Adjust the geometry of the monitor
You can use the program Nokia Monitor Test – it is small, free and very convenient. There are several instruments in this program, which will not miss any defect. You could download the program from the websites for freeware-products.
Make the settings when the lighting of your working space is closest to the usual conditions and levels of lighting during work.
It is supposed that there is no direct light on the monitor, there are no blicks, sources of bright lighting and permanent sources of bright color spots in the direct and peripheral field of vision (red, yellow and green walls are not allowed in the working space – because these colors cause permanent reflection on the monitor, opposite to the one that affects your eyes; for example if you have bright green walls in your office, the reflection on the monitor will be red like).
Put a piece of white paper in front of you.
Adjust the contrast regulator of your monitor to the maximum level. Adjust the brightness regulator in such position, where the white color of the monitor will not be much brighter than the color of the paper. Do not make the brightness too low because the monitor radiates light but the paper only reflects it.
On the other hand the high brightness of the monitor is very exhausting for the eyes.
Adjust the white point – at this stage manually with the help of the monitor regulators.
In order to work in polygraphic color the value of the white point should be in the range between 5000 and 6500 and even 7500°К. This depends mainly on the character of the lighting in the room. 5000°К (or D50) according to the international standards corresponds to direct sun light. 5000°К is suitable for lighting with electric bulbs and for daylight the white point will be somewhere around 6500°К(D65). Combined lighting could lead to a position where you will reach values of 7500. The adjustment of the white point has such a crucial impact on the picture that to work with the colors of a monitor, which has no apparatus regulation of the white color temperature is absolutely pointless.
Using the same piece of paper, adjust the temperature regulator of the monitor until you reach visual compliance of the white color on the monitor with the white color of the paper. If the monitor does not allow to change the temperature bit by bit, choose the values which are closest to the fixed ones. At this stage you may have to adjust the brightness regulator several times in order to correct its level.
Note: in order to work with web-graphics it is better to leave the value of temperature up to 6500°К. This is a factory standard and most of your potential clients will see the images, created by you with the same value of the white point temperature.
Stage 2. Program calibration
Open a program for monitor calibration.In case you use Windows this is Adobe Gamma on Control Panel, it is selected together with Adobe products, for example Photoshop.
First you must load the initial profile of the monitor (ICC-file).
It is better if you have the specific information for the profile of your monitor (try to find it on the site of the producer). From the existing profiles choose the profile with the temperature of the white point, corresponding to your apparatus settings (it must be mentioned in the file’s name). If the profile of your model is not available, choose profile AdobeRGB(1998), which is recommended by Adobe for work in the field of pre-print production.
Control of brightness-contrast
The white square must be bright enough, but not blindingly white and the inner black square must be very dark, but visible in the absolutely black frame and it must not merge with it.
Value of phosphorus
The value is already selected from the program for information of the loaded profile.
If you know that the value is improperly selected you must correct it.
Color range
For polygraphic use of the range select value of 1,8 (for web-graphic – set the value to 2,2). Then move the sliders under the grey and/or color squares (be careful with RGB squares), until the brightness of the inner and the outside square becomes visually identical.
White point
This time it means the option to correct the white point. Select the apparatus value (which you can measure by choosing maximum neutral grey color among the proposed ones) and the corrected program value (which must be identical or close to the apparatus value).
Save the settings in the file.
Verify: the saved profile appears in the dialogue box of the system features of the monitor:
Monitor features>Parameters>Additional>Color management.
