ICC Profiles question

[Spartan]

From what I've learned is you don't wanna use an ICC profile not specifically made for your monitor, ie: you find a monitor review of the same model that you own which contains an ICC profile, even though it's the same model, no panel is the same so it's not recommended.

However, we often see manufacturers include an ICC profile when you download the drivers for a monitor yet everyone seems to be using them.

I am confused, thoughts?

[RealNC]

ICC profiles from monitor vendors don't include full calibration data. They're usually very small because of that. They only include things like color primaries, which define the color gamut and gamma of the display. These work fine across all units.

If you download a full calibration ICC profile instead, it's gonna be much larger in file size and contains much more data. That data is used to alter colors at various luminance levels, and that part is what can differ a lot between units. I believe screen uniformity affects it as well, and since screen uniformity is one the most random things between units, color calibration data will also be quite different.

[Spartan]

Got it, thanks a lot for this detailed answer.