Product specifications

Calibrating and Profiling Your Display
Your display is the window into everything you do. It plays a central role in all your color
work. By calibrating your display and using a custom profile, you can trust the color you
see on your display and view and modify color in your images more accurately.
When you connect a display, your Macintosh queries it for industry-standard informa-
tion. Based on this data, ColorSync creates and assigns a factory display profile. This
feature means that every Mac running Panther can display color accurately without
any user effort.
A factory profile is a good start, but for even better color results, consider calibrating
and profiling your particular display.
• A calibration sequence makes sure the display is behaving consistently before profiling.
The display is told to produce a series of colors in sequence. Each color is measured to
compare the requested color with the actual color displayed.
• Once your display is calibrated, you can create a custom ICC profile for it.
You can accomplish both of these steps using the Display Calibrator Assistant built into
Panther. Enhancements to the new Display Calibrator allow you to adjust your display
with more control, resulting in a better display profile.
Using the Display Calibrator Assistant
1. Go to System Preferences and click Displays.
2. Click the Color button.
3. Click the Calibrate button to view the Display Calibrator Assistant screen.
4. Check the Expert Mode box.
5. Click Continue.
The onscreen directions walk you through the calibration and profiling process.
At the end, you can name and save a custom profile for your display.
Because ambient conditions and the color on your display can change, it is a good
idea to calibrate and profile your display about once a month.
Using software-based profiling tools will yield more accurate results than using
generic factory profiles. For the ultimate in color accuracy, consider investing in
hardware-assisted profiling or in a profiling service. See the “Resources” section
for more information.
15
A Technology Tour
Color Management
with Mac OS X Panther
Using the DigitalColor Meter utility
The DigitalColor Meter utility
(/Applications/Utilities) lets you view the
exact numeric RGB values for colors on your
display. You can use this feature to match
a color on your screen to various industry
color standards or to match colors in a page
layout. For example, if you are creating a
catalog layout and you want to match a
dominant color in a photo to some styled
type, you can use the DigitalColor Meter
utility to determine the exact color, re-create
it as a “spot color,” and apply it to type or
other design elements in your layout.