iDrawWithLight Photography Blog: Calibrate or be doomed! (Photography & Design tip)

Do you do any retouch or photo editing on your computer? Unless you are a strictly film photographer, then most likely your answer is yes! Colour and light are very key in digital photography, more-so, making these two consistent in your work.

If any of your retouching is done on your laptop, you will find that when printing time comes, the colours printed may not be what you saw on your screen. If this is the case, you need to calibrate your monitor or forever be DOOMED! (slight exaggeration on the "doomed bit")

Example. image by systeminsight

Or, do your edited images look different each time you view them on a different screen from yours they look different? It may well be that the other people's monitors are "weird" but initially, what you have to ensure is that your monitor is tuned to providing the colour you need in order for your work to be more consistent both in print and on screen.
Here comes the significance of Calibrating your screen. This is NOT a new trick but it is definitely one not to be ignored, especially if you are starting out. Many new computers and monitors being manufactured at the moment come with a built-in calibrating system where you just have to selected the ideal colour profiles (such as in the new iMacs), while others can be used straight out of the box and still provide very close results.
There are a range of products to deal with this issue and one that I personally recommend (having used it for some time) is the Spyder 3 pro. There are slightly different versions out there, and some more expensive than this one, but regarding results, it works great!
Calibrating your monitor is basically optimising your monitor, such that when dealing with colour and post-production on images, the printed image will look exactly as it does on your screen.

ColorVision S3P100 Spyder3 pro
Spyder 3 Elite

Here is a video from spyder's youtube page showing how effortless this tool is, baring in mind how crucial it is for any and every digital photographer's post production and printing.