Calibrating two monitors

[borys.t]

hey all, long time anandtech reader etc. many of my issues have been solved here by the forums and the articles so i think you're all awesome.

my situation is this. i have two "identical" monitors meaning they are the same model number (i am aware that doens't necessarily mean all their insides are the same), by samsung, two, 2494HMs. i do a lot of editing in Avid and the like and i often have things open over both monitors. all the settings on the monitors themselves (anything i can control with the buttons on the bezels) are set exactly the same on each, yet the colour or brightness is slightly off and i can tell that they are different. i was wondering if there is anything i can do to have both monitors match. a colour profile in windows maybe?

let me know, thanks.

 

[ViRGE]

A color profile is the right idea, which is achieved by calibrating each monitor. In spite of the technology LCD monitors still have a slight variance in them that leads to what you're seeing.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

If you want really accurate colors between the two then you're going to want to invest in a hardware calibrator. Spider 3, Eye One, etc. Check other threads for the recommended ones.

If you just want to try manually matching them, then you need to run through the lagom tests and *ignore* what the actual number values are on each of your monitors, and make the colors, etc. match between the two. You should be able to get it really close with some tweaking. A brightness of 20 on one monitor may match to a brightness of 40 on the other, or whatever.

EDIT: this old reply of mine may help

 

[NoQuarter]

If you don't invest in a calibrator and tweak the color settings manually I found the saturation setting on my monitors is what made it the hardest to match them up. Saturation works on a curve so the more a color is present the more it gets over-represented. If saturation is boosting blue beyond normal, trying to just reduce blue on the monitor gives the wrong result because it's the saturation that actually needs to come down.

 

[borys.t]

alright thanks guys. are there any software calibrator that might not be as expensive? how would i go about doing this via ICC profiles?