Why Calibrate and Profile a Monitor

Versione in Italiano QUI

Introduction

Recently, I conducted a survey on my Threads profile asking photographers how often they recalibrate and profile their monitor, whether it’s an external monitor or their laptop display.

I was genuinely shocked to find that over 70% (SEVENTY PERCENT) of the photographers who responded indicated that they never calibrate their monitor, with several additional comments suggesting it is no longer necessary and other alarming ideas about the world of printing.

Feeling a deep sense of disappointment and with my educator’s instinct kicking in, I want to try to explain to the flat-earthers of color why it’s still, more than ever, important to calibrate and profile your monitor.

Calibrite Profile Monitor Why

What Are Calibration and Profiling

Let’s start by clarifying in simple terms what Calibration and Profiling are, as they are often confused with one another.

Calibrating a monitor means adjusting its fundamental settings, such as brightness, contrast, gamma, and white point, to align them with known standards or to meet specific preferences. Depending on the specific monitor you have, these settings can then be saved, either directly on your computer (software calibration) or within the monitor itself (hardware calibration).

Profiling a monitor, on the other hand, involves creating an ICC profile (a file on your computer) that essentially describes how the monitor reproduces colors. Color management software uses this profile to correctly translate colors between different devices, such as printers and other screens, ensuring color consistency throughout the workflow.

In practice, calibration and profiling are two essential and sequential processes needed to ensure colors are displayed correctly on screen.

Identical Monitors, Different Colors

But why should I even bother calibrating and profiling a monitor?

To simplify this as much as possible for better understanding, when we focus on color reproduction on a screen, we need to concentrate on two main characteristics of the monitor itself:

How many colors it can reproduce
How accurately it can reproduce them

The first point, “how many colors it can reproduce,” usually refers to the well-known Gamut: essentially, and quite intuitively, it represents the number of colors the monitor can physically reproduce, which depends on its specific technology.

Obviously, the more colors it can display, the better, and generally, a “modern” monitor will display more colors than a monitor from the 1990s. The limitation here is only technological, and there’s nothing we can do to change the gamut of our monitor (except for researching before purchasing one monitor over another).

However, the real issue is different: what’s the point of having a calculator that gives you wrong results? It’s useless. Similarly, having a monitor that reproduces many colors but does so incorrectly is equally pointless.

The reproduction of colors on our monitors happens through the combination of three colored lights (Red, Green, and Blue—RGB… ring a bell?) and the additive synthesis method (meaning, when we mix the three lights equally, we get white). The problem is that even if we establish universal rules for mixing these three colored lights and apply them to all monitors on this planet, different monitors will still reproduce them differently if left uncalibrated.

This is fundamentally due to the following five main factors:

Differences in the hardware components of the monitors
Variations in manufacturing and quality control
Differences in graphics cards and drivers
Color management settings of the operating system
Aging of the components

Let’s break these down in detail, assuming we have, for example, two screens displaying the same image sent from two different computers (we can imagine this as a laptop and a computer with an external monitor, or two laptops, or any other combination you prefer, including a single laptop connected to an external monitor… nothing would change).

Differences in the hardware components of the monitors

Each monitor is made up of unique (real, not ideal) hardware components, such as LCD panels, LED backlighting, and electronic circuits, which can slightly vary from one unit to another. These inherent differences can affect color reproduction, brightness, and contrast, leading to variations in the displayed image between two monitors, even if they are identical models.

Variations in Manufacturing and Quality Control

Even if two monitors are of the same model and brand, manufacturing tolerances can result in slight discrepancies. Small differences in production processes or the materials used can affect the monitors’ color and brightness characteristics, making the image reproduction slightly different unless they are calibrated and profiled.

Differences in Graphics Cards and Drivers

Two identical monitors connected to two different computers might have different graphics cards or use drivers with different default settings. Graphics cards process color data and send it to the monitor: if these processes differ, the displayed image will also differ. This is the main reason factory calibration is meaningless, except to tell you that the monitor can reach certain accuracy levels. This is because the panel (whether from an external monitor or a laptop) was calibrated and profiled using hardware different from what you’re using.

Color Management Settings of the Operating System

Each operating system has its own color management settings and default ICC profiles. Without consistent calibration and profiling, two computers can interpret the same color data differently. This leads to discrepancies in how images are displayed, as each system applies its own color adjustments.

Aging of the Components

Over time, monitor components, like people, undergo natural degradation. The backlight may lose intensity, affecting luminance and color temperature. LCD panel cells may deteriorate, altering the color gamut. Periodic calibration and profiling compensate for these changes, maintaining consistent color performance over time. (Unfortunately, people can’t do the same.)

