Ten Steps to Calibrating Your Monitor Using Color Bars
to Prepare For Texturing, Lighting, or Compositing.

Color bars are an artifical electronic signal generated by post production equipment. They are used to provide a consistent reference in post production as well as matching the output of two computer or video monitors.

Before proceeding, you should know that computer monitors are different from video monitors. On your computer monitor you are seeing a much broader range of color and contrast. You will will loose control of extremely bright and dark areas of your image on a video monitor. The only real test to check your image is to view it on a properly adjusted video monitor.

The graphics on this page are for example only! You'll want to download the "Color bars with lables" below to use for calibration. The file "Color bars without lables" is provided for those with experience who prefer no lables.

Downloads: (right-click to download)
Color bars with lables
Color bars without lables
Desktop color bars image (1280 x 1024)

To Calibrate Your Computer Monitor

Step One: Brightness

1. Allow the monitor to warm up for a few minutes

2. Dim the room lights and block any reflections on the monitor

3. Open the colorbars_wLables.tif with Fcheck or Photoshop

4. Set the contrast also referred to as "picture" to its midpoint

5. Turn the chroma also referred to as "color" all the way down until the color bars are shades of black and white

Diagram of Colors and Values

6. The three narrow bars labeled 3.5, 7.5 and 11.5 located at the bottom right are referred to as Pluge Bars (Picture Lineup Generating Equipment). Adjust the brightness control on your monitor until the middle (7.5 units) pluge bar is not quite visible. The lightest bar on the right (11.5 units) should be barely visible. If it's not visible, turn the brightness up until it becomes visible.

The pluge bar representing 7.5 units is as dark as video gets, you should not see any difference between the left bar (3.5 units) and the middle bar (7.5 units). There should be no dividing line between these two bars. The only division you should see is between 11.5 and 7.5.

Step Two: Contrast

7. The next step is to set the contrast control for a proper white level. To do so, turn the contrast all the way up. The white (100 unit) bar will bloom and flare. Now turn the contrast down until this white bar just begins to respond. The image below shows what it should look like at this point.

Correct NTSC Color Bars without Color

The image below is INCORRECT.


Incorrect NTSC Color Bars without Color

The above image shows a monitor whose black level (brightness) is too high. Of the three pluge bars, only the 11.5 pluge bar should be visible.

Step Three: Color Calibration

Even with only a little experience by simply "eye-balling" the yellow and magneta bars you can calibrate the colors on your monitor in two steps and avoid using a blue-only switch or a blue colored gel as professionals do.

8. Adjust chroma and hue until the yellow is a lemon yellow without orange or green.

9. Adjust chroma and hue so the magenta is not red or purple.

You should now have a properly adjusted video monitor. However, if flesh tones don't look right, you may need to make further adjustments to the chroma and hue.

Step Four: Maintaining Calibration

Once you have set up your monitor, leave it alone.

10. I recommend including a small set of color bars in the background image of your desktop to always check to see if your monitor needs to be readjusted. A desktop color bar image is availbale under downloads. Unless you use a waveform/vectorscope monitor or a software equivalent, like the one in Premiere Pro, it is the only difinitive way to see how accurate your image is.