There's only my machine here.
So if I understand correctly, on my iMac, I am
to calibrate by "looking" at a color proof and using calibration gizmo to match on a screen, but I am not to "look" at a proof and match to my personal "taste"?
Sounds like I have to judge by individual taste either way. Sounds
like in a company environment all the calibration gizmo does is match one personal taste to all machines.
Personal taste doesn't factor into this at all; the hardware (and its associated software) will calibrate your monitor and build a profile based on its own measurements. Your involvement will simply be to set the brightness, contrast and RGB settings as the software instructs you to (not to your preference, or to your visual comparison to a proof) and that's only if it cannot do that automatically by itself. This is the only way to properly calibrate a monitor; if you attempt to do it by eye you are simply allowing the flaws and biases in your vision (and we all have them) and your viewing environment to influence the outcome. Brian