Calibrate your monitor
Color Management = Consistent Colors
The base purpose of color management is to ensure that the artist intent is replicated and that the colors reproduced are true. Color management makes sure that a red logo looks the same red on your PC monitor, the broadcast preview and in print in the stadium.
The process of color management starts by ensuring that all displays and printers are calibrated to a known standard.
This should also take into account the fact that not all displays or printing techniques are capable of showing the same amount of colors. To ensure true color management, all devices must be limited to the lowest common denominator. In reality, we sometimes have to cheat a bit and simulate how something might look on a higher fidelity device, but be aware that this will probably lead to inconsistency in color reproduction.
For you as a Pixotope designer / artist, the most important consideration is to calibrate your monitor so that we later can use the knowledge of how it is calibrated to ensure the most consistent possible color reproduction.
For SDR monitors we recommend the following target calibrations:
sRGB
For HDR monitors we recommend the following target calibrations:
Video (D65, Rec 2020 / SMPTE 2048)
We recommend these options as they will cover must use cases, and make it easier to control the color management downstream, but these are not hard requirements and other targets might apply for your use case.
The most important part of the equation is that you are working on a PC monitor that is capable of reproducing the colors you want and need on the final output. For SDR content, this should no longer be a big challenge as most modern PC monitors cover the sRGB / Rec709 color spaces well, and for HDR content there are starting to be many relatively affordable options for displays that can show both most of the rec2020 gamut space and support above 1000 nits brightness.
Pixotope does not come with tools to do this built in, but there are a couple of different approaches in recommended order:
Use a professional color calibration system
If supported: Use the monitors built in color calibration system
Some professional PC monitors, specifically designed for color sensitive work, come with a calibration device built in. If you own one of these, please follow the instructions that come with the monitor on how to calibrate it
Use Windows 10/ 11 built in color calibration
Run the Display Color Calibration software (dccw.exe).
Follow the instructions given.
If you have more than one display, move the Display Color Calibration window onto the display you want to calibrate, and click/tap on Next.
When using HDR in windows, please also refer to the Windows documentation: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/calibrate-your-hdr-display-using-the-windows-hdr-calibration-app-f30f4809-3369-43e4-9b02-9eabebd23f19
There are no hard rules to calibrating your display monitor, as there are different circumstances requiring different configuration.
The best result will be achieved when working together with the video engineers and color specialists responsible for final output, to ensure a fully managed color workflow.