So, when people say they are using a calibrated monitor does that mean they are using a calibrated profile.
Depends on their concept of "calibrated". If all they've used to calibrate their monitors is the built in functions where you just eyeball the color, then it's not calibrated. Not properly anyway.
When it comes to calibrating your monitor, there simply is no replacement for a hardware/software solution such as Monaco System's
Optix XR monitor calibrator. You'll have to scroll down the page I linked to to see it. If you do a lot of prints, $300 is a cheap investment for color matching.
This is because no matter how much you move the sliders or other controls around, your Mac still
does not know what the phosphors of your monitor actually look like. All you're doing in the Monitors control panel is shifting the preset LAB values of a basic profile. This produces a profile that is
still not based on your monitor's actual display. What a good colorimeter and its software will do, such as the Monaco Optix XR, is read the real LAB values the RGB phosphors of your monitor is capable of displaying and then create a profile based on those values.
As far as settings, that depends on what you can live with. The default gamma for the Mac is normally 1.8. This gamma most closely simulates the reflective density of paper. Most Windows computers use a default gamma of 2.2. This a much richer and darker gamma, but it's also pretty much impossible to reproduce on paper; photographic, inkjet or otherwise.
For white point, the default is 6500K, which is daylight white. Again though, this is a very bright bluish white that cannot be reproduced on paper. A white point of 5000K is much closer to what you can print in regards to light, vibrant colors. The higher (and bluer), the white point, the brighter and richer light colors become on screen.
So your choices are:
1) Use a 6500K white point along with a 2.2 gamma for images on screen that really pop, but will look flat and with less color saturation on your prints in comparison.
2) Use a 5000K white point along with a 1.8 gamma that will cause your monitor to look somewhat flatter and a bit less colorful, but will match your prints
much closer as your monitor is set up to more closely simulate a print.
Not that a 5000K white point/1.8 gamma doesn't work well for RGB. I use it for for both that and CMYK with equally excellent results. Actually, I use D50 for the white point. Both it and 5000K are based on a 5000K spectrum of light, but the method used to produce that color are slightly different, resulting in an equally slightly different gray balance.
About that 5000K white point. Compared to a default monitor setup, 5000K looks yellow in comparison though it's actually just neutral. It may take you a little while to get used to after looking at a 6500K screen for years. If using the free method produces an orange colored white when you set it to 5000K, you're actually looking at a white point much lower than 5000K. That's because the free method has no idea where you have the white point on your monitor set to. If it's already set to a low Kelvin point, then dropping the slider to 5000K may give you something more like 4000K, which is orange. If it still looks too blue, then your monitor is probably set to 9500K and moving the slider to 5000K is leaving you somewhere around 6500K.
In other words, the free method is practically useless. Not really trying that hard to push you into purchasing a monitor calibrator, just presenting the facts.
I have had people look at my web images and say the color is off and that they are using a calibrated monitor.
That, again, depends on if their monitors are truly calibrated accurately. Otherwise, their color is no better or more accurate than yours.
(cont.)
