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Software wise everything is set to default when I work with renders & photoshop. When I watch a movie I have NVIDIA control panel adjust the bright, contrast, gamma (calibration).

Let's say I have nvidia control panel adjust the bright, gamma, contrast.  Now I take one of my renders and try to judge how it looks and make modifications via photoshop. Technically the modifications wouldn't be accurate because I have custom calibration settings right?  I always want to apply postwork and judge render lighting with the defaults of the monitor and default nvidia control panel settings right? Looks like there is windows 7 color calibration but once again, that is software modifying everything to my eyes.

Please give your feedback on this. I'm still new to this genre of work.

Default settings aren't necessarily good, and custom settings aren't necessarily bad,  the trouble with any settings (even wrong ones) is that your eye gets used to them, and then anything else (even correct settings) looks wierd. It's like wearing sunglasses - you soon stop noticing the effect they have on light and color because your brain compensates.

I calibrate my monitors about once a month with a Datacolor SpyderPro3. It's a thing that looks like a mouse with light sensors in it, you hang it on the center of your monitor screen. The calibration software generates a whole sequence of different colours at varying brightnesses, and the sensor thing measures each one. Then the software calculates the difference between what should have been displayed and what was actually displayed and it generates a correction profile for that monitor.

I have 2 monitors which look very different at their default settings, but when they are both running their respective correction profiles their output is very, very close. The device also measures ambient light in the room and bases the profile on the level, so in theory you should use different profiles for daytime and nighttime work as the light levels change a lot. In practice I calibrate in daylight because that's when I do my paying work where color/tonal fidelity is an issue, at night I'm usually just messing around.