That was my mistake in not specifying the difference between personal and professional requirements. The OP was referring to his personal printing uses. But even so a photograph or a print is a representation. For pro labs or pro photographers, it should be as accurate as possible, but a perfect reproduction of what the eye sees is just not possible no matter how close it is. The pro intends his work to be seen by as many people as possible. because no 2 people have the exact same visual acuity photographic "perfection" is not attainable.

There have been some nay-sayers here telling you calibration is unnecessary, a waste of time and money.

And there have been strong proponents who swear it's essential.

Both are wrong. Or, maybe both are right.

Because, actually... It depends.

It depends upon you and your photography... what you shoot, how you shoot it, and what you do with your shots. If you're a snapshooter with a camera phone or a point-n-shoot, mostly just share your images on Facebook and only on rare occasions make a print at Walmart, it's likely that you have no need to calibrate your computer monitor. But if you are a relatively serious photographer with a fairly advanced camera striving for better images, post-processing your images yourself in specialized software either to make prints yourself or through a printing service and sharing your images on Flickr... and are dissatisfied with the results you're getting... it's very likely that monitor calibration is at the root of your problems.

In other words, if you are enthusiastic enough about your photography to join a forum such as UHH to read about it, discuss it and ask questions, chances are you're someone who would appreciate what monitor calibration can do for you.

Consumer grade computer monitors are generally over-bright and render colors fairly inaccurately. They are set up for gaming and office work... not for photographs. Even higher end graphics quality monitors aren't all that accurate or will lose accuracy over time (some of the highest-end and most expensive have built-in, self-calibration).

A too-bright monitor will cause you to adjust your images too-dark for printing. A monitor that's lying to you about colors will cause you to adjust those incorrectly, too. If you do very much printing, you'll waste a lot of paper and ink trying to get your images to look good. But even online your images will look bad, especially to anyone viewing them with a properly calibrated monitor. Now, the vast majority of the world doesn't calibrate their monitors and some software that's used to view images can't be calibrated. You can't do anything about that, other than get these things as correct as possible for your purposes and for those that do.

This will also have an effect on your shooting, as you make adjustments to your camera. For example, even if shooting RAW, any image editing and optimization software will adhere to the color temperature and tint that the camera records. So once you are seeing accurate rendition of your images on your computer monitor, you'll probably want to use more accurate shooting techniques, too... such as setting Custom White Balances or using Auto WB, and avoiding the WB "presets" such as "Daylight", "Tungsten", "Flash" etc. Those presets are just guesstimates, at best.

Calibration generally refers to the monitor, its brightness and how it renders colors. A device is first used to measure brightness displayed and help you set it to a better level. Then a series of color test samples are displayed and read by the device and software, which it uses use to establish a "profile" that will govern how the monitor displays color. Some really basic monitors don't provide for much adjustment or may have a screen that's difficult or impossible to adjust very accurately due to reflective coatings or other things that effect the accuracy of readings. But most do. You also have to be a bit careful of ambient light conditions, since those effect the monitor's display, too.

Once you know your computer monitor is accurate... once WYSIWYG... you're halfway there. For best printing accuracy, you also need to load printer profiles, that emulate the appearance of prints made with particular paper, ink and printer combinations. The printer or paper manufacturer might provide these... Or you may be able to get them from third party sources. Better printing services provide them, too. Or it's possible with some of the more advanced calibration devices to custom make your own. Once this is done, you can use "soft-proofing" that's found in most image editing software to better preview how a particular paper/ink/printer combo or service will produce a print. But even if you don't soft-proof everything, all your work will be more accurate and you'll see better results.

After the initial setup and learning how to use whatever device and software suite you buy, it really isn't at all time-consuming to calibrate your monitor. But it's also not a one-time thing. Because all monitors gradually lose brightness and shift color over time you have to re-calibrate every so often. I run it on my monitor every other month (the software alerts me to do so) and it takes about 15 minutes. I've also sought out and installed printer profiles for most of the combos I use on three different printers, as well as gotten profiles from print services I outsoruce some work to. But after calibration even basic online display and quick proof prints that aren't carefully profiled all look a lot better.

Personally I have a 24" IPS monitor with a lot of adjustability and an anti-reflective screen.... not cheap "consumer grade", but also not terribly pricey. It cost me $400 about five years ago. When I first got it I had to set the brightness way, way down to "20". The factory default was something like "80"! Each time I've re-calibrated, I've had to set the brightness slightly higher. Now, after using it for five years, I'm setting its brightness to around "50". (I have no idea if these are percentages or what.. They're just the brightness scale settings on my from the monitor. It doesn't really matter, as long as it's adjustable, since I'm setting the white point to a reading taken with the calibration device. In other words, assuming the monitor continues to lose brightness at the current rate, it's probably going to be good for at least another five years or so.)

