Digital Advent Calendar 2010 - Day 23

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Calibrate your monitor

I’ve had numerous people ask me why the colours on their monitor look different to their finished print or on the back of their digital camera.

Digital photography colour management is quite involved but the first step in improving your workflow is to calibrate your monitor which will help you achieve consistent and accurate colours.

There are several calibration tools available but the one I use is the Spyder system from Datacolor.

spyder2pro_onscreen-lg

The process is very simple.  Install the software included with the device and then follow the on-screen instructions connecting the Spyder when prompted.  The device will go through the calibration process which takes approximately five minutes.  On completion you will be shown a ‘before and ‘after’ image on your screen to show the effect the calibration has had.

This is the first step in your journey to ensuring accurate colours but remember to recalibrate your monitor at regular intervals as the colours can shift over time.  Repeating the process once a month would be my suggestion.

-Ben