Calibrating your screen

Here's something that came up the other day on the Go Manual SLR course.

Problem: Your images aren't printing out the way they look on your computer screen, they're too bright or dark, or the colours are wrong. Or your images look way brighter on your screen than they did on the LCD of your SLR.

Solution: Ah! If it were that easy… Calibrating your printer so that what comes out of it is the same as what you see on screen is the trickier part of this, and one day I'll do a post about that, especially if the Arts Centre buys the pro printer they've been umming and ahing about for a while.

Calibrating your computer screen is very much easier and is something you should do right now. If you use an Apple Mac, it's easy. Go to System Preferences>Displays, then select the Color tab, then click on the Calibrate… button and follow the instructions. It will take you through step-by-step, and at the end you will probably notice your screen appears darker. Colours should be more accurate. This is how I have calibrated my screen, and when I print (using the online service Photobox) the colours match pretty well.

If you use a PC with Windows XP, then things are a little more complicated. Here's a link which explains it better than I could, mainly because I don't use PCs, and they frighten me. If you're using a PC with Windows 7, here's a link for that, and it looks a lot easier. If you're using Vista (ouch!) you might want to try this free software, QuickGamma. I can't vouch for it, I've never used it, but it looks like it deals with XP, Vista and Windows 7.

Is monitor calibration a nightmare? Yes. But you just wait until you start worrying about printer calibration. I don't even go there. I use Photobox.