This tutorial is to provide a short answer to get your monitor properly calibrated and profiled.

FIRST, a true monitor "calibration" balances the RGB 'guns' on a hardware level, and a real hardware calibration happens before the profiling process, so most of will actually only be "profiling" our monitors to build a custom device ICC profile.

THE SHORT ANSWER

The short answer for most Windows PC and Apple Mac users still seems to be:

1) Calibrate-profile monitor to 2.2 gamma, d65/6500.

a) These days I am setting 2.2 and NATIVE white point because on my 30" Apple Cinema displays, Native white point gives me a warmer skin tone.

Although Apple gives us an "eyeball" Calibrator in System Preferences> Displays> Color: Calibrate — and 3rd-party calibrating utilities like SuperCal™ can profile a pretty good screen (with practice and some talent) — I most highly recommend investing in a hardware puck that reads the screen. I use and recommend the gretagmacbeth eye-one display 2 package, the Spyder series is also a professional monitor calibration package.

If you have one of the high-gamut or glossy screens, or super critical standards, I've read that the X-Rite ColorMunki (review) is the best profiling package, though it is pricey compared to the Spyder and eye-one.

The good news about using standard monitor profiles for Apple Mac users is SL Snow Leopard 10.6 update switched Apple Default monitor gamma to 2.2 — this resolves alot of the calibration issues that have plagued all earlier Mac operating systems. Though Apple still appears to be applying Monitor RGB to untagged and unmanaged color.

SIMPLE TEST to EVALUATE a monitor profile

1) DOWNLOAD THE PDI reference images — now with ProPhoto RGB targets!.

2) Open the Adobe RGB version in Photoshop (use embedded profile).

3) Press "M" key (for Marquee Tool) and drag a large selection.

4) Image> Adjustments: Desaturate.

AT THIS POINT the desaturated image should look completely neutral, 100% gray (no colored tints, colored tones). If there are any hints of color in Photoshop desaturated RGB you have a bad monitor profile or very cheap monitor.

THE PDI TARGET file is also very useful for evaluating monitor profiles (and print workflows) in Photoshop — the skin tones should look warm and healthy, the grays should look neutral, and the black-to-white wedges should have neutral distinct steps. If you don't see this, then you have a cheap monitor or you have a bad monitor profile.

IF COLOR ONLY LOOKS BAD IN PHOTOSHOP (and other color-managed applications like Safari, iPhoto, Preview, Aperture) be sure to rule out monitor profile for defects, and be sure your work flow is applying the correct ICC profile and work space to your image.

TROUBLESHOOTING COLOR ISSUES

If the Photoshop tests outlined above confirm your monitor profile is good — and you are having color problems outside of Photoshop, like in Save For Web, ImageReady, FireWorks, Aperture, web browsers — you will need to learn how to TROUBLESHOOT YOUR WORKFLOW.

Common problems include:

1) Color changes on the Web, and/or in Photoshop SAVE FOR WEB.

a) This can be anything from an intense red saturation jump (caused by a wide-gamut monitor), to the image going light and washed out, to the image shifting darker, to the image just desaturating. This color-management phenomenon may be PROOFED and the specific cause identified on this web color tutorial.

THE Mac PROBLEM

The problems OSX has displaying sRGB is directly tied to how Apple designed their color management system (ColorSync) to deal with untagged color — Apple geniuses designed their ColorSync to default/assign/assume/apply its monitor profile to untagged color. Until Apple fixes their approach to color management and 1.8 Default monitor gamma, Mac users will continue to suffer.

PROOF my color theories HERE in your color-managed web browser — a side-by-side comparison tutorial of tagged and untagged AppleRGB, sRGB, Adobe RGB (1998).

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by: ©2004 G. BALLARD • www.gballard.net
Note: G. BALLARD prefers a shredding if he is wrong or unclear.

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