If your “eyes are the window to your soul,” (Cicero, 106-43 B.C.), then the monitor is your window to the Web. Take a minute to optimize that experience by tweaking a few key settings. Before you get started, read through the entire article to make sure you understand what you need to do.
These are basic instructions but you are the best judge of your abilities. If you don’t feel comfortable, perhaps you can get a friend or family member who is more familiar with technical issues to assist you. Start by checking for the optimum screen resolution, refresh rate and color settings for your equipment. The monitor or video card manufacturer, or reseller, should be able to provide the native resolution for your screen and video card settings. The user manuals also are an excellent source for this information. Then, compare that information with your current settings on your system. On the Mac you can find this in the system preferences, On a PC it’s in the control panel.
Set your screen resolution, refresh rate and color settings to the highest setting that your monitor allows. Caveat: if you set the refresh rate higher then the monitor supports you could permanently damage it. So only change the setting if you are absolutely sure that both the monitor and video card support it!
Once these main settings are adjusted optimally it’s a matter of fine tuning the remaining settings. This can be accomplished by using a couple of free calibration tools, your eyes and the brightness, contrast, sharpness and saturation controls of your monitor.
See the sample screens and follow the links below:
http://www.photofriday.com/calibrate.php(Photo Friday Calibration Tool)
http://tft.vanity.dk/ (Online Monitor Test)
When you go to each site, follow the on-screen instructions. How big a difference these adjustments will make will depend largely on how close to optimal your settings were prior to the optimizations. On some systems you may be surprised on how big of a difference it can make on your window to the Web.
Filed under: How To's, Calibration, Cicero, Display resolution, Liquid crystal display, Microsoft Windows, Personal computer, Refresh rate, Video card
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