Adobe Acrobat 7 Professional - Manual (Page 698)

About monitor calibration settings
Profiling software can both characterize and calibrate your monitor. When you
characterize your monitor, you create a profile that describes how the monitor is currently
reproducing color. When you calibrate your monitor, you bring it into compliance with a
predefined standard. Adjusting your monitor to the graphic-arts standard white-point 5000
Kelvin is an example of calibration.
Determine in advance the standard to which you are calibrating, so that you can enter the
set of values for that standard. Coordinate calibration with your workgroup and prepress
service provider to make sure that you're all following the same standard.
Monitor calibration involves adjusting video settings. A monitor profile uses these settings
to precisely describe how your monitor reproduces color:
Brightness and contrast
The overall level and range, respectively, of display intensity. These parameters work just
as they do on a television set. A monitor calibration utility helps you set an optimum
brightness and contrast range for calibration.
Gamma
The brightness of the midtone values. The values produced by a monitor from black to
white are nonlinear--if you graph the values, they form a curve, not a straight line. Gamma
defines the value of that curve at halfway between black and white. Gamma adjustment
compensates for the nonlinear tonal reproduction of such output devices as monitor tubes.
Phosphor
The luminescent substance that monitors use to emit light. Different phosphors have
different color characteristics.
White point
The RGB coordinates at which full-intensity red, green, and blue phosphors create white.