Calibrate Your Flat Screen Computer Monitor

Computer monitors usually require some manual adjustments after connecting them for the first time to a new PC, which is called calibration in tech jargon. My newly bought HP flat screen computer monitor was so bright that it hurt to look at white areas for to long. Monitor calibration software programs can be used to adjust the computer monitor to make it more comfortable to work with and improve its picture quality.

Many computer monitor manufacturers provide a data disk with a free monitor calibration software but there are also multiple free alternatives that can be found on the Internet. One was covered today at the Lifehacker blog. Calibrize is only taking care of the black, white and color ratio of the computer monitor and works on flat screen computer monitors but also on CRT monitors.

It does so by displaying two easy to follow steps. Step 1 is being used to adjust the contrast and brightness settings of the computer monitor. Each step consists of a description that tells the user what to do, a test image and example images that display how the images should not look. The description mentions how the test image should look like.

The second step which is also the last step adjusts the gamma settings of the computer monitor. Another test image and a few sliders are shown that can be used to adjust the settings for red, green and blue values. The settings can be saved after calibrating the monitor. An alternative is the online tool Screen Check which provides the means to adjust the same monitor settings.

Update: Screen Check is no longer available. Check out our Computer Monitor Calibration guide for additional tools and tips that help you calibrate the monitor. Here you find Eizo's Monitortest program and links to additional programs that aid you.