I also have my computer set up in fairly controlled lighting conditions, but have taken the additional precaution of making a hood to protect it from ambient light as best possible. You can buy hoods to fit some monitors. I just made mine out of matte black 1/2" foam-core board... It's light weight, about 8" deep and attaches to the side and top edges of my monitor with a few self-adhesive Velcro strips. Works great and didn't cost much or take long to make!

Monitor calibration doesn't need to be all that expensive, either. Basic setups cost $90 to $120. You can spend a lot more if you also want to make printer profiles or need to calibrate other types of devices such as digital projectors or TVs. But, you also might check if there is a photography club in your area... Sometimes club members pitch in to buy a calibration device and share it among themselves, since each really only needs to do a calibration every so often. The most frequently seen brands adn models of calibration device/software suites are: Pantone Huey, X-Rite ColorMunki and Datacolor Spyder. I use the latter, but they all seem to work fine. All three (and some others) offer a range of products from basic to very advanced, as well as some accessories that might be helpful or address specialized requirements.

Oh, and pad computers, smartphones... and, for that matter, the LCD screen the back of your camera cannot be trusted because they just cannot be calibrated. But, even if they could be, because we inevitably view them under a lot of different ambient light conditions and from various angles (which effects apparent brightness a lot), they still couldn't be trusted.

To a some extent, the same is true of laptops. While it usually is possible to calibrate them, merely moving them around and opening and closing them causes changes that might require re-calibration every time you set the laptop up to use it (and you really should let a screen warm up for about half an hour before calibrating it). There are some ways around this... to make laptops usable for photo editing... such as getting a hood or tent for the computer to control ambient light, using some sort of gauge to make sure your viewing angle is the same all the time. Or, some of the calibration devices cna be set up to do continuous, real time readings of ambient light conditions and make adjustements on the fly. Another possibility is to get a separate monitor to connect the laptop to, that can remain in one location as a work-station and be calibrated, ready to connect to and use whenever you want to do some serious image editing. Not all laptops have a powerful enough graphics card to do this... Some can be upgraded. But others can't.

Hope this helps!

Disregard the two advices against calibration.

If you print at home you need to calibrate the monitor and the printer media. If you send the images out, sending images that are calibrated is best.

On the other hand, while your work will be great on your screen, there is no guarantee that it will look the same on the 'average joe' computer screen that is most certainly not calibrated.

Calibration gives you a serious base to start from. From there you add your own bias, meaning that your perception of colors* enters onto play.

Unlike finding an image color balance (the 'holy Grail' of photography) calibration is measurable and can be set. Calibration will change over time** so you need to re calibrate as time passes.

On how to calibrate, you have a slew of commercial calibration devices that exist and whose price varies from 99 to 999. The difference between them? I have no clue I use a Spyder 4 because it allows for the calibration of two display.

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* This is mainly about how your perceive colors and your taste.
** Aging electronic, among other things.

The "normal" lens for 4x5 is about 150 mm. You should be able to find a used version small enough that it might even fit on the camera in a recessed lens-board while it is folded.

For many years all I had was a 210 and a 120 (comparable to about 70 and 40 mm on a 35 mm camera). They are bigger and have to be removed to fold the camera.

Since you will be on a tripod and usually shooting stationary scenes you will likely be stopping down significantly. On 4x5 you are not diffraction limited until about f/64 so the lens does not really need to be perfect. Most of them are quite sharp when stopped down.

A lot of photographers are thinking about 24x36 mm digital formats between 36 and 50 MP for landscape photography because of the increase in resolution. Those cameras are getting very pricey, in the $2,800 to $3,900 price range. Medium format 33x44 MP bodies start at around $7,000 and soon reach obscene levels.

Is it any wonder that film photographers like large and medium format film? A very good 4x5 view camera in excellent condition can be found for well under $1,000 and some very good ones sell for around that price new. The market is flooded with used lenses that can be had at bargain basement prices. You can buy a lot of film and process it yourself. Even if you get it done professionally it can be cheaper than the cost of a new digital body every few years.

You will need a film scanner. For large format film, an Epson V750 or V850 does a great job with sheet film.

Check out the sample in my next* post below.

If you are not up to the challenge of large format, medium format is even less expensive and more convenient, even after you factor in the cost of film.

* In a separate post because it will contain both an image and a link, either of which might get this topic automatically moved to Links and Resources or Photo Gallery.