How do you calibrate your displays? I’ve got two identical displays (Dell U2415H) that are both being driven from the same GPU over displayport and the whites, especially, seem to be different across the two monitors. I’ve never really done this before, so I’m looking for advice.
Ideally, I’d like to not like to buy one of those calibration tools.
Assuming you have checked both being configured the same way, weird that they are different, are they both identically towards you?
Tried once eyeball calibrating but since the other guy ended up setting monitors differently, I gave up on that since how you sit and height seems to affect that much
So, I have just stolen reviewers calibrations, which do vary a bit obviously as you can calibrate things differently, so the best looking one had too strong gamma for gameplay, ditched that, and took that classic color accuracy first profile from other review 
They’re both configured (color profile wise) to the same settings, and I’m sitting in the center (if I look straight forward, I see the bezel) and they’re angled about 15 to 20 degrees towards center.
I did buy the monitors about 3 months apart from each other, so it’s possible that being a different batch, they may be slightly different.
Good idea. I’ll have to give that a try.
Good counter idea, check some kinda dark game, like Witcher 3’s nights, you are supposed to see shit there 
If I’m eyeballing it, I pull up the same reference image on each monitor, ideally containing both RGB and CYMK block colours, and black and white with some greys. Start by matching the brightness/contrast on the two. Get the colours to where you want them on the first monitor, and then match them on the second. CYMK can be used to see where there’s a difference in your red-green (yellow), green-blue (cyan), and red-blue (magenta) mixes.
Oh, and a lot of mobile devices can be used for reference, as long as they’re set to satisfy a specific gamut. Apple devices are pretty good for this use, as long as night mode/truetone is turned off.
Also, just remembered
I did not get the icc profile to work, should try again since I have that bookmarked
Edit: It changed now
https://pcmonitors.info/articles/using-icc-profiles-in-windows/
Actually, the blacks seem to be good to me, it’s the whites that seem good.
Probably would help to note that I’m running Linux, but there shouldn’t be any funny business between the two displays coming off a 1070.
Good to know. I’ve been using the lagom.nl display tests to try and get a good baseline before trying to match them up.
I use this picture to adjust gamma for my monitors. You may accomplish that using the GPU driver or, for Windows, use QuickGamma. I haven’t dealt with it on Linux yet as I am not doing any artistic stuff there.
For private use it’s good enough to skip buying a calibration tool.
Yeah, I’m definitely good on calibration based on that image. Might just need to adjust the RGB offsets built into the monitor to get a closer match between the two.
Have fun tweaking! Here are a few more general tips for you:
I always use my trusty AVS 709 calibration disc:
http://www.avsforum.com/forum/139-display-calibration/948496-avs-hd-709-blu-ray-mp4-calibration.html
The download is free and the tool already comes with a great tutorial that covers everything you need to know about it.
Adobe No Moire used to be the Photoshop calibration image. I like it because it includes color bars and natural skin tones and bright fruit.
First get out your monitor manual and set then both to use the same color temperature.
Most monitors have a Warm, Cool or Custom RGB setting. This is probably what you are looking for.
Try setting both monitors to the same Warm or Cool setting.
Then adjust one of them using the Custom RGB settings to match the other one.
Forget about the default settings.
Those create false color to look better than other monitors under fluorescent lighting in the store.
Go into Windows Settings > System > Display > Adapter > Color management.
Set the monitors to be either sRGB or AdobeRGB and set as default profile.
sRGB is normal but AdobeRGB appears more saturated , intense and bright.
I like to use AdobeRGB, but that’s personal preference.
Then go to Color Management > Advanced and Calibrate Display.
Follow the prompts and make more adjustments.
If you do these steps a few times you can get a good match.
Then try to adjust your printer too if needed. But that’s a horse of a different color.
Calibration image and looking for review calibrations is your best bet like mentioned above. The most common mistake I see on monitors is that the brightness is way too high.
I recommend testing your own color acuity before embarking on self-calibrating, just to get an idea of how far you’re going to get.
If you ever want to take it to the next level, this is the most common colorimeter for calibrating displays in the prepress world (in my experience).
https://www.xrite.com/categories/calibration-profiling/i1display-pro
DisplayCal is a pretty fully featured calibration software for Linux.
