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Most screens are out of adjustment. Here's how to get yours to look right.
 technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

T e c h n o f i l e
Manual and automatic ways to adjust your monitor


Jan. 2, 2005


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2004, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2004, The Post-Standard

   That new digital camera is supposed to take good pictures. Then why do some of your pictures look weird?
   Don't blame your camera. Chances are it's your display.
   In the 21 years I've been advising computer users, I've come to expect one basic problem in a typical PC: The screen is almost sure to be out of adjustment. Colors usually look washed out, pale orange looks like fuschia, and black areas seem to be gray. Nothing looks quite right.
   If that describes your screen, save this week's column. I'm going to tell you how to adjust your display properly with the help of special software that you can use for free or try out for free. And if you're a stickler, like I am, for the best possible color accuracy, I'll tell you about a device that will calibrate your monitor for studio-quality color accuracy.
   Monitors on Windows PCs are often misadjusted because of human nature. The two most common controls on a monitor, "brightness" and "contrast," seem like they should be turned up nice and high. After all, if some brightness is a good thing, more should be even better. And who could complain about a little extra contrast. Right?
   My guess is that you'd complain, once you know why these controls are so often misused.
   To start with, they both have misleading names. "Brightness" actually changes the intensity of black areas, and "contrast" changes the intensity of white areas. In other words, "brightness" sets the black level and "contrast" sets the white level. (Whew! What's so hard about that? Why haven't the people who make computer monitors and TVs explained this to customers?)
   Now you can see why so many computer monitors do so badly. Making the black level too high -- a common misadjustment of the misnamed "brightness" control -- gets rid of normal contrast completely, turning blacks into grays. (Yes, changing the "brightness" affects contrast. No wonder people get confused.)
   Making everything worse is the loss of color accuracy when black and white levels are out of adjustment. Digital photos can't possibly look their best.
   For a quick adjustment of a picture-tube computer monitor (not an LCD screen), turn the contrast (often shown by a split circle) all the way up, then back off a small amount. Then adjust the brightness (often shown by a sun symbol) about half way down. Play with the control until you can sense that black areas are truly black. That's just a rough setting, but it's likely to give you a much better picture than what you've been seeing.
   (LCD monitors might not have both controls. If you have an LCD monitor and it doesn't have those two controls, use any of the methods described next.)
   For more precise adjustments, you can use software alone or a hardware device that offers professional accuracy.
   In a previous article, I described two Windows programs, one from Nokia and another from a German programmer, along with a Macintosh OS X adjustment program. The article is available on the Technofile Web site. Go to http://technofileonline.com/texts/tec011203.html.
   The device I recommend is one that professionals use. It's the ColorVision Spyder2, available in a standard version for a little under $200 or a "studio" version, with a few extra features that you normally would not need, for $299. You can order it from online retailers or from the Pantone Web site at www.pantone.com/products/products.asp?idArea=40&idProduct=511.
   The Spyder2 is as cute as a bug -- a really big bug -- looking like a hockey puck that grew legs. It's got suction cups on each leg to hold it tightly to a standard picture-tube screen, but LCD users can snap off the suction-cup base of the unit and drape it gently (and safely) against an LCD screen.
   The Spyder2 software runs under Windows 2000 or XP or under Mac OS X. (The same installation CD supplies Windows and Mac versions.) I wasn't able to get it to install on my Windows 98 SE laptop; the software complained that it needed a newer version of Windows.
   The software guides you through the calibration of your monitor. You'll have to know a little about your monitor in advance -- the program wants to know what kind of controls the monitor has, for example -- and you have to make a few "eyeball" adjustments to set things up roughly at first. But the rest of the calibration is automatic.
   At the end of the calibration, you're asked to name the configuration file. I name mine by the date, mostly because I like to run the calibration once a month. (Monitor color response declines over time, and doing the calibration once a month makes up for the slight differences in accuracy.)