Well, the profile I got from the web does make things easier, but is not the final solution because I always end up with the Adobe Gamma. So you can start with that one.
I don't exactly know how you proceed, but I always start by installing the latest driver for my graphics card (I have a Geforce4Ti4200 which is far from the fastest but really overkill when it comes to Photoshop or even heavy 3D modelling work).
Then I try to take care that the ambient light is as constant as possible. Avoid any light coming from behind you and great contrast. Ideally, you soften daylight by placing rice paper on the windows etc. Your clothes also play a big role: there will always be some reflection from them. Etc etc. To make things even more difficult, your monitor has to be on for at least half an hour before you can even start to calibrate. And it changes all the time. To put it shortly: the only trustworthy calibration is hardware calibration which can be found on very expensive Barco's and LaCie's etc...
But we can live with the fact that we will never reach perfection, so: let's give it a try, shall we?
If you have a manual for your monitor, read it from the first to the last page. Or check the information on the website of the manufacturer. Or send an e-mail asking for data. Because you need to know the white point. All colours have a specific temperature, measured in degrees Kelvin (Lord Kelvin. British nineteenth century scientist. 0?K(elvin) is the absolute zero point in thermodynamics). And the white on your monitor has a specific temperature. Windows monitors usually have 6500?K, macs 9300?K. Both are much brighter than the temperature of the white of paper. This is why in the publishing branch, monitors are often set at 5000?K. Mine is set at 5500 because I like the soft light a lot.
What does this do, what does this mean? Well, no light at all is the darkest you can get, and the white point is the lightest you can get. You know that a monitor builds colour up from three basic colours: red, green and blue. These have brightnesses ranging from 0 to 255, or 256 different hues. Now when all three are at 255, or their maximum brightness, you get pure white. And how bright this white will be is set by the colour temperature of the so-called white point, or brightest white your monitor can attain. Higher temp means brighter.
It is important to know what your monitor can, and can't. In case you really don't find it, Adobe Gamma has a tool to find out your monitor's colour temp.
I hope you're still with me? What we try to do when calibrating is set a maximum brightness for our white, and then adapt the gamma or greyscale hues between white and black so that we see an even series of steps.
Right. So, having your newest drivers installed, open Adobe Gamma. (and make shure you closed all other apps, most certainly Photoshop.)
I personally prefer the single dialog version, not the step-by-step method.
The first thing you see is a Description box. If you find any profiles here, they were probably installed when you installed the monitor. Most monitors come with a diskette with some icm files or profiles on them. Anyhow, change the name in something meaningful to you. I usually choose, for example, Erik170503 (name and date).
Now set your monitor's contrast to maximum (how to do this depends on your monitor's buttons etc. See manual). This is done because we want to set the brightest white, ie the maximum contrast.
Now look at the Brightness and Contrast in the Gamma panel. The white should absolutely stay white, but the grey squares should be as dark as possible. This you can set by adjusting your monitor's brightness see manual if you doubt). The moment these properties of your monitor are set, don't ever touch them again, or you will have to make a new profile!
The third chapter on the gamma tool is the Gamma itself. If you suppose that the red, green and blue are not well balanced, you can uncheck the "View Single Gamma only". If not: you can squint now and drag the slider below the image from left to right. Just exaggerate a bit to get the feel. The intention is that, while squinting, you set the slider so that the grey rectangle in the centre matches as good as possible the hue of the black-white line pattern that surrounds it. You may want to uncheck the Single gamma button, and see whether the three colours are also as good as matching.
Chapter four: choose Windwos default if you're on Win, and macIntosh default if you're on the mac.
Now set your White point as said higher up. Or try to measure it with the measure button. Or give it a value that your monitor supports.
Then finally you click OK and in the save as box that opens, you give your profile a good name (extension .icm on Win).
Now you go to the home page of Photoshopgurus, and then to the page that is mentioned in the "You should calibrate your monitor" section. You should be able to see all the greyscale hues etc. If you don't: retry profiling because changing your monitor's brightness or contrast now would make the profile useless, and even worse.
This should be it...
