What You See is What You Get!!
by Gary Woods

One of the problems we have when trying to print color images that we've spent a lot of time manipulating on our computer is getting the colors right. The first problem is that the colors on your Monitor are what are called RGB for Red, Green, and Blue. And the colors on our printers are usually CMYK for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and K standing for Black.

If you're really into true color sooner or later you're going to come across the name Pantone (http://www.pantone.com). This company is the industry standard for what a color is supposed to look like. They have huge libraries of amazing colors and those libraries are used by almost every publishing house in the world to guarantee quality.

Now Pantone has come up with something called Huey ($89) which is an inexpensive monitor calibration tool that works well so long as it plays nicely with your graphics board. Set up is pretty straight forward, you change color temperature and contrast by selecting one of nine presents, several of which are optimized for specific situations like photo viewing and gaming. Just stick the Huey sensor on your screen and help the software along with an occasional mouse click.

Huey will continually re-calibrate itself anywhere from every 10 seconds to every 4 hours, based on the room's changing lighting conditions. As night time approaches or as your overhead lights turn on, the software adjusts the monitor's color temperature and luminosity.

If you have any suggestions or questions for me please drop me a note at garyandlaury@santabarbaraproperties.com or see my column on the Internet at http://www.santabarbaraproperties.com or call me at (805) 729-0910