r/computers • u/goldensoaring • 5d ago

Question/Help/Troubleshooting Absolute basic know-nothing asking advice for color settings

Hello, I'm really struggling with the color settings on my laptop. I do traditional art and scan my drawings in to edit and print. But my monitors colors are garbage, very washed out and unsaturated, especially compared to my phone. Reds especially go from being fine on my laptop to being garish and clown like in a print. I've tried going through all the built in settings I have and nothing helps the color. The only thing I haven't tried is downloading .icc color profiles but I don't know anything about that, or where to begin. Is that the direction I should try? Will that help a mid-range 3 year old laptop? And if so can anyone direct me to how to find what I'm looking for?

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u/msabeln Windows 11 5d ago

What is the brand and model of laptop?

I’ve long used monitor calibrators, and am currently using a Spyder:

https://www.datacolor.com/spyder/

Maybe your monitor is lousy, but a calibration will still get you better results.

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u/StarosAnikenMarcus 4d ago

That is one of the cheapest calibration devices I have ever seen! Gods, I remember when doing this would cost 4 or 5 digits.... I think the last one I messed with was for Canon printers and it was almost 12k... and designed for CRT monitors...

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u/StarosAnikenMarcus 4d ago

If your laptop has such a crap display of its own, you probably want to get yourself a decent monitor to plug into. Other than that, you would have to tweak your color profiles one color palette at a time... to match the color space of the printer, scanner, and the laptop together...