Thread: Display Calibration And profiling

To be able to maintain any control over colour it is absolutely essen¬tial tha t the computer display is calibrated and correctly profiled. The display is the users visual window and reference on what's happening to colour at various stages in the colour editing process. Calibration involves setting the display to known levels of brightness, contrast and colour balance. This is achieved through using a suitable calibration device such as a colorimeter and adjusting the physical controls on the display until the measure¬ments reach the required levels. This sets the display to a known and repeatable state so that successive profiles are always created from the same starting point.




The input to output transfer characteristics of displays vary, two examples of the same model LCD or CRT monitor may not produce exactly the same brightness or colour when driven by identical video signals. Most computer monitors do not have individual colour channel linearity controls. Uncorrected monitors not only deviate from the ideal desired transfer curve, but are also likely to have different transfer characteristics for each colour channel. If the Red, Green and Blue channels do not track together the display will exhibit unwanted, shade dependant hue varia¬tions. Poor RGB tracking is most apparent where obvious colour tints appear in mono¬chrome images with a wide range of greys.