Photometric Calibration for the Dark Energy Survey

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) science results depend upon photometric calibration that map measured fluxes within an optical filter bandpass to objects identified through processing of the imaging data. The steps in the calibration process are many. An overview of these steps will be given with particular emphasis on the determination of the bandpass of the various filters used by DES and the establishment of an absolute flux scale. The importance of the calibration will then be described in terms of its impact on selected DES science results.