Sorry if this is along one and takes a while to load but i used screen captures every stage of the way
One of the Hardest or though you would think easiest things to do is to calibrate your monitor, how many times have you created something that looks cool as anything on your screen only to find out everyone says its dark....or worse still you use a pc at work and you find out they are right ..
One of the biggest problems is people never calibrate their monitors and just use them straight out of the box, some people dont even use their drivers disks just settle for the plug and play monitor bit. If a disk came with ya monitor use the hardware setup and install it trust me it helps loads, gives you all the correct refresh rates and colour depths and screen resolutions possible. Also it drop a little file into the ICC monitor profiles that adobe colour manager uses which we will be using to set ya monitor up.
okay i am sorry this is going to be windows based but i dont have a mac, but the same program is availiable for the mac. so should be easy to follow.
when you install photoshop it adds a coulour management program to your computer, on pc platforms its found in your control panel below:
ok so open up that little sucker and ya get this screen
ok you have 2 options here either to load the profile that came with your monitor hit load and look for a file that looks like your monitor name, or if you have a trinitron screen use the compatible one. I personally never use them and select the custom option, put a name in the box as i have done,either way click next once you have done that to go to the next screen
now here is an easy section set ya contrast control to maximum and bring ya brighness down till that center square is almost black but not quite but ensuring the white is still nice and bright. the screen shot shows my own setting, any lower than that and my white starts to deteriorate.
okay once thats done onto the next stage...ok the default setting is HDTV (CCIR 709) adobe recommends this one unless running at trinitron or you know for sure you have the other types (in ya monitor manual) now i have a trinitron so i have chosen that in my case, if in doubt stay with default.
ok heres one of the hardest parts, if you are colour blind well ya gonna have to stick with the single gamma setting the idea behind all of it is to get the center box to fade into the colour of the surrounding lines...
this is the grey scale partly done
this is the colour one done
ok now to set the white point on your monitor most monitors have a default setting 0f 6500, you can select that then hit next or goto the custom settings, as the instructions say keep hitting the left and right boxes untill you get a flat grey colour i had to click on the right one untill it dissapeared to get a nice neutral colour. like this
ok once ya all finished up with that hit next and on to the next stage
as i said most monitors run on 6500 so if thats what you have (all in ya monitor manual)choose same as harware option and click next
here ya get a before and after screen
if you see any colour tinting like too much blue red or pink in ya after image just click the back arrows lower it then click the forward arrows untill you get back to here all other settings wont have been changed.
hope this helps tom
oh yeah then the fun starts making sure ya print looks right but thats for someone else to do
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