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Color Management: Introduction

How to make use of software that allows synchronization of color representation across display and print devices by calibrating your monitor.

Dawn Fratini
OID Teaching Enhancement Center

Introduction

In an effort to manage differences between monitors, printers, projectors and other devices, professionals in image-production fields have created a system of software components to perform “color management.” A properly configured color management system should synchronize color representation across devices and mediums.

At the UCLA Office of Instructional Development’s Teaching Enhancement Center, we have taken the utmost care to calibrate our equipment and coordinate our color management system so that your digitized Media Conversion Grant images will be as true to the original images as possible.

  • If you are viewing the image on a Macintosh computer, this tutorial will walk you through calibrating your monitor using the System Preferences - Display dialogue.
  • If you are viewing the image on a Windows-based computer which has Adobe Photoshop installed, this tutorial will walk you through calibrating your monitor using the Adobe Gamma Control Panel.
  • If you are viewing the image on a Windows-based computer that does not have Adobe Photoshop installed, you will not be able to calibrate your monitor. However we strongly suggest that you use the  monitor's brightness and color controls to adjust the monitor image before you consider altering the digital image file itself.


NOTE: Using image editing software, such as Adobe Photoshop, you can make changes to the digital image itself, but please be advised that adjustments made to the color content of the image are relative to your particular monitor unless you are using a color management system which includes a calibrated monitor. In this case you may find, if you publish an image on the web or create a PowerPoint presentation, that the image looks radically different than you intended on other computer monitors.


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