As you all know, I am a huge fan of online photo storage and sharing, thus our extensive collection over at our SmugMug account.  One big problem with online sharing, however, is if someone viewing your photos doesn’t have a properly calibrated monitor, the photos can look anywhere from washed out to too dark to too green, etc. on their monitors even though the original photo files are perfect in color.  Thus, you need to calibrate your monitor.  Here’s an example of pre- and post-calibration:

Monitor calibration is accomplished either by eye or by electronic device.  We have our home computer continuously adjusted using the Pantone Huey Monitor Color Calibrator, and our colors are just right.  My laptop, however, is adjusted by eye (since I don’t want to pay another $60 for another Huey). 

If you don’t want to buy a calibration device, I highly recommend you follow the directions over at the Screen Check site to, at a minimum, get your contrast and brightness adjusted correctly.

Monitors: Calibrate Your Monitor with Screen Check

Some additional sites that you may want to check out for more in depth adjustment tools include PhotoFriday.Com and NormanKoren.com.

Adjust away!  As I said earlier, you’ll thank me for it!