Question : Color Management and ICC Profiles

I'm having a problem where graphics look crisp and bright on my system but look washed out on other systems, I'm certain that my color management is not set up correctly but I don't know how to fix it. I want to make colors match in my graphics software, monitor, and printer. Looking for a relatively easy solution, not a multi-hundred dollarmonitor calibration software package.

System is homebuilt PC, Abit VT7 board, P4 3.2 processor, 1 GB RAM, PNY VERTO GEFORCE FX 5500 128MB AGP video card, older CTX 17" CRT monitor set to 1152 x 864, 32 m color depth, color temp set to 6500. Printer is HP PSC 950. OS is XP Pro SP2,  primary graphics software is PhotoImpact Pro 8.5.

The monitor has a profile but its old, made for earlier Windows, not XP. Nothing else has a specific ICC profile. I've tried using profiles generic profiles like sRGB and RGB color match but everything looks very dull and washed out.

Can someone recommend a profile(s) that would work for my monitor, video card, and printer which would give me a good display of true colors?

Thanks much for any advice!

Answer : Color Management and ICC Profiles

You could start by profiling your monitor using Adobe Gamma. It's a control panel that can be optionally installed with pretty much any Adobe product. When you run it in Wizard mode, it will guide you through adjusting your monitor's settings to be reasonably accurate. It's not as good as a colorimiter and calibration package, but you said you don't want to pay for one of those -- so this is a good 2nd best.

The other thing you need to do (before you start with Adobe Gamma) is adjust the white point of your monitor. 6500K is a good value (most monitors default to 9300K) and Adobe recommends this value.