Calibrating the colors on my monitor  

Cerawy said:

Your link is a bit of a mess, which file exactly do you want me to download?

As I stated in my post

Cerawy said:

I'm trying to calibrate the colors on my monitor. I have this monitor. I'm using the digital vibrance setting from nvidia's control panel, and the colors are great. The only problem is, that a few colors, in particular green, looks way too oversaturated.

A few thigs. First, unless the colors are way off on you monitor you may not notice a striking difference after a monitor calibration is performed. Now that's not to say you won't see a difference, but it may not be as big as you expect.

As for calibrating the monitors colors there are a few ways to do so - eyeball it (not recommended), Windows calibration tool (not very accurate, very basic), GPU color settings (not meant to be used for "calibration") or 3rd party software using a colorimeter (commonly called a puck) or spectrophotometer (the best approach). Kits with a spectrophotometer are a bit more expensive since the puck can also be used to create paper profiles for those who print.

With that, the most common calibration methods is with third party calibration software with a colorimeter. Here the two main players are X-Rite and Datacolor's Spyder kits. I use X-Rite's i1Display to calibrate my monitor dell monitor on my backup system.

BTW, some monitors like my NEC Pro monitor (NEC PA242w) come with their own specialized calibration software/hardware package. Here I use NEC's SpectraView II software in combination with X-Rites colorimeter.

Like everything else there are a range of prices and options as well as free calibration software such as DisplayCal, but for best results you'll need a puck (colorimeter).

With that this beginner's guide video might be of interest to you....


Be aware the author is using the free DisplayCal software with an i1Display colorimeter, but each software be it Spyder, or X-Rite have their own process you need to follow and options and settings vary depending on monitor (desktop vs. laptop) or software Spyder, X-Rite, DisplayCal, or whatever else there is.

There are plenty of videos online dealing with monitor calibration using the various manufacture's products.

As a photographer who prints his own work monitor calibration is an extremely important part in that process because the the goal here is the match the print at closely as possible to what's seen on the monitor. It's not so simple as it sounds though since the best results come from having a basic understanding of color management to include color profiles.

sygnus21 said:

A few thigs. First, unless the colors are way off on you monitor you may not notice a striking difference after a monitor calibration is performed. Now that's not to say you won't see a difference, but it may not be as big as you expect.

As for calibrating the monitors colors there are a few ways to do so - eyeball it (not recommended), Windows calibration tool (not very accurate, very basic), GPU color settings (not meant to be used for "calibration") or 3rd party software using a colorimeter (commonly called a puck) or spectrophotometer (the best approach). Kits with a spectrophotometer are a bit more expensive since the puck can also be used to create paper profiles for those who print.

With that, the most common calibration methods is with third party calibration software with a colorimeter. Here the two main players are X-Rite and Datacolor's Spyder kits. I use X-Rite's i1Display to calibrate my monitor dell monitor on my backup system.

BTW, some monitors like my NEC Pro monitor (NEC PA242w) come with their own specialized calibration software/hardware package. Here I use NEC's SpectraView II software in combination with X-Rites colorimeter.

Like everything else there are a range of prices and options as well as free calibration software such as DisplayCal, but for best results you'll need a puck (colorimeter).

With that this beginner's guide video might be of interest to you....


Be aware the author is using the free DisplayCal software with an i1Display colorimeter, but each software be it Spyder, or X-Rite have their own process you need to follow and options and settings vary depending on monitor (desktop vs. laptop) or software Spyder, X-Rite, DisplayCal, or whatever else there is.

There are plenty of videos online dealing with monitor calibration using the various manufacture's products.

As a photographer who prints his own work monitor calibration is an extremely important part in that process because the the goal here is the match the print at closely as possible to what's seen on the monitor. It's not so simple as it sounds though since the best results come from having a basic understanding of color management to include color profiles.

I second that. I also found it's very important to use a viewing light having the same colour temperature as the monitor calibration (5000K in my case). I use Lightroom and find the soft proofing tool very useful.

I have a ceiling track lighting system in my work area that uses 4 soft white 3000k bulbs. Found it to be a nice balance between being too warm or cool.

I set my monitor's white point to D65, and a brightness of 115 cd/m2 before I do any calibrating. This gives me the approximation of daylight colors without the monitor being too bright. For comparison the rated max brightness level of the monitor is 340 cd/m2, but ships defaulted around 160 cd/m2. In fact, I've never run it higher than 160.

That said, I set my printer rip to use a warm mixed lighting paper profile so my prints will look good no matter the light source.

Cerawy said:

As far as i remember, when i was using the x-rite colormunki smile, i think i did notice a small difference in some of the colors, but it was so small that i wasn't sure if it had actually made a difference or not. It certainly wasn't as big of a difference, as they were advertising.

And thus why I said what you quoted me on

And it's not about advertising "a big difference in color", it's about color calibrating your monitor so colors are consistent across a myriad of devices. Some changes can be drastic, some can be ever so subtle. The first time I calibrated my monitor I saw a big (not huge) difference; after... nothing readily noticeable. The difference? … the colors aren't as off as they were during the initial calibration.

BTW, it's recommended you calibrate your monitor on a regular basis due to color shift over time; and especially after updating graphic card drivers. I typically re-calibrate every 60 days.

Anyway, color management, which monitor calibration is part of, is one of those things you kind of have to understand and use to notice what's going on; especially in a color managed environment like Photoshop/Lightroom, or printing. It's also one of those subjects that has as many opinions as misunderstandings. However, to fully understand it requires a bit of deep into the color model, color gamut and color profiles, and how they relate to monitors and other devices. In short, it's not something for the faint of heart.

I always refer to this: OVERVIEW OF COLOR MANAGEMENT. It deep dives, but it does a great job if explaining thing, and especially if you want to hone your printing skills.