Looking for a good site about monitor calibration

breckjensen

Hello,

I've been reading a few sites (such as northlight photo) about monitor calibration - I've been disappointed how my edited photos seem to suck after I print them/have them printed/other monitors. Now I know that no two devices will ever display the photo the same, and true color is a matter of how much you want to spend in time and money to obtain it) but I can at least do something about my equipment, in the hopes that my photos look good from professional printers and on others monitors who care about "image fidelity."

I'm thinking of buying a hardward calibrator, but I'm a bit puzzled exactly what these do? I haven't seen a good explanation as to what happens when you do this (or what the process is like). What exactly can the calibrator adjust on
my monitor? Does it access controls on the monitor, or my video card? Something in the OS? For the record if it matters, I have a Windows Vista 32 PC (home built) and a Samsung SyncMaster PX2370 monitor). The monitor doesn't seem to have too many adjustments possible, and has all these "magic" modes that are supposed to fix things for you, but almost all make the images look weird to me, so I have them all turned off.

thanks

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video for small business