Working with Color > Calibrating your monitor
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Calibrating your monitor


For color management to work effectively, you must calibrate your computer monitor. The Adobe Gamma utility, which is automatically installed into your Control Panels folder, lets you calibrate and characterize your monitor to a standard and then save the settings as an ICC-compliant profile. This calibration helps you eliminate any color cast in your monitor, make your monitor grays as neutral as possible, and standardize image display across different monitors.

Monitor color performance changes and degrades over time; recharacterize your monitor every month or so. If you find it difficult or impossible to calibrate your monitor to a standard, it may be too old and faded.

Monitor calibration involves adjusting video settings, which may be unfamiliar to you. A monitor profile uses these settings to precisely describe how your monitor reproduces color.

Brightness and contrast The overall level and range, respectively, of display intensity. These parameters work just as they do on a television set. Adobe Gamma helps you set an optimum brightness and contrast range for calibration.

Gamma The brightness of the midtone values. The values produced by a monitor from black to white are nonlinear--if you graph the values, they form a curve, not a straight line. The gamma value defines the slope of that curve halfway between black and white. Gamma adjustment compensates for the nonlinear tonal reproduction of output devices such as monitor tubes.

Phosphors The substance that monitors use to emit light. Different phosphors have different color characteristics.

White point The coordinates (measured in the CIE XYZ color space) at which red, green, and blue phosphors at full intensity create white.

To calibrate your monitor using Adobe Gamma:

1 Do the following before you start the calibration process:
  • Make sure your monitor has been turned on for at least a half hour. This gives it sufficient time to warm up for a more accurate color reading.
  • Make sure your monitor is displaying thousands (16 bits) of colors or more.
  • Remove colorful background patterns on your monitor desktop. Busy or bright patterns surrounding a document interfere with accurate color perception. Set your desktop to display neutral grays only, using RGB values of 128. For more information, see the documentation for your operating system.

    • 2 Start the Adobe Gamma utility:
  • In Windows, start Adobe Gamma, located in the Control Panels folder or in the Program Files/Common Files /Adobe/Calibration folder on your hard drive.
  • In Mac OS, choose Control Panels > Adobe Gamma from the Apple menu.

    • 3 Do one of the following:
  • To use a version of the utility that will guide you through each step, select Step by Step, and click OK. Then, follow the instructions described in the utility. Start from the default profile for your monitor if available, and enter a unique description name for the profile. When you are finished with Adobe Gamma, save the profile using the same description name. (If you do not have a default profile, contact your monitor manufacturer for appropriate phosphor specifications.)
  • To use a compact version of the utility with all the controls in one place, select Control Panel, and click OK. This version is recommended if you have experience creating color profiles.

    • At any time while working in the Adobe Gamma control panel, you can click the Wizard (Windows) or Assistant (Mac OS) button to switch to the wizard for instructions that guide you through the same settings as in the control panel, one option at a time.

    Working with Color > Calibrating your monitor