How to calibrate your monitor in Windows 10

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Here's how to easily calibrate your monitor in Windows 10

Want to make sure photos, videos, and games look their absolute best on your screen? Calibrating your monitor is the key. Monitor calibration ensures colors and black levels are as accurate as possible, and you can do it easily with Windows' built-in tool.

We'll use the Windows Color Management settings to walk through the steps of calibrating your display. The steps below are for Windows 10, but the calibration tool is also available in Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. Before you start, make sure your monitor has been on for at least half an hour, so it's warmed up properly, and clean your monitor.

How to calibrate your monitor in Windows 10

1. Right-click on the desktop and select Display settings

2. Click "Advanced display settings" at the bottom of the settings window.

3. Verify that your monitor is set to the recommended, native resolution. If it's not, set it to the recommended resolution at least for this calibration process.

4. Click "Color calibration" at the bottom of the advanced display settings window.

5. Click Next to start the color calibration.

The wizard will walk you through adjusting your color settings. You'll:

  • Set the display to the factory default color settings, if your monitor allows you to do that
  • Adjust your display's gamma to match a sample image

  • Adjust the brightness and contrast

  • Adjust the color balance6. At the end of the wizard, click Finish to save your settings.

You'll then be able to calibrate ClearType for sharper text.

Windows 10 Performance and Productivity

Melanie Pinola

Melanie was a writer at Laptop Mag. She wrote dozens of helpful how-to guides, covering both the software and the hardware side of things. Her work included topics like SSDs, RAM, Apple, Excel, OneDrive, and detailed guides for Windows users. Outside of all her useful advice, Melanie also penned a few reviews for Laptop Mag, including Android emulators that help you run apps on your PC.