Calibrate our monitor is extremely important, and is a process that must be performed frequently to obtain the best fidelity in terms of color, without having a monitor that emits the appropriate amount of light is good for our eyes.
You may have noticed that the colors on your monitor look a bit strange, or that the screen seems too bright at times, or too opaque. The chances that you need to calibrate your monitorare high if your eyes are already beginning to feel that something is not looking good. This is especially important if you work editing images or with design programs, color accuracy is paramount , and you do not want to be looking at one thing on your computer and on another PC or when printing, it looks different.
If you feel comfortable making adjustments to your computer, we will show you a couple of simple methods to calibrate yourself your monitor , without the need of a colorimeter and without having to hire a professional.
Preparation
Before starting the calibration, you should keep in mind some things:
- Identify the optimal or "native" resolution of your monitor and make sure you have selected it from the graphic options. Usually your operating system selects the maximum resolution as appropriate or recommended. For this you must have the correct graphic driver installed and updated. Make sure you check all this before you start calibrating.
- Make sure the color depth is maximum . You can do this from the device properties menu. Your monitor must be in "true 32-bit color mode. If your screen is in 16-bit color mode, you will not have enough color depth for the calibration process.
- Wait at least 15-30 minutes after turning on the monitor so that it is "hot" , and then start calibrating. During this time it is a good idea to rest your eyes, because the more time we spend in front of the PC, our eyes become tired and become accustomed to the light and colors that we have been seeing for a while.
- Locate yourself at a normal distance from the monitor (the same one you place yourself when you work in front of the PC). Eliminate any source of external brightness that may cause reflections directly on the screen , and decreases the intensity of the light in the room, it does not have to be a dark room, but the light of the room should not interfere with what you see on your monitor.
Calibrate your monitor "by hand"
With this method you can use the physical buttons that your monitor includes, somewhere in the frame, that allow you to adjust things like brightness and contrast. To have a guide that tells you if the colors and tone are right, you can use this tool online: Photo Friday Monitor Calibration Tool , where you can see a series of objects in different shades of black, white and gray, whose goal is to make sure that lighter shades of black are distinguishable from true black; while, at the same time, those that are immediately darker than white are distinguishable from true white.
Ideally, decrease the intensity of the lights in the room where you are, and start adjusting the brightness and contrast of your monitor while you see the graph. You must see all the forms within the two sets (the light and the dark). True black must look completely black and not gray, and the same for white.
Of course, this method has the disadvantage that it depends a lot on the human eye, and it is difficult to be totally accurate. Something you can do to help yourself, is to print a photograph and open it on your computer to compare the actual colors on paper with those of your monitor, and use this guide image to adjust the tones.
Use an application to calibrate
You can use the software of your graphic card to adjust the colors, brightness, contrast, and gamma of your monitor. As well as the assistant to calibrate the color that includes Windows. But there are some free tools that can help you do it quickly, easily, and efficiently.
Calibrize works with Windows from XP to 8.1, and allows you to calibrate, in just two steps, the brightness and colors of your monitor. It also saves the profile so that it is loaded with the system at each restart.
QuickGamma is a bit more advanced and complex. It allows to adjust in detail the color and lighting values of your monitor, or monitors if you use several, and establish different profiles for each one. It requires a little extra effort, you should read the instructions for calibration well. It only works in Windows.
Both Calibrize and QuickGamma let you adjust the gamma of your monitor, this is what defines the luminescence of the screen (amount of light emitted by the monitor). Both tools let you manually calibrate the values of red, green, and blue, using two samples of the color and asking the user to adjust it so that they are seen with the same intensity.
f.lux besides letting you calibrate your monitor properly, it lets you create different profiles according to the time of day. Ideal to lower the brightness automatically at night and increase it in the day. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
The calibration of the monitor should be done frequently , at least a couple of times a month, because the longer it goes on, the more the settings are distorted.