What is the recommended settings for dell U 2415 for photo editing?

Question

My monitor display is dell u 2415. I want to calibrate this monitor to be perfect for editing photos. I can't afford to buy the x -rite color pro. I want to know if anyone used the dell u 2415 for editing photos and the recommended settings?

Answer 1

Every display, even from the same line or manufacturer is different. They age, warm up and have different ambient lightning. However you can achieve reasonable result with manual calibration. But renting/borrowing/buying a second hand calibrator is always more accurate. Some calibrators are less than 200€ but are usually just color/contrast. The ones that also calibrate each color gamma are around 1000€.

But here are some things I did.

1. Is to set your monitor all to the neutral settings adjust brightness to match surrounding

2. Try the standard windows calibration for your monitor.

3. Search websites to check your color calibration. ex http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/

4. Download the ICC color profile of your monitor. ex http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/articles/icc_profiles.htm#d

and most important if it is for semi pro-amateur use:

5. Make prints at a three respectable print-shops. Take the most average picture of the three and try to match: colors, brightness, contrast and gamma. Include high and low key photo's, neutral white, with mostly blue, mostly red and mostly green in it. And add picture of colors you can remember like certain plants, the sky, bananas, oranges or pottery, fire & people of different races for the skintones.