Screen calibration?

[dakkon76]

I've never done anything to try and calibrate my monitor, but I've noticed now that the last 2 sets of prints I've gotten seem to be noticeably brighter than what I've sent in. Is this a result of my gamma or brightness being too high, or do I need to account for this and bump down the exposure a bit before I send them off to the lab?

And... since I should probably calibrate my monitor... is there some free software to do this? I've seen the mpix kit and it's pretty pricey - not something I plan on doing anytime in the near future.

 

[KmH]

With an uncalibrated monitor, having prints made is a crap shoot.

Read through these tutorials: Tutorials on Color Management & Printing

Mpix, and many other online labs, recommends using this colorimeter: X-Rite i1Display 2 Color Calibrator for LCD, CRT, and Laptop Displays

Hopefully, you have a IPS type display.

On this Mpix page http://mpix.com/support/Help.aspx?id=3 scroll down to the bottom and click on Download Here for their ICC profiles and PDF file on calibrating and soft-proofing.

It takes more than just software. yiou ned the colorimeter or a more expensive spectrophotometer, like a $450 ColorMunki that can also profile printers, scanners, and projectors.