In short, whether you’ve spent €5,000 on a brand-new MacBook Pro or purchased a next-generation professional BenQ monitor, if you want to see colors correctly (and by correctly, I mean in the same way another person who calibrates and profiles their monitor would), you absolutely must calibrate and profile your monitor.

If you don’t, color will be just your local reality, and you won’t have consistency across your devices, whether they are other screens or printers. In other words, you’ll just be another piece in the “Mall Effect” (a wall of televisions all showing the same program in a loop, but all different in terms of colors, contrast, brightness, and white point).

The differences can be significant (like in the image above) or almost imperceptible (to you), but they will certainly exist, and it will be up to your own threshold of tolerance to accept them or not.

How to Calibrate and Profile a Monitor

Once again, I’ll try to keep it simple, or you might end up hating me even more.

There are countless ways NOT to calibrate and profile a monitor, but only one correct way to do it (and that’s definitely good news).

Among the many ways to NOT do it, I definitely have to mention some popular YouTube videos with thousands of likes suggesting that you visit a specific website where ICC profiles of various monitor models, calibrated by someone else, are available. The suggestion is to download and install the profile. Well, read any of the five points I mentioned above and give me a single good reason why we shouldn’t feel foolish applying someone else’s corrections to a computer we may have spent thousands of euros on.

Another fantastic way to mess things up is to calibrate and profile manually. Yes, many like-hunting videos suggest that you can proceed with manual calibration and profiling through your operating system’s settings. You’d be better off leaving the factory calibration and profiling, which was likely done using €50,000 spectrophotometers rather than relying on your naked eye.

The one and only way to calibrate and profile a monitor is by using an external physical device capable of detecting the light emitted from your screen panel. This device can be a Colorimeter or a Spectrophotometer.

The first can only read emitted light, while the second can also read reflected light, which is why it’s used to profile printers (and, unsurprisingly, costs a lot more). The good news is that our screen emits light, so a Colorimeter is all we need.

This external device (colorimeter) is placed on the screen and paired with software that, during the calibration and profiling process, will display grayscale and color patterns.

Very simply, the software will display known colors, the external device (colorimeter) will detect what the screen is actually projecting, and the difference between the intended and projected colors will be recorded. All these differences will generate a file (ICC), which, once installed, will allow the screen to project all colors correctly.

Brilliant.

Which Colorimeter to Choose?

The home colorimeter market has long been dominated by two brands: Datacolor and Calibrite (formerly X-Rite for home devices).

While Datacolor certainly offers respectable products, in my opinion, Calibrite’s devices are a clear step ahead in terms of reliability, especially with the latest generation panels.

As always, there are different models with varying features and price ranges. If you’re looking for practical advice, and you only need to calibrate and profile a laptop without any printing needs, try the new and affordable Calibrite Display 123.

If, on the other hand, you want to calibrate a professional external monitor or a latest-generation MacBook, I would suggest going for Calibrite’s HL series, like the Calibrite Display Pro HL or Calibrite Display Plus HL.

You can still find X-Rite Display and Calibrite ColorChecker products on the market, and they are valid solutions for most monitors. However, since you’re making an investment, opt for a product that will last you a long time, and go for Calibrite’s HL series.

As we’ve mentioned, colorimeters work in tandem with software. Whether it’s Datacolor or Calibrite, the device will come with software that works perfectly fine. Unless you’re a masochist or absolutely know what you’re doing, avoid third-party software like DisplayCAL.

If you’re using professional monitors that allow calibration data to be written directly into the monitor itself (so-called hardware calibration), you will need to use the software provided by your monitor manufacturer (such as the excellent PMU for BenQ SW monitors), which will be compatible with all the devices mentioned earlier.

Calibrite Colorimeter Display Pro Plus SL HL Review

Calibration and Profiling Guides

Here you can find a series of step-by-step guides I’ve written over time for the various devices I’ve used, which might be useful for you:

Since these guides were written some time ago, some things may have changed in the software interface or operating system settings, but the core principles remain the same.

Conclusions

Skipping the calibration and profiling of your monitor means giving up on having accurate colors in your images.

Whether it’s an older monitor or a brand-new MacBook, not calibrating and profiling your monitor is like living on a deserted island where colors will only be correct for you.

It’s absolutely true that not everyone who views your images will do so on calibrated and profiled devices, and it might seem like a waste of time and money. However, I can guarantee that whether it’s the editor you send your photos to in hopes of publication, the client for whom you shot an important project, or the lab that will print the image you worked so hard on, all of them will be using calibrated and profiled devices.

Are you really sure that after all your efforts, it’s not worth showing the world your image as you intended it to be seen?

I have no doubts, and I truly hope that after reading these few lines, neither will you.