From Settings to Print: Part 2 of Calibrating your Monitor with Art Suwansang

By Art Suwansang, color management expert and Bay Photo ambassador.

The following article is an expert take on monitor calibration for advanced pros. If you're looking for a quickstart on the basics of color management, visit these articles in our Support Center.

Part 1 covered why a monitor's brightness, gamut, and viewing light affect your prints. Now, we'll put those settings to the test with a Bay Photo Evaluation Print.

Get Your Evaluation Prints

Bay Photo offers 5 free 8x10 Evaluation Prints available in each of the 5 photographic print surfaces: Lustre, Glossy, Pearl, Silk and Deep Matte. You can order these in the Evaluation Prints catalog found in our online ordering system. Order a handful of images across different subjects and lighting, plus one black-and-white file. Pick the surface you print on most for finished work: deep matte and glossy reflect light in different ways.

Set Up Your Workspace

Part 1 covered why ambient light and viewing light temperature are important. Before calibrating, block direct sunlight from the room and position your lamp beside your screen (vs. overhead), setting to your chosen calibration temperature - D50 or D65.

Attach your device (Calibrite's Display Plus or Pro, or Datacolor's Spyder or Spyder Pro are common choices) to the front of your screen, following the manufacturer's placement instructions, and open its software. Most calibration software asks you to confirm your monitor type before it lets you set targets, so have that information ready.

Choose Your Calibration Targets

You'll want to enter three settings:

• Luminance: the 80 to 120 nit range from Part 1, adjusted toward the higher end if your room is on the brighter side.
• White point: the D50 or D65 target you settled on in Part 1, matched to your viewing lamp.
• Gamma: your software's default (usually 2.2) unless your monitor's native gamma runs otherwise.

How to Calibrate a Monitor for Printing: Run the Calibration

Start the calibration. The software steps through a sequence of color, gray, and black-and-white patches while the device reads each one off the screen. Depending on your monitor, it either adjusts the display automatically or walks you through adjusting brightness, color, and contrast by hand. Once calibration starts, leave your monitor's controls alone until it finishes.

Compare the Screen to the Evaluation Print

Set your Evaluation Print next to your monitor under the viewing light you established earlier, and open the matching image on screen. Give your eyes a moment to adjust before comparing the screen and print.

Troubleshoot the Mismatch

If the screen and print don't match, adjust the setting that corresponds to the difference:

• Print darker than the screen: lower luminance.
• Print brighter than the screen: raise luminance.
• Print warmer than the screen: lower white point.
• Print cooler than the screen: raise white point.
• Print flatter than the screen: lower gamma.
• Print more contrasty than the screen: raise gamma.

Change one setting, recalibrate, and compare again. It may take two or three rounds to get the screen and print to match.

Once the print and screen match, save the resulting profile in your calibration software, and write down your final luminance, white point, and gamma numbers somewhere you can reference again. If your monitor or room ever changes, you'll have a starting point for recalibration.

Keep Checking Your Monitor

If a new Evaluation Print no longer matches your screen, recalibrate, even if it hasn't been a couple of months. As a general guideline, check your calibration every couple of months. If a print looks off before then, recalibrate sooner.

Send Your File to Bay Photo

Once your monitor matches your Bay Photo Evaluation Print, you have a reliable reference before sending your file to print. From there, send your finished file to Bay Photo using the same paper and color settings you calibrated.

FAQ

How do I calibrate a monitor for printing? Use a hardware calibration device to set luminance, white point, and gamma, then compare your screen with a Bay Photo Evaluation Print.

Which Evaluation Print surface should I use to check my calibration? Whichever surface you print on most for finished work. Matte and glossy surfaces reflect light in various ways, so calibrating with a surface you don't normally use won't give you the most useful comparison.

What do I do if my print and screen still don't match after calibrating? Identify how the screen and print differ, adjust one setting at a time, and recalibrate before comparing again.


Images by: Art Suwansang, Corinne Tousey