Screen Calibration Kung-Fu: 3 steps to make your screen revealing every detail
Thu, 2010-07-22 15:45 | 
Want to see as much detail as possible on your computer screen when doing photo retouching? Use this little diagram to add a YinYang-like balance to your screen settings. The goal is that you can differentiate between subtle nuances of black and white – just like the Pro’s can do.
Prepress professionals might work with hyper expensive special monitors. And they use professional metering hardware in order to calibrate their screens to a white brightness of exactly 175 lumen/sqare meter, a gamma of 2.2 and a color temperature of 6500K – as an example. This is clearly useful for working with photos. However, I made the experience that I can accomplish 95% of the screen quality by simply adjusting whatever screen I have at hand with the help of a little diagram.
Check out the video and then do it yourself:
Download High Resolution, .mp4, 706MB
Download for iPhone and mobile, .m4v, 83MB
It just takes 2 minutes. Give it a try yourself:
Step #1
Make sure the room you are in is dimly lit. There should be enough light so that your eye can see every detail comfortably in your room. And it should be dimmed enough, so that your screen is the brightest thing in your room, at least when you have a lot of white on your screen.
So if behind your screen is this nice huge window which let’s you look into the bright sunny sky, then now is the time to let down the blinds. Really, whenever you work with photos on your screen, dim the lights in your room. Just don’t make it a real darkroom.
Step #2
Download the
==> YingYang Screen Calibration Diagram
Bring the YinYang symbol completely onto your screen. Can you see the 1 and the 10? I won’t give you a hint where they are, you have to find them. Found both? Congrats – you are already done. If not, adjust the brightness of your screen so that you can see both, the 1 and the 10. Done! If you can only either see the 1 or see the 10, depending on your setting, then choose a setting in the middle of the two extremes and go on with the next step.
Step #3
Dial back the contrast of your screen down to a point where you can see the 1 and the 10. Oh, and if you are on a Mac (like myself) and don’t find a contrast setting on your LCD, then press and hold ctrl+alt+cmd and press "," and "." to adjust contrast
Probably you still need to make little tweaks to the brightness in order to achieve as you gradually dial back the contrast. Choose a setting at which you are just about to see both, the 1 and the 10. If this is not possible even though you cared for the right room light in step1 and you adjusted the brightness in step2, well, then your screen is not really able to show you everything. In this case try this two steps focusing on the 2 and the 9. If that ain’t work, choose the 3 and the 8 and so on.
I wish you good light!
-- Michael
Related links:
This video on Youtube: 3 steps to make your screen revealing everything
PS.:
You really do not need the Photoshop version of the diagram. But just in case – there you have it:
YingYang Screen Calibration Diagram (Photoshop)
Tags: 
Like this post will be trying it out as I am forever forgetting to calibrate
Awesome. Let us know how it worked out.
Love the shirt...
Great video Michael. I have a Spyder system I use for calibrations but your technique looks interesting.
Yes, the spyder rocks. It calibrates the colors in the LUT. However, adjusting the brightness and the contrast correctly BEFORE using the spyder makes the result a whole lot better. The spyders also come with a help for adjusting contrast und brightness. Not bad either. And the people at Datacolor are very nice.
Shirt? Anybody wearing a shirt?
Hi Michael,
Can you not use another video player besides the Flow Player? Though downloaded but some how it is beyond my understanding on how to use the Flow player? Please do also link it to flash player.
Regards
Hi Inder. Sure.
I usually also add a link to the video on Youtube at the end of each post. Is Youtube working better for you?
Regarding the download versions of the videos: They do not need the flowplayer. They are standard mp4 files and open in what ever player you got on the computer. Just doubleclick the file - it should open just fine.
I wish you good light!
-- Michael
Great... My old screen, which is the screen i use now, can't show any numbers from the black side of the ying and yang symbol... It's an LG 1915s
Anyway, thanks for the how to :)
OMG, deninho, well, then ... at least you will see some solid, clean, black areas in photos, where other viewers might see a bunch of disturbing detail ;-)
Actually, I'm not even kidding. People who can see the hotel room details in my Speedlights Topdown photos - a horseriding fetish series - they sometimes complain that the hotel room does not make sense in these photos. One even blamed me to be super lazy to not photoshop that background away. But I never had a complaint from those people who just see a simple black background. They think it's just fine.
I wish you good light!
-- Michael
I have paid a lot of money to buy systems to Screen Calibration this is a very very good tip... Thank you
-Rome
It didn't work for me really. I have been trying to calibrate my screen for the longest! I use a 42in plasma as my monitor and have a mac mini. I think my problem is that I don't know where to set my tv settings and then my mac settings to make them equal. I just have it the best I can and when I use photoshop I just change the color profile to windows so all my colors with be right when posted on the internet. I just can't wait to get an actual monitor! any suggestions on what to do until then and on what monitor I should get. I know the apple ones are really good but I don't have enough money for it. I"m looking for more around the $200-$500 price range.
Thanks for the help though!
Hi! This tutorial it's really great. The only doubt that I have is how strong or weak should I see the numbers? I can see all of them. The 1, 10 and 9 are weak, the others strong gradually.