When starting out as a designer and creative it may seem like it doesn’t matter too much to calibrate your monitor. Most monitors come calibrated right out of the box so, well, they probably look fine enough, at least for a little while. However, the more you work as a designer and develop your eye you can understand why serious designers always calibrate their monitors and suggest it to other designers to definitely do as well.
As designers, you have a few core things you explore and develop strength in as visual communicators. You work with visual concepts, typography, layout, materials.. and most importantly, you work with color. A good color palette is essential to a top quality design. So, color is not an area to guess on when working on your new favorite project. Oftentimes, color is the special sauce that takes a design from OK to great. Color is even more important to get right when you are working in print. The color should match from screen to print as well as possible. It is futile to spend hours on a design that onscreen will resemble nothing like the final print product. So, color calibration is key.
Color Calibration on your Computer
A colorimeter is a small calibration device that fastens to your screen and works with calibration software to optimize display color for your particular screen. Having the best monitor calibration tools has become an important part of any creative being’s toolkit. Because every graphic designer, illustrator, and even photographer rely greatly on the accuracy of their artwork’s authentic colors.
The first step is to ensure you have calibrated the color on your monitor using the calibration tools in your OS.
- In Windows 10, you can go to System, then click Display > Advanced Display Settings > Color Calibration. Once you are there run the tool to get the best possible results. If you have two monitors you need to run it on both monitors. Matching your monitors color will also help with your workflow as you move back and forth from screen to screen.
- On MacOS, click Settings and choose Display then the Color tab and the Calibrate button.
Hardware Calibration
For accurate color matching your best bet is a hardware calibration tool. The subject of hardware calibration and optimizing monitors is in fact quite complex, for the purposes of this article I am going to focus on the most common scenario for designers who may be using a basic or medium range monitor. Here are a few options that are very good colorimeters for 2017:
Spyder5Express
The Spyder5 calibration tools are now the leading ones in use. For years, Pantone and its products were the go-to for color calibration. Now there are more options on the market and many good models from Spyder5. The Express version is a good entry calibration tool for hobbyists and will help one have consistent color across monitors and laptops, but it lacks some of the features of other Spyder models.
Spyder5Pro
For serious designers and photographers the SpyderPro gives you everything one needs for full-featured and advanced color accuracy. The Pro version includes advanced calibration settings for gamma, white point and gray balance, and has 16 pre-installed calibration setting choices.
Spyder5Elite
The Syper5 Elite is for photographers, designers, and colorists and is different than the other versions because it supports unlimited calibration settings and calibrates across monitors, studio monitors, laptops, and projectors. If you want optimal calibration and enhanced work flow this is the best choice of the Spyder calibration tools.
ColorMunki Display X-Rite
The ColorMunki X-Rite is a good choice for expert amateurs and some professional designers. The best thing about this option is that its easy to set up and ensures pretty good color, it does not offer a lot of nuanced calibration options though. The price is very good though for what you are getting with this calibration tool. If you have a laptop this is considered a very good choice.
X-Rite i1Display Pro
The display pro is considered an industry standard calibrator and a professional’s choice. It uses its own exclusive technology to deliver excellent color matching results across a range of monitor types like LED, Plasma, and Wide Gamut. It is also optimized for use with Pantone Spot Colors. The drawback of this solution is that the interface may be a bit complex and it is a bit more expensive.
You can find any one of these calibration tools at Amazon or B&H Photo. Color and calibration is an interesting subject, as designers, photographers and artists you may be interested to learn more on your own. Here are some additional resources to explore:
How to Calibrate your Monitor, Digital Trends.
Monitor Calibration for Photographers, Cambridge in Color.
The Benefits of Color Calibration, PhotoFocus.
Photo for this article is by Nicolas Ladino Silva on Unsplash.
Margaret Penney is the Managing Editor of Notes on Design. Margaret is a teacher, designer, writer and new media artist and founder of Hello Creative Co.
If you are interested in learning more about using color, Sessions College offers a Color Theory course and many other graphic design courses for students at all levels. Contact Admissions for more information.
