Why do I need to calibrate a monitor?

Monitor calibration is a process during which our monitor settings are being adjusted appropriately to achieve a true representation of the image that our computer sends to the monitor.

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Why do I need to calibrate a monitor?

Unless you configure the monitor correctly, you are not seeing things as they should be displayed on the screen!

By monitor configuration, we are not talking only about the basic settings (brightness, contrast, color temperature), nor exclusively about the settings that the OSD (On Screen Display, also known as the menu) of our monitor exposes us and perhaps the hidden "Service mode". We are also tweaking things via software.

Calibrating the monitor is also correcting the gamma curve, widening the color gamut, and improving color reproduction, something technicians call "LUT software."

The monitor is your entry into a world of color and digital data. What you see on your screen is the only link you have with what you are creating.

Without proper color management, it is impossible to see images in their "real" colors. Therefore, we cannot trust what we see. Our eyes and brains are bright to trick us as they adapt to the situations around us. Our perception of color can vary greatly depending on our environment or even our mood. You cannot trust your eyes.

Why calibrate a monitor?

Most of the time, those image reproductions are inaccurate. To compound this problem, by changing the color spaces between different devices, there is a lot that can be lost in the conversion. Fortunately, however, with proper calibration, we can get detailed color conversion for our systems that print on our screens.

Think of calibration or profiling as an interpreter that translates the language of your image into something that your computer hardware can understand and in turn communicate with your screen.

Without this link, it is chaos and important color information would be misinterpreted. With this, you can guarantee clear communication between all your devices.

Good calibration allows your images to be accurately displayed on other calibrated / profiled screens, and the possibilities are endless. We can't begin to tell you how amazing it is to be able to truly trust what you see on the monitor.

If you've ever been to a television store and watched the same movie playing on an entire wall of televisions, you'll know how color can vary from screen to screen, model to model, and brand to brand.

Calibrate your monitor to fit a central standard. In this way, the color you see on your screen (mark “A”) should be the same as the color you see on your monitor (mark “B”), and the same color that another photographer sees on their screen (mark “C”). ”); And most importantly, of course, the same thing your print lab sees on your screen.

One of the big misunderstandings about color calibration is that people think it only takes to print. Something wrong. It is necessary for everything from viewing your work and that of others, to processing your own images when working in Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom or any other software.

If your monitor isn't properly calibrated in color, chances are you're not seeing everything in the images. For example, a smooth and beautiful sunset may appear pale, and a black and white image may appear too dark or too bright.

Many people do not pay attention to color calibration for a long time and later the result suffers. This causes images to often end up with saturated colors and odd tones, and with no idea of ​​things like the ICC color profile, users often end up removing all metadata from their images, including those color profiles.

But those same people, when they get a chance to see images on a color-calibrated monitor and after seeing how bad the images looked on their screens, they realize it's time to change.

At first you may think you might be able to use some free color calibration tools that are already built into the operating system you use to get more accurate colors.

However, over time, you will realize that selecting a suitable monitor and calibrating it in color is essential, especially if you want your photography to be taken seriously.

If you have never properly calibrated your monitor, you will be surprised to see how different your images and those of other people will be after proper calibration, especially if you have a low-end monitor.

Fortunately, good colorimeters make it very easy to calibrate any monitor, so it doesn't take much time and requires no technical knowledge.

What is obtained by calibrating the monitor?

• You can see the exposure, the colors as they are and not as your monitor used to think they are. You can send your photos to any printing company, and never see them over exposed again, the colors will be very close to what you saw in your monitor. For correct printing, you need to use a printer and ICC profile paper, in this way, you know that your photos are post-processed correctly, the colors are exact, and each person with a calibrated monitor will get to see the same image as you did at No more flat-looking photos, no more underexposed or overexposed photos, no darker or brighter making images lose their magic.

More benefits when calibrating a monitor

The benefits do not stop there. With a calibrated monitor, your movies and TV shows will look their best, you'll see what the producers did with so much effort to make skin tones look natural.

By modifying the manufacturer's default settings, your calibrated monitor will cause the monitor's power consumption to decrease, and its useful life to expand. It will have a longer lifespan because the LED or CCFL lamp will now operate at a lower setting and not at the maximum setting.

Default monitor settings

Some monitors come with reasonable presets, while others have very inefficient presets. In general, with very few exceptions, all stock monitors will display your overexposed images and the colors will be clearly muted.

Limitations, tips and recommendations

If you already have the right knowledge and tools to calibrate, the limiting factor will always be your monitor. The monitor's capabilities will configure the playing field in terms of the color accuracy you will achieve.

There is also another factor, aging. As your monitor becomes obsolete, its performance will decrease. However, you shouldn't go crazy over this, as if you bought a good quality monitor, it will still work properly after 4-6 years of good use.

Chances are, by the time your monitor performance drops significantly, you've already been tempted to buy a newer model. As each new generation of monitors expands its horizons, we now have monitors capable of producing very wide color gamuts, more accurate color reproduction, and much more.