# Colour calibration (monitor)



## Sean-Ray (Jan 20, 2013)

Hello.
I hope this is the right place for the question as I am new to this forum.
        I just got a a new iMac so it is default to Apple settings and the only other option is Adobe RGB 1998.
        I cant afford to get a fancy monitor or a calibration spyder at this point.

        I would like to know if you can download the colour space so that my screen is in ProPhoto RGB to match LR??
        I generally print my images for customers so I want my screen to match the colour space I'm using to edit.


Thanks for any help you can offer.
Sean-Ray


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## Mark Sirota (Jan 20, 2013)

Welcome to Lightroom Forums.

You don't want to install a working space like Adobe RGB or ProPhoto RGB as a monitor profile. They're different things.

To get properly matching prints you need to calibrate your monitor. If you cannot use a hardware colorimeter for this, there are ways to approximate this in software, but this approach will always be inferior because it uses your eyes to do the analysis, and our brains are really good at fooling us when it comes to color. You're already familiar with this effect -- our brains are happy to consider just about any color of light as "white", for example.

So save your pennies for a colorimeter. In the meantime, here's a web-based tool that might result in something useful: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/


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## clee01l (Jan 20, 2013)

OSX has a manual color calibration available to you in Display Settings.  Color calibration tool will measure the light coming from the screen and adjust those colors that it measures so that a true red, green or blue signal is tuned to the actual true colors put out by the monitor.  The manual calibration in OSX will do the same thing, except that your eye is used to measure what is perceived as true red, green or blue.  Since everyone sees color differently, the result will be slightly different from one done by a machine.  Use OSX to do your calibration, the save and use its profile and you will be OK.


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## ernie (Jan 20, 2013)

I don't use a Mac, and you don't say if you do your own printing, but one of the biggest culprits in matching prints is just plain old monitor brightness. If your prints are always darker just turn down your brightness. I have mine set to about 50%. It makes everything else seem too dim, but you get used to it.


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## Sean-Ray (Jan 21, 2013)

Thank you very much for the help. I will try the OSX calibration stuff and see how things go.


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