Should the gamma be 1.8 or 2.2?

Digital Darkroom Questions (DDQ)

September 2, 2008

by Tim Greywww.timgrey.comtim@timgrey.com
Books: www.timgrey.com/books/index.htmBlog: www.timgrey.com/blog
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I recently bought a Dell 24" Ultasharp monitor to use with my Mac Pro. I've gotten conflicting advice about the gamma setting. Should the gamma be 1.8 or 2.2?
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As far as I'm concerned, it should be set to 2.2. I'm sure there is a logical historical reason that 1.8 was considered the optimal gamma target for monitor calibration on the Macintosh platform, while 2.2 was the best target value on Windows. But whatever those reasons were, they don't hold true today. As you know, you can use the same monitor displays on either platform, and in fact can run Windows on the latest Apple computers. So there's no reason to have different target values for different platforms. I consider 2.2 to be the optimal target gamma value for monitor calibration.
There is one possible exception. If you're working with a someone (such as a print service) who will be adjusting your images and calibrates their displays to a gamma value of 1.8, then you should calibrate accordingly so you're in sync. But otherwise, I recommend 2.2. If everyone would settle on this as a target value we could put this away as an old relic that we no longer need to concern ourselves with. In the meantime, tell all your friends to use 2.2.
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