First Time Visitors:  Calibrating Your Monitor

[Configuring System Fonts] [See Video]

Monitor calibration is necessary in order to view images as they are meant to be seen!  Rather you are visiting MSN, Yahoo!, or this site, proper monitor calibration will show the site as they are meant to be.  Moreover, you may find this handy should you decide to do photo editing too :-)  Use menu links above to either view video tutorial or to "Configuring System Fonts".

First, we must set up your display properties.  Do so by right mouse clicking on your desktop then selecting properties.  After which, you will need to select the "Settings" tab.  Go down to screen area and set your monitor resolution to either 800 by 600 pixels or 1024 by 768 pixels.  If your monitor is already on either of these two settings, there is no need to adjust your screen resolution.  Mouse over to the left and "True Color (32 bit)".

Click "Apply" then select "Advanced...".  Click on the "Color" tab and make sure gamma is set to 1, brightness to 0, and contrast to 100.  You may need to refer to your VGA card to ascertain these settings.  If you do not have this option in your display's advanced properties dialog, simply skip this step.  Click on "Apply" and close the dialog.

The step wedge is your final step in monitor calibration.  The step wedge (grayscale) you see displayed above is made of 17 individual steps from black on the far left to white on the far right. In order to view the images found in this website as they were meant to be seen, adjust the brightness and contrast controls on your monitor so each step is visible. For example: If you cannot distinguish the black step from the lighter step to its right, increase the brightness. If the white step cannot be distinguished from the darker step to its left, then decrease the brightness.

The step wedge should not have a tint. If it does, adjust you monitor's color settings to correct out the tint.

Congratulations!  Calibration of your computer monitor is complete!