What I use to calibrate my monitor for photography

What on earth do you use to calibrate a computer/monitor?

This thing right here.

 
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For years if you had a mac, you didn’t have to worry all that much about your color as long as you were using the right built-in profile. But with so many apple products on the market, it’s easy to see how coloring is different from device to device.

At least I never had a problem. I printed my photos pretty regularly and never noticed a change from screen to print.

But here’s the problem with device to device coloring: someone with a iphone 6s plus isn’t going to have the same color as someone with the 10. And then you mix in android and whatnot?

Coloring across devices is what I’d like to call a hot mess.

What do you do if you have an online business — hey, that’s a lot of us! — and you need to make sure your photos are accurate even if they show up different on your phone?

Calibrate, calibrate.

My friend Esther Ziegler told me it was a must for her and so I gave it a shot…

And never looked back.

 

How to calibrate your monitor

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The setup is easy and it only takes about 10 minutes each week to re-calibrate and make sure I’m editing the right colors.

Follow the instructions with the ColorMunki Display app and voila! You’ve calibrated!

 
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How I calibrate my monitor for photography

Step 1

Buy the ColorMunki calibration device, download the ColorMunki Display app and launch it on your computer.

Related: ColorMunki Calibration device that I use

Step 2

Follow the instructions and prompts. I like to choose the advanced photo option and always select 120 cd/m for the display luminance.

Step 3

Choose the option that allows you to detect reflections.

Step 4

Save the profile and check the box for ColorMunki to remind you to calibrate each week. Or however often you want to re-calibrate.


Ta da! Happy editing and don’t second guess the color you’re editing when it shows up a bit different on your phone.

p.s. Let’s say you post to instagram. If you calibrate your computer and you check your instagram post from your computer and it looks a bit off, it might actually be instagram’s image algorithm. Here’s how to fix that: Lightroom to Instagram Export Settings

Cheering you on!