Monitor Calibration....help please!

Kevin CTMP

Im not sure if this is the right forum for this or not, but I was wondering if there is anyone who can educate me some on monitor calibration.

I've noticed that though my pictures may look great on my computer screen, the prints are somewhat off at times and lack "true color". as are the pictures when i've uploaded them and view them on other computers. I know that there are fancy kits you can buy that calibrate it perfectly, and that they're also pretty expensive, but thats about my extent of knowledge of the subject.

so basically, I'm wondering if anyone has any quick tips on how to calibrate a monitor efficiently without spending alot of money

thanks!

Kevin

www.ctm-photography.net

pathfinder

Kevin, if you are serious about your images, for accurate, consistent results, you need a hardware calibration device with appropriate software.

I use the i1D2 colorimeter and software from Xrite, recommended by Andrew Rodney. I used a Spider 2 Pro with good results for several years as well, but the i1D2 is the presently accepted standard everything else is compared to.

Both Windows and OS X have software routines to try to calibrate your monitor, but most folks feel this is a much less satisfactory technique.

BradfordBenn

You might also want to check out this help page from SmugMug
http://www.smugmug.com/help/display-color

colourbox

Kevin CTMP wrote:

I've noticed that though my pictures may look great on my computer screen, the prints are somewhat off at times and lack "true color". as are the pictures when i've uploaded them and view them on other computers.

Just to be realistic, even if you calibrate your monitor to the nth degree of precision, your images may still look less than ideal on other computers. Why? Because hardly anybody else in the world calibrates their monitors! The reason you want to calibrate is so that at least when you correct colors, you've got a view of your image that's objective and based in reality. But after an image is out in the wild, it's at the mercy of however bad the monitor is at your mom's, friend's, or co-worker's house.