Labels:text | handwriting | book | paper | font | document OCR: Calibration and profile tips Additional tips Ready to calibrate your monitor and create a profile? Here are several ways (from good . Staring at a monitor for long periods can fatigue your eyes. Try blinking frequently to to best) to accomplish this: reduce eyestrain. . Use the canned profiles that came with your monitor. A caveat: this isn't the most re- · Clean your monitor before calibrating it. liable method, because monitors vary greatly in manufacturing and change with age. · Let your monitor warm up for 15 to 30 minutes before calibrating it. · Use Colorific. We've provided it to you free of charge, and it's very effective. · Re-calibrate your monitor on a regular basis (at least once a month). . Use a system that mounts a colorimeter or spectrophotometer on your monitor. These devices start at around $500 but could save thousands of dollars on proofs. · Stabilize your room lighting; keep your lighting as subdued and consistent as possible. Colorific · Remove dimmers. The Colorific utility included on the ColorGuide CD-ROM will help you deliver improved color matching between your monitor and your printer by creating a color characteriza- · Use grid diffusers to keep fluorescent lighting directed downward. tion of your monitor. With this information Colorific creates and saves an ICC profile of your monitor (see Step 2). The profile is then passed on to your computer's operating · Keep your monitor away from windows, or block the light when looking at critical color. system, printer and web browser, enabling accurate color matching when using design software. On a Mac, Colorific installs the profile in your ColorSync folder. On a PC, the · Build a monitor hood to keep stray reflections off the glass (see pp.12 and 13). profile is dropped into your hard drive's color folder (usually c: \windows\system\color). Colorific will also remind you with a monthly splash screen to re-calibrate your monitor. (Please see the Colorific booklet for system requirements, and installation and operating instructions.) 11 10
