Color calibration is very important for photographers and videographers. Most of the time the output quality is not accurate due to the poor display of colors by the monitor. It is important that the monitor should display a wide range of colors to ensure the accuracy of what they had captured in real life. Therefore, let us understand how to calibrate monitor for video editing and produce high-quality videos with high color accuracy.
How to Calibrate Monitor for Video Editing?
Calibrating your PC monitor for Video Editing is very important. The quality and colors on the monitor will affect the final product and the editor’s work. Calibrating a monitor will help to balance the white balance, brightness, and gamma of an image. It also adjusts for color casts and distortions in the image display. The process of calibrating a monitor is easy but it takes time to do properly.
Windows has an inbuilt color calibration tool in the settings. Let us go through the steps involved in calibrating the monitor for higher color accuracy.
Gamma Adjustment
- Click the search icon in the taskbar or in the start menu and type Calibrate.
- It will display an option called Calibrate Display Color. Click on it to enter and place the tool on the monitor you want to calibrate if you are using multiple monitor setup.
- You will find a button called Next on the bottom of the tool. Click on it.
- First you will get a setup to adjust the Gamma. It will show a sample on which is the best setting. Click next to proceed to the gamma adjustment.
- Move the slider to get the optimum gamma as mentioned in the sample. Then click on next to proceed further.
Brightness and Contrast Adjustment
- You will land on the Brightness adjustment setup where it will show a sample of optimum brightness. Click next to proceed to the brightness adjustment.
- Here you have to adjust the brightness with the buttons on the monitor you are calibrating. After hitting the optimum brightness, click next to proceed to contrast adjustment.
- In this page also you will get a guide to choose the best contrast setting. Click next to proceed to the adjustment screen.
- Here using the monitor buttons adjust the contrast and get the optimum setting as per the sample image. Then click next to go to the last step to complete the calibration.
Color Balance
- This is the last step in the calibration setup. Here you have to get the grayscale to be as neutral as possible. A sample will be shown in the color balance setup page. Click next to go to the adjustment page.
- In this page, you will get a red, blue and green slider to adjust the color balance. You have to get a neutral grayscale. After getting the optimum color balance, click next to complete the setup.
In the final step, you have a choice to go with the current calibration or go with the previous calibration. After choosing it click finish to complete the calibration settings.
What are the Benefits of Calibrating Monitor?
Many of us don’t think twice about the monitor we use on a daily basis. We just get one and use it until it stops working. But monitors themselves can be very different. One can be designed for gaming, while another is designed for graphic design and editing. There are many benefits to calibrating your monitor before you start using it.
- Provides you with maximum color accuracy capable by your monitor. Because color accuracy is very important for images and videos. Without calibration, your monitor will not display the real color of the picture taken.
- Decreases the errors in the videos and images that may arise due to wrong color projection. If you don’t have your monitor calibrated, it may start to display improper color and it may not be up to the standards. With calibration, you can see standard colors without any hues in the monitor.
- Increases the workflow and reduces the strain in your eye. When you are able to properly see the colors, it will help you to increase the workflow. Also, your eyes don’t have to strain to look for details while editing images or videos.
- When using multiple monitors of different brand, it may display different set of colors in each one. Therefore, a color calibration will help you to avoid this problem. Especially video editors usually have different monitors for multi-tasking. So, calibrating the monitors will show you all the colors exactly as intended.
Read: How to change Monitor from 60hz to 144hz?
Why Monitor Calibration is Important?
You might have captured a video in a certain color space and if you haven’t calibrated the monitor, it will not reproduce the same colors.
Your prints may also start to give wrong colors and you might suspect the printer’s ability. But it might actually be a calibration problem.
At least, the monitors must be calibrated once a month so that you can avoid missing colors and details in your video editing process.
Which monitor calibration tool is best?
The Datacolor SpyderX Pro is the best monitor calibration tool you can get. Presently there are top two manufacturers namely, Datacolor and X-Rite. Among these two, Datacolor’s SpyderX is a great tool to get the optimum color accuracy from your monitor.
The SpyderX pro version has a quicker calibration time and can produce higher accuracy than any other tool. It also comes with multi-monitor support and has the ability to adjust according to the lighting conditions of your room.
Is it able to Calibrate all types of Monitors?
Yes, you can calibrate all types of monitors with the help of a calibration tool and the inbuilt windows settings for color calibration. The SpyderX Pro can work with all kinds of monitors irrespective of their technology. If you are using a TV as a monitor, you can also do the Color calibration. It will work perfectly!
Read: Monitor Vs TV - Which is best to use?
Conclusion
Calibrating your monitor has many benefits and especially video editors must periodically calibrate their monitors to avoid any discrepancy in the color reproduction. You can use the windows calibration setting for the monitor as well as the calibration tool can increase your accuracy.
