Monitors are the most crucial component of your computer. They’re how you see what’s going on, and if you happen to be a creator, having accurate colour representation on your monitor is a must.

Even if you’re not using your monitor to design or create, having an accurate, well-calibrated monitor can go a long way in improving your media consumption experience. While most modern-day monitors are factory calibrated, chances are, you’re using an old off the shelf monitor you bought a couple of years ago.

Same story for laptop monitors. Most high-end laptops have well-calibrated displays right out of the box. However, if you’re rocking an older one, chances are you require calibrating your display.

Also read: How to revive an almost dead laptop?

How to calibrate a monitor?

Now there are a couple of ways you can calibrate your display. To begin with, both Windows and macOS have built-in calibration tools. However, both these tools depend on you eyeballing everything, which means, they aren’t exactly super accurate. If you mess up, you might even end up making your monitor worse.

Some websites offer more control in this regard. They’ll provide you with more sample images that’ll give you more granular control of what you’re doing. But since you’re still eyeballing, there’s a chance you might even mess up.

One other thing you could do is download and install a custom colour profile for your monitor. Lastly, you can buy (or rent) a hardware calibrator for your monitor, which is by far the most expensive option as most calibrators start at about $100. But then you get the most accurate colours possible.

However, I’m going to assume you’re rocking a generic off the shelf monitor for which no profiles are available. So let’s go dig up the good old free method.

This article is written on a Windows PC and hence, we’re using Windows Utilities. However, settings on the Mac shouldn’t be too different.

Step 1: Go to Windows settings by right-clicking on the start menu. You can use the Keyboard shortcut Windows key + I for this as well.

Step 2: Search for Calibrate display colour. Select the option once it shows up in the dropdown.

Step 3: At this point, the Windows calibrator will start. Move the tool to the display you want to calibrate and click Next.

Step 4: First up is gamma correction. Windows will show you a sample image for good gamma. Make sure that you land the slider as close as you can to get good gamma. Click Next when done.

Step 5: Next up is brightness and contrast adjustment. For most monitors, it’s recommended that you do this using the physical controls on your monitor and skip it here. However, if you want, you can go and set this up. I’ll just skip this.

Step 6: Next is colour balance, which determines how shades of grey appear on your display and is an important setting to keep an eye out. Try to get as neutral of a grey as you can as it can also help you get rid of any colour tints you had previously.

Step 7: Windows will then let you compare the two calibrations to help you decide which one you like better. You can choose whichever you prefer and click on Finish to save it.

There is also a choice to start the ClearType Tuner, which ensures that the text appears correctly. Playing around with this option is entirely up to you. If you find blurry text on your monitor, you should go ahead and set that up as well.

Also read: Hassles of running a dual boot system: Issues and Fixes