Setting the Target Gamma

Once the native gamma has been determined it only remains for you to decide on your preferred target Gamma. For many years the standard gamma setting for Macs was 1.8. Compared to gamma 2.2 a setting of 1.8 will appear quite bright. In other words gamma 2.2 will appear darker and more contrasty than what many long time Mac users are used to. If you don't have a need (or love affair) with gamma 1.8 I recommend that you choose gamma 2.2. The majority of displays (CRT and LCD) will have a Native gamma somewhere between 2.0 and  2.2 so choosing a lesser value requires a fair amount of adjustment on the part of the graphics card LUT and will tend to cause banding or posterisation.

 

 

Choosing the White Point

High-end LCD's such as those from Apple tend to be factory set to a value of around 6500^oK (i.e. their Native White Point is 6500^oK) and so it only remains for the user to check the box labelled Use native white point. However, it is worth mentioning that as the display ages the backlight will slowly begin to discolour. At time of writing this tutorial my display is measuring around 6350^oK which is well within the margin of error when using the eye-ball as a measuring device (see footnote).

 

Typical LCD White Point Setting

 

Naming and Saving the Display Profile

The final step requires that you give the display profile a name. Pressing the Create button will crate the new display profile and saves it to the appropriate folder for use by the system. Photoshop will automatically read and use this display profile until it is superseded or deleted.

 

Name and Save the Profile

 

 

Whilst this tutorial used the Apple Display Calibrator Utility many have found a small Shareware application called SuperCal to be much better. I haven't used it but have been told by readers of this site that it delivers superior results to Display Calibrator.

Footnote:

Whilst "visual" display calibration can get you in the right ballpark it comes a very poor second to proper hardware based solutions. This is especially true as the display ages. Many who make the transition find the difference between software only and hardware based systems to be quite significant, and the initial cash outlay for the hardware is quickly recovered through a reduction in poor screen-to-print matches. The following low cost hardware based solutions are worth investigating: ColorVision Spyder2PRO and Gretag Macbeth i1Display 2.