Using professional color calibration software, you can correctly calibrate the colors on your monitor, which will later help you perform accurate color correction of photos/videos and also have a huge impact on the aesthetic beauty of your design templates or graphic elements. Calibrate colors automatically or manually in a few steps.

Verdict: Calman is the most widely-used color calibration software to test display performance. Depending on the version you choose, you will be able to profile your display or use software to calibrate projectors and professional monitors for video editing up to 4K UHD. Another notable feature is 3D LUT support; also known as Color Cube.
Datacolor is a well-known brand in the field of monitor calibration, and it's followed up its Spyder5 monitor calibrators (which are included in this guide as well) with the new SpyderX device, which improves nearly every aspect of the Spyder5 range.

Best Color Calibration Tool

Oct 11, 2017 Select the Color Management tab, then click Color Management Select the Advanced tab then click Calibrate display. This will start the Display Color Calibration wizard. If you are new to. Dec 09, 2019 Calibration allows users to make the best use of their display’s capabilities. Making use of the features of a display provides the best image quality in terms of color and brightness.

Top 5 Color Calibration Software

Calibrize - 2-step color calibration
Windows Native - To save different profiles
QuickGamma - Preview lines
Lagom LCD monitor - Online test with instructions
CalMAN ColorMatch - Calibrating 4K projectors and displays

While working on laptops and PCs running Windows, users often encounter problems with the incorrect color calibration of the display. You can make colors more saturated, brighter, add contrast or eliminate dull shades on your CRT and LCD monitors. Replace expensive, physical monitor calibrators with these color calibration software.

1. Calibrize - Our Choice

2-step color calibration

2-step screen calibration
Re-calibration reminders
Helpful reference documentation

Not found

Verdict: Calibrize is a free monitor calibration tool that allows coping with the task in two steps. You can maximize the contrast level and adjust clarity, as well as customize the gamma, by dragging three sliders that affect the red, blue and green channels.

It offers regular color re-calibration reminders, displays simple instructions, and provides additional online help documentation. No special skills required. Calibrize uses a minimum of system resources and doesn’t require a system reboot to apply new changes.

2. Windows Native

To save different profiles

No download required
Saves settings as profiles
In-depth instructions

Can’t show the Before & After screen

Verdict: You don't need to use expensive monitors for photo editing, as the built-in display color calibration tool on Windows 10 offers the most detailed setup instructions. Enter 'Color Calibration' in the search bar and select the gamma, brightness, contrast and color balance settings for your display.

A sample image that you can create will accompany many customizations. After the calibration wizard finishes the work, be sure to select the current version of the calibration or return to the previous one if you are not satisfied with the results. The new calibration will be saved as an .ics file or color calibration file and displayed as a new ICC profile.

3. QuickGamma

Preview lines

Interactive calibration charts
RBG gamut
Preview

Outdated design

Verdict: QuickGamma is a utility designed to quickly calibrate your monitor without having to buy any hardware tools. The program provides interactive calibration charts for black/gray settings as well as RGB gamma.

The preview section displays the outer and inner stripes with the same gray levels, as well as two black levels, so you can better understand how the changes affect the display. Red, green, and blue channels can be changed together, or you can press the dedicated Gamma button to control them individually, while tracking the changes using the other displayed preview section.

4. Lagom LCD monitor

Online test with instructions

You can download test images
Doesn’t require downloading
Detailed descriptions of the sequence of actions

Setting according to one pattern

Verdict: The Lagom LCD monitor is an online site that includes a series of test images from which you can calibrate your monitor by adjusting the brightness, contrast, sync/phase, sharpness and gamma of the display.

In total, this screen calibration software offers 15 images that are accompanied by a small description, according to which you need to adjust one or another parameter of your monitor. You’d better look at these images in a dim or dark room and in full-screen mode. You can take a look at the images provided on the web page and also save them on a USB drive to try them on your computer.

5. CalMAN ColorMatch

Calibrating 4K projectors and displays

Possible calibration of projectors
Setting up 4K displays
Calibrates saturation for each color

Complex software to master

Verdict: Calman is the most widely-used color calibration software to test display performance. Depending on the version you choose, you will be able to profile your display or use software to calibrate projectors and professional monitors for video editing up to 4K UHD.

Another notable feature is 3D LUT support; also known as Color Cube. This is an AutoCal procedure when Calman calibrates multiple saturation levels for each primary and secondary color. While no displays support this, there are some external video processors that do.

How do you know that a photo, video or design you are seeing on your monitor will appear the same to everyone else? Well, this is very tricky as all monitors and mobile devices are all subtly different.

You can, however, set your own screen to an industry standard. This will go a long way in helping ensure more accurate color showing for everyone viewing your photography, illustrations, graphic design, videos and more.

But how is this done? This is where a calibration monitor comes into frame (pun intended). As these are such vital pieces of equipment, I have rounded up some of the best monitor calibration tools on the market!

Why use a calibration tool for your monitor?

Though monitors from different brands and types of devices will vary in what they show, there is an industry standard that all manufacturers design around. So, calibrating our own monitors will make sure that the colors and tonal values you adjusted in your post processing will be a fairly good representation of the image on other monitors.

We can’t control anyone else’s monitor, but we can be sure our own is accurate as it can be for printing and reproducing.

It’s also beneficial for our own workflow for all of our own monitors to be adjusted alike. We can try to do this ourselves by playing around with the monitor controls and eyeballing our adjustments against a Macbeth Color Checker. However a better way is to use a calibration tool and the accompanying software.

You may be wondering if your super duper high price special purchase of a monitor requires calibration thought. Yes, it does. There can be minor variations in manufacturing, plus most factory defaults tend towards being too bright. Depending on the brand, the factory defaults could also be a little too vivid or a little weak. Calibrating takes care of that.

How to correctly calibrate your monitor

Keep in mind that each different calibration tool usually comes with its own software, thus the specifics of each step may vary. The basics can also be found online on YouTube or other sites. Here’s one example:

In one search, I found literally hours of video on the subject.

Here are some of the basics:

Install the software and the device. You will want to have your monitor on for about 20 minutes or so before starting. Even the newest tech monitors need to completely warm up for be