Quick tip on how to calibrate windows monitor without colour calibration software

Chris26 · November 8, 2020

I have the luxury of Spyder calibration software for my apple mac, but not for my windows laptop. Something is better than nothing, so I decided, in light of many posts I read and have read in the past about discrepencies between viewing images in Affinity and final output, to offer this tip for those who may not be aware of windows very basic calibration tool.

1. Download a colour picker tool (similar to apple's "DigitalColor meter". I use Colora.

2. Type in Windows search:"Calibrate"

3. Here you will be guided through a series of steps as shown in just two screen shots. Keep the colour picker tool on top and you will need this to see the neutral gray when it appears, ideally at 128 128 128. Mine is a little off but has improved since adjusting. Unfortunately only special calibration software can correct this to its absolute values.

If you run through these steps with the following in mind then you will have closer and less dissappointing results between WYSIWYG between the monitor and printer:

a) Keep the brightness of the screen as low as possible

b) Keep the dark areas as low as possible and if using the colour picker try to get as close as possible to around/between the 15 15 15 or 20 20 20, going below 12 12 12 has no benefits at all.

c) Grey is always 128 128 128, so if you read 127 122 100 then you know that there not enogh Blue showing and that the grey has a yellow colour cast.

I am hoping that for those who are just beginnng or perhaps are not too aware will find this information helpful. As I said, colour calibration software is the way to go but if you can not afford it then this is the only option, it is better than nothing at all. I use it for now and really have acceptably pleasing results in all my images. I hasten to add that I do not believe a photo editing program is ever to blame for colour or tonal inconsistencies, but please, I am open to hear to the contrary.