Calibrate your monitor with Windows 7 Video

Calibrate your monitor with Windows 7 Video Transcript

Hey, everyone. I'm Sharon Vaknin for cnet.com and today I'll show you how to calibrate your monitor in Windows 7. You probably hear calibration use for TVs but computer monitors including laptop displays also need calibrating. They're not always doing properly out of the box and sometimes little things like text aren't displayed properly. So, this trick will help you solve that. First, locate your monitor's on screen display. It's usually a menu button along the edge of your monitor. Then, in the settings, find the option to reset your monitor back to factory settings which will give us a clean slate for calibration. Now, go to the Start menu and search Calibrate Display. This will launch the Calibration Wizard which will walk us through a series of color adjustments. First, change the Gamma by minimizing the visibility of dots in the center of the circles. The Wizard shows you what good gamma looks like, so try to copy that. Then, it's time to change the brightness and contrast. Like before, you'll be asked to match your display to the picture. Call up your monitor's on screen display again and adjust the brightness and contrast accordingly. There are also settings you can use to adjust the overall color balance of the screen. Just follow the on-screen instructions that will guide you through the process. Once you're all setup, it's time to find and tune the way text looks on your screen with a ClearType Text Turner. We all do a lot of reading on our computers these days, so it's important to make sure that the text is adjusted to your liking. The Wizard will present a series of text samples each one a little different from the last. Choose a sample that feel best and hit finish when you're done. In the end, your monitor will be calibrated and you can revisit the setup screen whenever you connect a new monitor or when it's weak on your display settings. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to post them on my Facebook page and visit howto.cnet.com for more videos like this. For CNET, I'm Sharon Vaknin and I'll see you on the interwebs.