So you've bought that expensive camera, you've taken photography lessons, you've read my blog (I hope). You've taken those wonderful photos of your kids or that amazing landscape. Then you upload your photos to your computer and they look horrible. What happened?
One of the things that new photographers forget is to calibrate their monitors.
Professional graphic designers and photographers always calibrate their monitors. Why? Most monitors do not come out of the factory calibrated. Meaning, they may look too cool (bluish) or too warm (yellowish). The room environment you're in also affects how you view the colors in your monitor. If your computer is located near the window, sunlight has a different effect on how you view colors are opposed to fluorescent lights.
Another reason to calibrate your monitors is that colors coming from the monitors is different from the colors from a printed page. Colors from the monitors comes from light produced by the monitor. But colors from a printed page is reflected light.
The color from the LCD of your camera is different from the color of your monitor as well. So calibrating the monitor gives you the closest approximation to the colors you see from your subject.
The best way to calibrate a monitor is to use a hardware calibration device like the Spyder3 Pro from Data Color. The advantage of using a hardware calibration device is that it takes some of the guesswork away from you. The Spyder3 cost around $169 so if you are a professional photographer. That is something you may want to invest in.
If you're just an enthusiast, you may want to opt for some of the free software calibration programs available online.
The software I use is Calibrize. It's a free software for Windows that you can install and in a few simple steps, you can get your monitor calibrated.
If you don't want to install any software, there are web sites that helps you calibrate your monitor like displaycalibration.com. Just go to their website and follow the instructions.
It's important to calibrate your monitor to get accurate colors. But one thing you have to remember, wipe your monitor clean first. No amount of calibration will work of your monitor is dirty.
One of the things that new photographers forget is to calibrate their monitors.
Professional graphic designers and photographers always calibrate their monitors. Why? Most monitors do not come out of the factory calibrated. Meaning, they may look too cool (bluish) or too warm (yellowish). The room environment you're in also affects how you view the colors in your monitor. If your computer is located near the window, sunlight has a different effect on how you view colors are opposed to fluorescent lights.
Another reason to calibrate your monitors is that colors coming from the monitors is different from the colors from a printed page. Colors from the monitors comes from light produced by the monitor. But colors from a printed page is reflected light.
The color from the LCD of your camera is different from the color of your monitor as well. So calibrating the monitor gives you the closest approximation to the colors you see from your subject.
The best way to calibrate a monitor is to use a hardware calibration device like the Spyder3 Pro from Data Color. The advantage of using a hardware calibration device is that it takes some of the guesswork away from you. The Spyder3 cost around $169 so if you are a professional photographer. That is something you may want to invest in.
If you're just an enthusiast, you may want to opt for some of the free software calibration programs available online.
The software I use is Calibrize. It's a free software for Windows that you can install and in a few simple steps, you can get your monitor calibrated.
If you don't want to install any software, there are web sites that helps you calibrate your monitor like displaycalibration.com. Just go to their website and follow the instructions.
It's important to calibrate your monitor to get accurate colors. But one thing you have to remember, wipe your monitor clean first. No amount of calibration will work of your monitor is dirty.
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