I’ve previously explained the importance of calibrating and profiling the monitor to ensure correct colour management. But some people have queried if it’s acceptable to use the manufacture-supplied colour profile for the monitor. In most cases this is a bad idea. Look at the diagram below. This is a 2D CIE colour space chromaticity diagram where I’ve plotted two colour profiles for my wide-gamut monitor; one profile is the standard profile supplied by the manufacturer, the other profile is one I’ve created after calibrating the monitor.
The manufacturer-supplied colour profile is actually not too far from an sRGB profile. However, it’s pretty clear that the manufacturer-supplied profile does not even remotely characterise my monitor and is therefore completely unsuitable for use in any colour-management workflows. So, next time you try to use colour-managed software such as colour-enabled web browser, make sure that your monitor has been calibrated and profiled otherwise your user experience will suffer. If you haven’t calibrated and profiled your monitor, please, disable any colour management features in your software.
I actually have strong feelings that colour-management in web-browsers need to be turned-off by default, and that web-browsers need to give the user a prominent and clear choice on whether to turn-on colour management. That’s why I think Firefox has got it wrong be enabling colour management by default. But that’s a rant for another day.
Article by Kulvinder Singh Matharu – 2013