(Note: I'm using OS X Lion)
Monitor Calibration: Even though the options are very limited (only 4 or 5 settings each for white point and luminance) the Colormunki does a very accurate job, better than the Datacolor Spyder 3 I have (which I would not recommend).
Printer Calibration: It's done a great job of maxing out the potential of this inexpensive Lexmark C543 color laser printer that I have, which the manufacturer provides no standard ICC profiles for. I can't wait to get a real photo quality inkjet now. I also wish I had just bought this in the first place instead of the Spyder 3.
The "2 target" printer calibration system and strip scanning capability of the instrument makes profiling printers very quick and easy, even with manual operation. (No click click click on 100+ color patches. Just run the thing over 5 strips, print another target, run it over 5 strips again.) The only drawback to this dual target system is that you won't be able to print a target on a printer at a computer lab somewhere then take it home to create the profile. (Though there may be some unsupported way around this, you'll still end up running back-and-forth as the content of the second target depends on what readings you get from the first one.) So to profile a printer you'll have to have the Colormunki connected to the same computer as the printer.
To those having problems with printer profiling: You are *almost certainly* printing your targets without turning off ALL of the color management in the print driver and on the printer. I thought I knew how to do this on my system, and I still managed to mess it up the first time. If the first target doesn't print with at least some bright primary colored patches then you didn't manage to get all of the color management stuff turned off. Go through the settings with a fine-tooth comb and disable everything related to color correction. Also, you may want to reset both your printer and printer driver to default factory settings before going through everything to disable the color correction stuff. Resetting to defaults may save you a major amount of trouble.
Once I got the printer driver settings figured out, profiling worked perfectly.
Another thing, depending on the type of printer you have, the Colormunki profiling software may generate a CMYK profile instead of an RGB profile. Unfortunately, lots of software (including print drivers) doesn't work with CMYK profiles (for example, Lightroom is only compatible with RGB profiles). If you have an ink jet printer then it's probably using an RGB data stream and you'll end up with an RGB profile, but other things like laser printers will give you a CMYK profile that you may only be able to use with something like Photoshop (which will convert RGB color spaces into CMYK.) This tripped me up for a while until I figured out what was going on. For now I'm stuck with having to print everything through Photoshop (or some other CMYK producing software) to use my profile to print my photos to the laser printer, but the results are good enough that I don't mind too much.
Spot Measurements: The munki also comes with Photo ColorPicker for measuring any random opaque objects you want to know the exact color of. The only real problem that I see with this is that the device can have trouble collecting spot measurements from some non-flat surfaces. For example, I tried to read the patches off of my ColorChecker Passport and the thing isn't flat enough (due to the plastic case) to get the measurement port solidly against each patch. This doesn't affect monitor and printer profiling in the least, but it could be a little annoying for those trying to measure the color of random objects. To get something without this issue, though, you'll be spending a lot more on a spectrophotometer. In any case, the software it comes with for spot measurements is pretty good, and it does work on most things.
Bundled Software Quality: The included software runs smoothly and does what you need for multiple monitor and printer calibration, I just wish it included some utilities for emissive spot measurement and creating basic Spectral Power Distribution plots. (Photo ColorPicker is great for "collecting" spot colors from objects, but it only supports reflective measurements and doesn't do SPDs.) All of the software that comes in the box is pretty simple and doesn't offer a lot of fancy advanced features. The most elaborate software in the box is probably the ColorPicker.
Other Software: NEC's SpectraView II (for calibrating their displays) recognizes the ColorMunki and it does a pretty good job on their own MultiSync PA241 even compared to their own custom colorimeter puck. Currently I'm trying to evaluate whether or not it's even worth buying NECs puck if you already have a ColorMunki, but I haven't come to any conclusions yet. (Their puck is more accurate at really low luminance levels like 10cd/cm3, but that's about it.)
Even without the SPD plot and emissive spot measurement features in the bundled software, I was still able to get SPD plots and emissive spot measurements (among other things) by downloading Argyll CMS (free). The only issue with Argyll CMS is that it's lacking a slick GUI (you'll have to open a terminal and use command line tools like 'spotread -S' to get SPD plots, even on Mac), but it seems to work perfectly with the Colormunki. It's also free, whereas similar CMS software with a nice GUI will cost you $100-$500 or more.
Other Goodies: It looks like they're now shipping the Colormunki with a small ColorChecker Classic calibration card (for creating DNG camera calibration profiles) making it an even better deal. I had previously bought a X-Rite ColorChecker Passport for around $100 which is almost (but not quite) the same as what's now included for "free" with the Colormunki.
Overall, I would recommend this to anyone needing an affordable solution for display and printer calibration. If you think you'll do any color printing at all, ever, or ever need to measure spot colors, then just skip the display-only colorimeters and get this thing! Otherwise you may end up buying this eventually anyway, and selling off your colorimeter.
Customers also viewed these products
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
Great results in that price range
Quick and dirty what I do and don't like in this little device:The most important positive thing about it is... that it works. Which only at first may seem to be obvious but from my previous experience with different color calibrators it not always is so. And I don't mean that you can't calibrate the monitor using them. You can, but it closer resemble engineering process than quick and painful task you can do every other Monday to make sure your monitor profile is up to date. With ColorMunki the bundled software does that job perfectly. It checks your monitor's current setting, asks you to adjust contrast or brightness level if needed (usually you have to set them during initial calibration, then they don't change that much if you don't touch them) and then does it's job in a matter of seconds. No unneeded options (those are hidden if you really want to play), just few clicks and your monitor is done.What I do not like about it? The most annoying thing is the device's design. It's built as a rotating ring/button/circle inside bigger enclosure. You're supposed to turn the whole inside ring between different steps of calibration process. The problem is that one side of that ring actually works as a button activating currently selected function of the device. I find it very difficult to turn the ring without pressing the button. You have to constantly remember about it otherwise the software will try to start it's job while the device is obviously not ready causing errors to pop up. The other thing I've notice is that it's very important to reset any possible monitor settings to the factory defaults, otherwise you may get strange results. That thing was actually mentioned on the X-Rite website's but I've read that after I was done with the job.In the end it took me less that 45 minutes to calibrate all four monitors I have. Considering price - well worth it.
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2011
- Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2009
Top reviews from other countries
-
-
comercialReviewed in Spain on May 30, 2015
Muy bueno. Marca la diferencia a la hora de caibrar la impresora inkjet.
-
-
-
