Does anyone have any guides on how to calibrate an LCD monitor correctly? Is there equipment you can buy to tell you what calibration settings to use? I just want to get the best out of my monitor. When I first got it, as you would expect the brightness setting was so high I was almost blinded, so I turned that down, along with that stupid feature that auto adjusts the brightness causing a huge annoyance.
Proper Calibration?
- Thread starter Energize
- Start date
Associate
- Joined
- 17 Oct 2010
- Posts
- 611
You can get hardware colorimeters that cost anywhere from £60 to £250+, with the more expensive ones being more sophisticated and arguably better at calibrating. TFTCentral for example uses the LaCie Blue Eye Pro which retails for around £265.
The Spyder3Pro (~£100) or Spyder3Elite (~£150) and the Eye-One (i1) Display 2 (~£150) are probably the most popular. Here's a table showing the differences between the Spyder3 models (from this review):
On the cheaper end of the scale you can get the Pantone Huey (~£60) or Huey PRO (~£85) and the Spyder3Express (~£70), whilst these are cheap, they're also quite limited and I believe some have compatibility problems with Windows 7, particularly 64bit.
Whether you actually need a hardware colorimeter is something you think about. Unless you absolutely need accurate colours for colour critical work, then I'd say you might be better off saving some money and just calibrating by eye.
I mainly use the Lagom tests (and sometimes this page) to calibrate my monitor by eye as well as these 2 images (amongst others):
Calibrating by eye will never get you the perfect calibration, but it's certainly cheaper than buying a hardware calibrator.
The Spyder3Pro (~£100) or Spyder3Elite (~£150) and the Eye-One (i1) Display 2 (~£150) are probably the most popular. Here's a table showing the differences between the Spyder3 models (from this review):
On the cheaper end of the scale you can get the Pantone Huey (~£60) or Huey PRO (~£85) and the Spyder3Express (~£70), whilst these are cheap, they're also quite limited and I believe some have compatibility problems with Windows 7, particularly 64bit.
Whether you actually need a hardware colorimeter is something you think about. Unless you absolutely need accurate colours for colour critical work, then I'd say you might be better off saving some money and just calibrating by eye.
I mainly use the Lagom tests (and sometimes this page) to calibrate my monitor by eye as well as these 2 images (amongst others):
Calibrating by eye will never get you the perfect calibration, but it's certainly cheaper than buying a hardware calibrator.
Well one of the things I will be doing on this monitor is digital artwork, so I don't want to be in the situation where I'm being told that it's too dark/bright or there's a hue when someone else displays it on their computer. 
well you'll only be as good as the weakest point in the chain of course, so no matter how accurate it is in terms of your screen, it could be way off on anothers screen unless it's calibrated to the same standard. So setting your screen up correctly is only really half the battle. I suppose at least if you do that you are confident that you are working with correct colours etc and can have some form of colour management between screen, printer etc
Associate
Whats the best value one for compatiablity with win 7 64bit?
Associate
- Joined
- 17 Oct 2010
- Posts
- 611
Probably the Spyder3Express. They Huey PRO (so I assume the Huey as well) doesn't work with Win7 64bit according to this user review.
Taken from this site (that whole page is worth a read):
Taken from this site (that whole page is worth a read):
Both the x-rite i1display 2 and the Spyder3 elite are excellent, I have both of em and can recommend them unreservedly, The spyder3 I got came in the studio SR kit and this allows me to profile my printers also to different paper/ink combinations so I can print exactly what I can see on the screen.
Regards Simon
Regards Simon
I went for the spyder 3 express recently. It's a fantastic little tool. The software is basic but does the job, reminding you to recalibrate periodically. I calibrated my wfp2407hc and the difference is huge. The tray tool has a switch for calibration on/off, and at stock the screen is way too green.
Money very well spent.
Money very well spent.
Soldato
I've got a Eye-One (i1) Display 2 and it works great.
Associate
+1 for Lagom.
It's fairly easy to get a relatively good calibration using the site.
One thing to bear in mind when calibrating is that whatever you change it to will look odd or even bad at first as you are used to the previous calibration.
I find it's best to calibrate as well as you can and then use it for a week or 2 to let yourself get used to it. Then re-use the calibration tools and fine tune.
It's fairly easy to get a relatively good calibration using the site.
One thing to bear in mind when calibrating is that whatever you change it to will look odd or even bad at first as you are used to the previous calibration.
I find it's best to calibrate as well as you can and then use it for a week or 2 to let yourself get used to it. Then re-use the calibration tools and fine tune.
When you create a calibration profile does it work in games or are colour profiles reset when you load a game?
Soldato
It doesn't generally load correctly. Many games will either use their own settings or overwrite part of the profile/interpret it incorrectly. This can lead to many problems (particularly with gamma) but it does depend a bit on the title.
So is the best to configure a monitor with the inbuilt controls and OSD? How can you tell if you've configured it correctly?
Soldato
For gaming purposes you can tell if it is configured 'correctly' if the game looks good to you and doesn't look bleached, too dark or oddly coloured. Some colorimeters will guide you towards the correct contrast and brightness settings (although this is partly down to preference when it comes to gaming) and also the correct colour balance via the OSD. For the level of precision required for that kind of use OSD adjustments are fine and that part will stick no matter what you're doing.