Calibrating your monitor to the correct settings is a very important factor in how you view photographs on our website. If your monitor is not calibrated correctly, your viewing experience will be negatively impacted and you will not have the ability to view our photographs in their natural form. Please take a moment to review our monitor calibration guidelines on this page to ensure you are viewing the photographs as they are intended to be viewed.

The image below should appear as a rainbow starting and ending with red.
There should be a smooth transition from color to color with no banding and no little dots.

The following image is not a smooth transition. If you have only limited
colors ( i.e. 16 levels of color) the above rainbow would look something like this:

or like this

Ok, that's color, now let's deal with gamma, and contrast.

Below are some boxes, one should be absolute black. Nothing on your monitor should be darker than the black box. Look at the black border around your monitor. It should be as black as that box. And nothing should be lighter than the white box. The grey box and the white box should have no tint to them. No pink or blue! in them. No pink or blue!

This is a 10 section step wedge to allow you to check that you have a full chromatic scale available on your monitor. You should be able and see the 10 separate tones going from an all white to a total black.
Gamma (or contrast) is next.

Step back from your monitor.
One of these numbered boxes is about the same shade as the surrounding.

That's your "screen gamma." Most photographer's web pages are designed for
1.8 Gamma. TV monitors are calibrated for 2.2 Gamma.