Precise calibration in the Calibration Assistant

Sep 13, '10 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: boredzo

You can use the arrow keys to set the sliders in the Calibration Assistant precisely.

When custom-calibrating your display using Mac OS X's Calibration Assistant (the application that comes up when you click 'Calibrate' on the Color tab of the Displays preference pane), most of the work is in determining your display's native response curves, which you do by setting two sliders (one one-dimensional, the other two-dimensional) until an Apple logo is invisible against a striped background. [crarko adds: Note that 'Expert Mode' needs to be checked in the first screen of the Calibration Assistant for this hint to work.]

It's possible and most obvious to do this using the mouse, but it's very easy to move the mouse more than a single step (especially when using a trackpad). This hurts your ability to make precise adjustments.

There is an alternative: Use the arrow keys. Even with full keyboard access off, you still get keyboard focus on the sliders, and can tab between them. The arrow keys—up and down only for the left slider; all four for the right slider—move the slider head one step at a time in whichever direction. This makes it much easier to adjust the luminance and color incrementally once you've found each slider's correct general area.

[crarko adds: I tested this, and it works as described.]

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