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 It’s a little known fact that all monitors display colours slightly differently.  For example some have a bit of a blue tint to them, some an orange tint and so on. The brightness and saturation is often way off too, normally set far too high from the factory (to catch your attention in the shop).

So why should you care?  Well, do you share your photos by uploading them online?  If you’ve darkened down your photo because you thought it was too bright someone with a properly calibrated monitor will see it as being too dark.

Do you print your pictures?  Ever wonder why the colour and brightness doesn’t match what you see on your screen?

Calibrating your monitor is worth doing to ensure what you’re seeing is correct, and it’s virtually essential if you make your living as a designer or photographer.

There are 2 ways of calibrating your screen:

1) If you have a Mac you can go to system Preferences -> Displays, select the colour tab and click calibrate. This takes you through a step by step process where you make simple adjustments based on what the utility shows you on the screen. It’s fiddly time consuming and not especially accurate unless you have a really good eye for this stuff.

2) You can buy a gadget that attaches to the front of your monitor and by using special software it will look at your screen output and make the adjustments for you quickly and accurately. The bad news is that these gadgets cost the wrong side of £200.

Well not any more!

Pantone have released a new monitor calibration tool called the “Huey”. It’s available in 2 versions, the basic Huey and the Huey Pro. Both calibrate your monitor but the Huey Pro can handle multiple monitors and gives you greater control over the process. The Huey costs around £69 whereas the Huey Pro costs around £99. There is a software upgrade you can buy to get the Pro functionality at a later date.

I run a dual monitor system so I purchased the Huey Pro as I only have one monitor and I have no real need for the additional manual adjustments available with the Pro version.

The package contains a CD-ROM which use you to install the software, the USB Huey stick (and USB extension lead) and a desk stand. They also thoughtfully include a couple of moist screen wipes for you to clean your monitor before you begin. The Huey works on LCD screens and old fashioned CRT’s.

Simply install the software and run it. You will be prompted to connect the Huey to a spare USB port and place it on the desktop stand. You must ensure the LED’s on the Huey are pointing away from your monitor towards you, this is so that it can take a reading of the ambient room light. The software will then instruct you to attach the Huey to the centre of your monitor using the built in suction cups. Once you’ve done that click “next” and the software will begin the calibration process. Less than a minute later it’s all done and you can flick between the uncalibrated settings and the new calibrated settings so that you can see the difference. Then you just tell the software what you will be doing with your computer (eg Web and Photo work or Print Design). Job done!

As our perception of colour changes with the light around us you can leave the Huey on the desk stand (LED’s facing you) and it will constantly adjust your monitors output based on the lighting in the room, for example to compensate for the light fading in the evening.

The Huey is easy to use and compared to calibration hardware of the past it’s cheap.
I was surprised to find my iMacs display was off by a fair bit being too bright and very warm in appearance before calibration and then much cooler (bluish) afterwards but once I got used to it the new settings do look better and no-one else finds it bluish so it’s obviously just me being used to the warmer settings of old.

Everyone should have a calibrated screen…

Filed under: Computing, Photography, Web Design
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