The collected information is used to create custom a “colour profile” in your operating system, telling the graphics card to alter the colour output to compensate for the errors. It is connected to your PC and placed on the monitor carefully. Luckily, there are a few ways to calibrate your monitor, some more precise than others by using special hardware (colorimeter and/or spectrophotometer), and some by assessing the image with your own eyes and judgement.Ī colorimeter is a mouse-shaped device with sensors and colour filters, which can detect how certain colours vary by small amounts. In short, without calibrating, the colours displayed might not be true and therefore make colour-sensitive jobs unnecessarily complicated.
For instance, what you see as a true red in your digital creation might be displayed as more of a pink or orange on another person’s display – assuming their monitor shows accurate colours. Without a proper calibration, colours might be displayed in different hues on other displays.
However, if you need to execute colour-critical tasks, such as colour grading videos or editing images, you need to make sure that the monitor displays the colours correctly.