The most important step of implementing color management into your digital photography workflow is to calibrate your monitor. Calibrating on a regular basis is important because the colors, brightness, and contrast of your monitor change over time. Whether you use one of those big clunky computer monitors (called CRTs), a sleek new LCD monitor, or a laptop, the rule remains the same: Calibrate on a regular basis. Properly profiling and adjusting your monitor ensures that what you see is what you'll get in your final output of your digital image.
When you calibrate your monitor, you make adjustments to the brightness, contrast, and color balance to match what your calibration software uses as its standard. These adjustments are actual physical changes to the operation of the monitor (but not to the image files you are viewing). The adjustments are necessary to produce an accurate profile, which your computer then uses to determine what prints out.
Calibrating with Adobe Gamma
Adobe Gamma is a Windows software utility (included with Photoshop CS2) that you can use to calibrate your monitor and to create a profile that your computer will use. The Mac version of Adobe Gamma was available with previous versions of Photoshop and is no longer included with Photoshop CS2. Instead, Mac users can use the Apple Display Calibrator Assistant found in the System Preferences folder.
Adobe Gamma is a decent tool for calibrating your monitor if you're a casual Photoshop user and don't print a lot of photographs. If you're more serious about digital photography and regularly produce prints on a photo-quality printer, you should strongly consider purchasing a more advanced colorimeter and the software to go with it. You'll get significantly better results with this equipment, saving time, money, paper, and ink cartridges. (The next section covers colorimeters and other such advanced calibration tools.)
When you calibrate your monitor with Adobe Gamma, a color profile automatically loads into your Windows Startup Menu every time you turn on your computer. If you graduate to a more sophisticated colorimeter and use it to create a monitor profile for your computer, make sure you delete Adobe Gamma from your computer's Startup Menu to prevent Adobe Gamma from interfering with your new monitor-profile setup.
Calibrating with a colorimeter
The best solution for calibrating your monitor is specialized software used in conjunction with a colorimeter, a device that reads the actual color values produced by your monitor. Today's top monitor-calibration systems include the ColorVision Spyder2, the ColorVision Color Plus (great for home systems), Monaco Systems MonacoOPTIX, and Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Display.
Following are some important points to consider when using a monitor-calibration package to calibrate your monitor:
Colorimeters read color from your monitor much more accurately than you can when you look at your monitor; they provide a precise color profile.
All the monitor-calibration products mentioned above include colorimeters that attach to LCD monitors, as well as to CRTs.
The software programs are easy to use and provide step-by-step instructions while performing the calibration of your monitor. Usually the steps to calibrate your monitor with any of these products aren't any more difficult than using Gamma or Colorsync on the Mac.
Most monitor-calibration solutions automatically remind you to calibrate your monitor every two to four weeks. This is important because monitor characteristics change over time; if you don't recalibrate on a regular basis, your settings start to look like bad science fiction.
Make sure the lights in the room you're working in are dimmed and the blinds are closed when you calibrate your monitor. (Lighting candles and incense can be cool, but keep 'em far enough away from the computer so the particles they give off don't gum up the works.)
For best results, let your monitor warm up for 30 minutes before you start any calibration procedure.
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