Calibrate your Mac’s display
Check your color settings for more accurate photo and video viewing
MOST MODERN MACS look great straight out of the box thanks to the inclusion of Retina displays that meet P3 display standards for color accuracy. However, if you’re doing color–critical design work, photography, or video editing and need to make sure the colors you see on–screen are truly true to life, then there are some handy extra steps you can take. These steps are particularly important if you’re using a third–party external monitor that may have some display quirks of its own, or should you want what comes out of your printer to be a faithful facsimile of what you can see on–screen (and vice versa).
In macOS Catalina, you can easily check your display settings in System Preferences > Display, where you’ll find various options running under the Display, Color and Night Shift tabs running along the top of the window. Select the Color tab and you’ll be able to check your current display profile, delete a profile, or calibrate your display.
Clicking the Calibrate button opens the Apple Display Calibrator Assistant, which enables you to do things like set your display’s white point, gamma, and so on… Or at least it would do if most of the options weren’t now hidden from view by default.
In this tutorial we’ll show you how to regain control of those options, and also how you can calibrate your monitor more accurately by using a colorimeter — a special kind of camera that measures the color accuracy of your display. Here, we’re using the SpyderX Pro ($169.99, from Datacolor, datacolor.com).
ROB MEAD–GREEN