Imagine you’ve been out for a good walk. You’ve taken your camera and reckon you’ve captured a couple of really good images. You get back home and load the images into the computer. They never quite look the same as you remember them. No camera is as fine as the human eye.

This is point of processing. Most images benefit from a little processing. Perhaps we need to increase the brightness or to tweak the contrast. Maybe the colour balance needs a little adjustment, or some camera glare needs removing. And nearly all photographs can benefit from a little image sharpening.

It’s possible to spend hours processing your images. You can be very happy with what you see on the screen and if this is all that you’re going to do with your images, then fine. But most of us want to do more with our snaps. Maybe we want to print them out on our printer. Probably we’ll want to use a more professional print service, maybe one on the high street or one that is available over the net. We might want to share our photos on sites like Flickr. But these services don’t necessarily understand how your monitor was set up. Lots of people suffer the disappointment of having their prints arrive only to find that they’re simply not as vibrant or well exposed as those that are on the screen.

This is why it is important to calibrate your monitor. It takes the chance out of things and guarantees that your final prints and images actually look like you intended them to be. So, if you want to print — or to use — your photographs then you’ll be wanting to invest in some kit to help you calibrate the monitor.

Calibration Hardware

There are now a number of products easily available that will help you calibrate your screens.

Although there are a number of products in this market the most popular are from Pantone and Datacolor. Both companies sell basic kits and more advanced versions which allow a finer degree of colour control.

Both sets of products consist and hardware and software. A hardware sensor is attached to the screen and then the software programme runs through a routine of displaying a series of standard/reference colours. The hardware device captures the light and the software compares it to the reference, changing your computer’s display parameters until the monitor displays the correct reference colour. Graphic designers and print professionals obviously have to have monitors that display a decent rendition of a standard Panatone colour. But amateur photographers will also get better results.

Most designers will calibrate their monitors regularly, usually once a month. Your monitor performance will change over time. Photographers may need even more control.

The current generation of calibration products not only measure the light from your monitor but they also take into account the ambient light in your room, important in making the best settings for your environment. For example, I keep a range of calibration settings on my computer. The settings for night time are reasonably consistent but light changes quite a bit in the day. A basic daytime calibration can cope for much of the time, but if I’m working on a really precious image I’ll re-calibrate specially.

Standard and Pro Versions

The basic versions of these products will certainly help make things better. The pro versions offer more control, the ability to configure more settings and help when trying to match your monitor to the commercial print machines that fine production companies use. Later in this series we’ll see that professional image processors will often tell you which technical settings to use on your monitor (the gamma settings and so on). These can be quite bewildering but the software on these pro devises.

A great investment

If you are at all serious about the quality of your photography you should seriously consider investing in one of these calibration devices.

the Panatone product is called the Huey and is available in a standard (around £60 on the internet) and a professional version (round £100). Datacolor have their Sypder equivalent in express and pro versions and their prices are similar.

You’ll want to have a good look around the net before you make your decision. I prefer the Spyder system as I think it is more robust and accurate, but there are plenty of people around who swear by their Huey’s!

Without Calibration!

I tend not to worry too much about calibration when I put photos on this blog. I simply upload them to Flickr but I do notice that sometimes the results can be dreadful! Here are some photos that looked perfect on my editing screen — really superb. And here they are on Flickr!

The rhythm section from a Parisian gypsy jazz outfit. The non calibrated shot looks really washed-out. A great shame.

The same band. On my screen the background was completely blacked-out (setting the black point). But detail can clearly be seen here as the image was really lighter than I imagined.

A shot from a bookinist stall in Paris. This is a great shot in reality, with lovely contrast and real detail. Again, here it is washed out.

A medieval building in Torla in the Spanish Pyrenees. Massively over-exposed.

End-Note

So, there you go: calibration is important.

If you are spending a lot of money and you don’t buy a calibrator, well you’re completely bonkers. Before you go for those added megapixels, invest in a calibrator.