rocknbil - 8:58 pm on Oct 26, 2006 (gmt 0)

I went down this road again and again in the printing industry with a lot of calibration sofware and methods in reference to calibrating RGB to printed values. Although it's apples and oranges in reference to web applications (all things being RGB,) the core result is the same - You will never arrive at a perfect solution. Add one element to any "perfect" calibration:

Color is subjective.

It doesn't matter if you read the values with the most sensitive equipment and the numbers are within .0001% of each other. The next person is going to see that color differently. This has been proven over and over again. If you want proof, start an argument among your color experts on exactly what color defines "Teal."

Besides, for all the money you invest in calibration, are you going to calibrate all your customers' monitors for them so they see what you see?

Secondly, there are a large chunk of colors in Pantone and CMYK that simply will not reproduce in the RGB gamut and vice versa. It can't be done, because the pigments are not colored light.

The best solution to the calibration issue is to stick to an acceptable range. If you create a color and it looks different on a good calibrated monitor, a crappy monitor, and an LCD, you're cutting it too close. Unless you want to hide behind the "you need to upgrade" argument, in which case you might as well use "site best designed for" too. :-)