Recent Articles
Related Content
The Best Display Calibration Color Depth Settings For Monitors –
If you’ve noticed that your monitor display appears a bit off being a too bright or dim or having the colors appear inaccurate, or the image appears to be flushed out at times, then all these are tail tell signs that it is time to recalibrate your display. By doing this, you will once again make your display colors pop the way they are supposed to, giving them a more accurate, clearer image quality, which will increase your visual experience.
In this post, we’ll walk you step-by-step on how to properly recalibrate your monitor as well as the Best Display Calibration Color Depth Settings, So the colors on your monitor can once again pop, providing you with an excellent visual experience.
Profile Settings Before Calibration –
Before we begin with the actual calibration of the monitor, it’s essential first to take notice of the color profile; this means creating a profile that will best support your color accuracy needs that your workflow requires. Heres is the proper color profiling profile.
1. Set Target Colorand Contrast. When profiling a display, these are requirements. The display, in this case, is usually set to mimic the color of daylight.
Best Monitor Calibration Software For Photography
Target color: Refers to the palette for the profile that stores information for the display, and when doing this, we must reference the RGB color scheme
Contracts: With a difference between colors, with contrasting you distinguish the widest of whites and the darkest of blacks
2. Set the White Point to 6500K, which is the color temperature of daylight.
White Point: is a reference for daylight in color. It is the Point where coordinates in the chromaticity scale converge to the color white
3. Set the Gamma to 2.2, Windows, or TV Standard.
Gamma refers to the tone curves. When adjusting gamma, it can be described as the measurement of contrast that affects the mid-tones of an image.
Precaution Steps Before Calibrating Your Display
Now that you have done that, you can begin calibrating on the actual monitor to start this process:
- Turn off the monitor for at least half an hour before calibrating so the monitor can go down to its normal operations temperature
- Set your monitors for a solution to default screen resolution
- Make sure that you are in the room that is moderate lit with ambient lighting as you don’t want the display to be in direct light
- Familiarize yourself with my name is display controls they may be located on the back of the monitor itself
Display Control Calibration –
The simplest way to calibrate your display is directly from the monitor’s built-in controls, commonly located on the front or the back of the monitor. These controls allow you to adjust the brightness, gamma, contrast, and saturation. Typically they are set to the automatic setting but can be adjusted to the user’s preference.
These calibration settings tend to be enough for average users, however, if they are not adequate. Continue reading, as we will now describe how to calibrate the display through the system functions for each Operating system.
Windows 10 Display Calibration Process –
Here is how to properly calibrate your display on a Windows 10 device. Before you do this, it’s vital that you have done the precautionary steps to insurance, everything goes smoothly.
1. Type Color Calibration into the Window search bar, click on the first option
2. This will direct you to the calibration tool and will provide you with an on-screen instruction, allowing you to choose your contrast brightness gamma and color balance settings
3.Once you adjust to your display with calibration that you are satisfied with, processed to the finished.
4. Your new calibration will be stored in an ICS file, or color calibration file, and will show up as a new International Color Consortium (ICC) Profile in the Color Management settings app. If you need to locate this file type color management in the search box and choose the first result.
MacOS Display Calibration Process –
1. On Mac, The display calibrator is located in the “system’s preference” under the display tabs in the color section. If you can’t find this, try using the “spotlight search” and type “calibrate,” and it should be the first result within the system preference panel.
2. Your Mac will pop up with the step-by-step instruction that will walk you through the entire calibration system. All you have to do is set your specific settings and how you want them.
Best Monitor Calibration Tools
3. Once this is done, a new color profile will be created for your display and if you like to make adjustments, then click on the initial profile you made the first time, and all the tags associated with this color profile will appear. Here you can individually change the tags to alter the specific color factors for this display.
Conclusion–
There you go! Those are the ways you can alter your color accuracy within your display while there are some software and hardware that go even in greater depth within customization settings. Those are specifically made for professionals and specialized work for the average consumer; these calibration settings will be more than enough to get the accurate view experience you desire.