies of the background and use the filter blur-average on the first and sample this with the eyedropper tool. Discard this layer and then go to the second layer and bring up levels and click the middle eyedropper tool there and then sample the color you got on the first layer that is now in the tool bar under where the regular eyedropper tool lives.

This will give you a correct color balance 98 times out of 100.

The reason I bring this up is that if you have the correct color balance on the photo that you are working with then your monitor calibration becomes less important (LESS not UN).

 

[EOS_JD]

You know, I just tried to do this (before even reading this thread actually) because I just hooked up a new monitor and the color was off, and I think I messed it up even more. I used the one built into OS X Tiger.

Software calibrators are not reliable at all.

 

[EOS_JD]

Try this link. http://www.drycreekphoto.com/index.html
look on the right side of the site.

If you are using photoshop then you can use an old Katrin Eismann trick and create 2 layer copies of the background and use the filter blur-average on the first and sample this with the eyedropper tool. Discard this layer and then go to the second layer and bring up levels and click the middle eyedropper tool there and then sample the color you got on the first layer that is now in the tool bar under where the regular eyedropper tool lives.

This will give you a correct color balance 98 times out of 100.

The reason I bring this up is that if you have the correct color balance on the photo that you are working with then your monitor calibration becomes less important (LESS not UN).

This can be a very useful tool even for someone with a calibrated monitor however it should not replace calibration which takes into account brightness, contrast etc.

 

[bellacat]

i went online to try and figure out what the difference is between the two products and already it seems Spyder is far better but there is more than one version .... hum what is the most common used?

 

[EOS_JD]

Spyder2. I bought the Spyder2 Suite but the printer calibration software isn't really worth having.

 

[bellavita64]

I recently calibrated my monitor using Gretag MacBeth's Eye One Display 2. It was really easy to do and the results were spot on. My color lab sent some samples for me to calibrate to their printers, and I didn't even have to make any additional adjustments!