Long time, no see!  I know I keep saying this, but life is so busy right now.  Potato harvest and bean harvest are still under way – and that means I had to go in to the office on Saturday to keep up on paperwork.  Actually, I’m still trying to catch up from the wedding vacation and I’m slowly getting there.  I’m also trying to wrap up one client’s order and they came over Saturday afternoon to pick up a portion of their photos, but they keep finding more people who want to order a mosaic, similar to the one above.  I’m not complaining!!  One thing I learned during the printing process is that the calibration of my monitor is off a little and I’ll talk about that in a bit.

The above photos were taken while  my mom was here for the wedding.  The day after she arrived was a free day for us – we didn’t have to head to Seattle until the following day and I thought she would enjoy seeing some of the local scenery.  We decided a drive to Palouse Falls was in order and it is only about 45 minutes away, although it took us a lot longer than that to get there with all of our photo stops along the way.  The falls are set out in the middle of absolutely NOTHING!  Well, maybe there is some dryland wheat out there, but that and scrub is all there is.  And some abandoned barns.  And some falling down buildings.  And a cemetery.  One of the coolest abandoned barns along the way we couldn’t get any shots of, because there wasn’t a safe place to pull over and the driveway to the barn was all overgrown with brambles.  That was a bummer. 

Back to the calibration issue…The border around the photos is supposed to be a chocolate brown, but right now it is looking kind of purple-y and that is after adjusting the color – I can’t quite get it right.  The first thing I did when setting up a “pro” account as a new customer with my photo lab is send some photos for test prints.  I was pretty pleased with how they came back; one was a little dark, but over all they looked about right.  My client’s print order came back with a couple of the images a little off, however.  They were taken at sunset and had a warm glow, which was a little glowier in print than it appeared on my monitor.  Luckily my son left a monitor here for storage, so I hooked it up to my laptop and it matched the print.  So…if your photos need to be printed, you might want to follow the following instructions on calibrating your monitor:

How to Calibrate Your Monitor

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

In order to see images the way they were intended to be seen, your monitor might need to be calibrated. If you’re a web designer, digital photographer, or graphic professional, this is especially important. You don’t want to spend hours choosing the perfect subtle color scheme only to see a mis-matched mess on someone else’s monitor or coming out of a printer. Here’s how to calibrate your monitor so that what you see is what you get.

Steps

1. Check the screen resolution. Choose the highest resolution available unless the text is too small. If you are using an LCD monitor, check the manual or box for the “native” resolution. Set your computer to this resolution.
2. Verify that your computer monitor is in high color or 24-bit mode. In Windows, check this by right clicking on your desktop and choosing Graphic Properties. On Mac, go to Preferences, then click on Displays and then choose Colors:Millions. If your display is in 16-bit color, there won’t be enough color depth for the calibration process.
3. Let your monitor warm up for at least 15 (preferably 30) minutes before beginning the calibration.
4. Make sure that no reflections, glare or strong, direct light reaches your screen. The room doesn’t have to be dark, but ambient light shouldn’t interfere with how you see what’s on the screen.
5. Print a test photo on a professional quality printer. Choose a daylight photo with a person who has natural skin tone and print it using the highest quality settings and top-quality glossy photo paper. Let it dry away from direct sunlight for a few hours so that the colors can set permanently.
6. Adjust your contrast and brightness controls. They are located either on the front of your monitor or in an on screen menu. Find a calibration test screen online by conducting a search. A free basic calibration tool can be found here.
7. Open the image file that you just printed.
8. Place the printed photo right next to the original image on the screen and compare.
9. Adjust the brightness, contrast, and color levels (red, green, blue) on your monitor until the image on the screen resembles the printed photo as closely as possible. This takes time and a good eye for color. Continue to the next step if you’d like to use software to calibrate your monitor.
10. Use basic software such as Adobe Gamma (if you have Adobe Photoshop 7 or below installed), QuickGamma (which is free), Apple ColorSync, or Monica for Linux to calibrate your monitor. To access Adobe Gamma, click “Start,” “Settings” and “Control Panel.” For all the software, follow the step by step instructions to perform the calibration. These will provide a basic calibration for, say, casual Photoshop users who don’t print a lot of photographs.
11. Purchase specialized software used in conjunction with a colorimeter (a device that reads the actual color values produced by your monitor) if color accuracy is vital to your profession. Some calibration systems worth looking into are ColorVision Spyder 3 Pro, the ColorVision Color Plus (great for home systems), Monaco Systems MonacoOPTIX, and Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Display.
12. Calibrate your monitor every 2 to 4 weeks for optimum visual accuracy.

Tips

• Have a professional calibrate your computer screen if you are uncomfortable doing it yourself or if you can not achieve your desired results. A recommended calibration service can be found online.
• You can also try the auto-calibrate button , if it’s programmed into your monitor.

Warnings

• If you have more than one calibrating program on your computer, make sure that only one is running at a time or else there could be conflicts.
• Only use test prints made on true photographic paper from a commercial photo lab for monitor calibration. It is foolish to spend time calibrating you monitor when it is your printer that needs the adjustment. More often it is the printer that needs to be calibrated not the monitor. Do not trust the prints that you make yourself on your own printer. Each brand of printer will give different color results. So will different brands of printing paper in the same printer.

Related wikiHows

• How to Fix a Stuck Pixel on an LCD Monitor
• How to Degauss a Computer Monitor
• How to Improve Image Quality on an LCD Monitor
• How to Repair a Scratched or Finger Printed Monitor Screen

Sources and Citations

• Digital Focus: Calibrate Your Monitor – PCWorld.com – Source of info on software-free calibration.

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