What is the best tool for LCD color calibration?

Question

As a web designer/developer/photographer... I was wondering, what is the best free all-round software based tool (on XP) for calibrating your monitor's color, brightness/contrast to the optimal settings so that your work looks as consistent as possible across OS's and monitor types? I know of Adobe Gamma, but is there a better alternative? How about Linux and OS X?

Answer 1

You could checkout eztune from portrait displays inc. (not sure if it's free as it came with my monitor)

ultimately I think the best way to go is to bite the bullet and buy one of those calibration packages with the sensor. I believe they can be had for around $100

Answer 2

Software color calibration and cross OS/monitors consistency? Forget it.

You need a hardware calibrator to achieve this. Buy simple Spyder2 colorimeter and it will work with Windows/Max and should work with Linux using ArgyllCMS

Answer 3

If you are worried about colour consistency in your workflow then you really need a hardware sensor as per what Marcin said. No software tool is going to be able to account for actual photons emanating from a screen and/or your environmental lighting. At an extreme you would use hardware calibration on both your screen and also your printer's output (noting the combination of paper and inks you use) Here is the requisite Wikipedia link on Color Management

Also ambient light is a major factor in perception of images on a screen. No calibration is going to stand up if your workspace has light that changes for what ever reason IE even a large window that contributes to daylight during the day and no light at all at night will effect your perception if you work around the clock.

Finally you can get an argument out of some people that an LCD will never give an image suitable for photography :D

Answer 4

While this doesn't help you with color, I created a greyscale GIF to help calibrate LCDs http://perpetualhypemachine.com/help/lcd/

Answer 5

Lifehacker likes Calibrize, and so do I. YMMV.

Answer 6

Software (human) visual calibration can't be as accurate as a hardware colorimeter.

X-Rite's Eye-One is another hardware CRT/LCD calibrator.