In the 21st century, many people look at screens most of the time: in the morning – at the smartphone, in the afternoon – at the monitor, and in the evening – at the TV. While smartphones are usually reasonably calibrated from the factory, then the remaining two categories out of the box often have an oversized gamut, a distorted palette, incorrect black levels, too cold color temperatures, and other problems. As a result, parasitic shades may appear on the screen, red objects may appear more purple, and dark scenes may turn into a gray spot or black porridge.
All this can be fixed, which will make even your inexpensive monitor or TV a living window into the virtual world. Moreover, a simple amateur calibration, which we propose below, will give results that only a professional can distinguish from a professional one.
Preparing the monitor
For our method, you first need to create the most neutral conditions:
- Set the standard picture settings in the monitor menu. In most modern models, this way you can get a picture close to neutral.
- Set the correct backlight brightness and color temperature. The brightness of the screen (not the image!) Should be slightly higher than the brightness of the ambient light, and the color temperature of the screen should correspond to the temperature of the light in the room:
- If the screen is usually used in semi-darkness, then the backlight brightness is needed from 20% to 50% with a warm color temperature of 3500K.
- During the day WITHOUT additional lighting, the screen brightness is needed from 60% to 100% with a neutral color temperature of 5000K.
- If at any time of the day you are using bright home ceiling lighting with warm (yellowish) lamps, then the brightness of the backlight should be close to 100% with a warm color temperature of 3500K.
- In offices, lamps are usually either neutral or cold. The screen brightness is also needed close to 100%, and the color temperature is from 5000K to 6500K.
- Switch to full dynamic range. This is only relevant for GeForce video cards. You need to go to the “Change Resolution”section of the ” NVIDIA Control Panel”(right-click on the desktop) and set the “Full” value in the “Output dynamic range” item in the lower right part (you need RGB color format). Do the same in the “Adjusting video color settings” section , otherwise there may be ghosting when watching a movie or YouTube.
- Find the item “Black Level” in the monitor settings. For use with a PC, it must be set to “High”(or “Normal”). When switched to “Low”, most grayscale will be clipped to white and black at full dynamic range.
- Disable color management in the graphics card settings. This is too crude a tool that does little to help in practice.
- For GeForce:In the NVIDIA Control Panel, set the value to “Color settings are controlled by other applications” in the “Adjust desktop color settings” section.
- For Radeon:Go to the Color section of the display settings in Radeon Software and click the Reset button.
- Set the correct brightness and contrast. After resetting the monitor settings, they will already be close to neutral, but you can additionally adjust it from this image (all numbers should be visible):
Next, we will deal directly with the calibration.
Calibrating your monitor with Natural Color Pro and TFT Monitor Test
We have tested all popular manual monitor calibration applications and found the minimum set of programs that are as easy to use as possible. The Natural Color Pro application , developed by Samsung, has the most necessary functionality, and the old domestic utility TFT Monitor Test will reveal the main distortions.
First, download both apps from the links above. Then in Natural Color Pro run Advanced Calibration ( Monitor Cal. & Profiling > Advanced Mode ). Next, you need to follow the wizard’s prompts. Since they are all in English, we have provided the screenshots below with comments in Russian:
Choose the LCD monitor on the right
Set the backlight brightness according to the recommendations from the previous chapter, and it is better to reset the image brightness to standard (usually: 50)
Crank the contrast on the monitor to maximum and then decrease until all four grayish circles appear (usually: 70-80)
Move at least 50 cm away from the screen and adjust the sliders until the squares are as solid as possible
Choose where the monitor is used: at home or in the office (different light matters)
Select the type of ambient light and its color: incandescent (warm only), ceiling lights (usually neutral), or daylight (neutral)
From the picture on the right, you can understand how light it is in your room and choose the appropriate option
The last screen will show the accepted values - click Finish. Now open TFT Monitor Test and run 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th tests. Colors should be as clean as possible, and all gradients should be of the same width and not stick together.
You can also run other tests. For example, the last two will allow you to identify plumes in moving objects. This happens on screens with too high response time or simply a poor-quality matrix. And also the very first test allows you to identify dead pixels – press LMB and carefully examine the screen filled with different colors.
At the end, here are a number of test images to assess the overall color quality. Check if the shades match our descriptions and if all the mentioned details are visible (photos are clickable):
Muted pastel colors in a bright room
Foggy night city in cold colors; dark relief tree crowns are visible below
Parrot in a rich rainbow color with many small details in the feathers; the background is blurry and pale
In addition to the photos, you can admire the 4K trailer for Horizon Zero Dawn , which is coming to PC soon. The colorists at Guerrilla Games know their job well:
If something didn’t work out for you, be sure to write about it in the comments – we will try to help.
