Monitor Calibration

The reason you should calibrate your computer monitor is to "make sure the display will be in sync with the output."  Plainly speaking?  To make sure { what you see on the screen } and { what comes out in printing } matches.  There's nothing more heart-breaking than printing an image and realizing you've over-brightened it (and all the others in that set of photos) and SAVED OVER all the originals, thinking you were fixing them (and thus losing a LOT of detail in the pictures that you can't get back!)  This would happen if your screen was showing too dark.  If your screen was showing too light, you might adjust all your pictures too dark and end up with them looking like you were snapping pics in a dimly lit room with a wonky flash (but to YOU, while working at your computer, they looked perfect!) 

I would hate for you to spend tons of time working on a page layout, only to find out after having it printed that it's all a little "off" because the colors and brightness you saw on your screen weren't accurate.  I'm not an expert in this by ANY means (in fact, half of the stuff I read about it, I don't understand!) but I do know that after I calibrated my monitor my pictures started looking a hell of a lot better once I printed them.  Sometimes monitors don't "hold" calibration well and you have to make sure you check occasionally to see if it's still fairly accurate.

If you have Adobe Photoshop installed on your computer, you should have what is called Adobe Gamma available to you for calibration.  It should be automatically installed to your Control Panel.  Now, I have WindowsXP Professional on my computer, and I was having a HELL of a time figuring out where in my Control Panel it was.  Click on "Start," (you know, that big button at the left bottom corner of your computer), then "Settings," then "Control Panel."  If you don't see an Adobe Gamma icon and the window looks like this above example, there's an easy way to find it.  In the box on the left, you need to click "Switch to Classic View." [image 1]  Then double click on the icon to get started. [image 2]  { This picture to the right can be enlarged by clicking once on it.  My friend Kelly calls this making the picture "pop."  ;o) }

I've heard that the Adobe Gamma isn't PERFECT, but unless we're graphic designers or WAY serious about our photos, it will probably be good enough.  And hey, it's free.  I know this isn't an in-depth explaination, but I just want to put monitor calibration on your radar and have you realize that it's probably something you need to look into.

If you want to know more ('cause dude, I don't have the energy to learn it all and then explain it!!!) you can read more here first, here and here.  (Damn, I hope they don't change those link addresses!!!)  Or Google any combination of Photoshop and gamma and calibration and see what you can find!

Comments

[Joann]

HI Jen,
I am new to digital scrapbooking ( but not to paper scrapbooking) and I was wondering if you could tell me where to find a list of Photoshop shortcuts for PSE 4.0.

Thanks

[angi]

THANKS so much for your helpful info!
This was EXACTLY what I needed to fix my problem :)

[Julie]

Thanks Jen, I am so glad I came across this post... I use 2 different computers, and I was wondering why stuff looked so different on 1 of them.

[LemonaideLinda]

Love to learn something useful like that. Thank you so much.

[Leia]

I *really* needed this - thank you! My laptop settings were horrid. -.-'

[rawleyroo]

Bless you, bless you, bless you...
I have been trying to calibrate my monitor for months with no luck. I have Windows XP also and couldn't figure how to manually calibrate the monitor.

Thanks!

[Poohbear]

This is great. I'm glad that I found your site. I'll be checking it out as I find time!!

[Heather Wong]

Great info!
My husband gave me a "Huey" Monitor Corrector by Pantone - I LOVE IT. Super easy to use.