ColorMunki Photo - Monitor, Printer & Projector Profiler
by X-Rite
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List Price: Our Price: $449.00 You Save: $50.99 (10%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $380.00 (click here) Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of ColorMunki Photo - Monitor, Printer & Projector Profiler
Customer Review: Excellent Choice for Fine Art Printing
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been giving the ColorMunki a workout for several weeks and find that it is easy to use and my print colors have never been more accurate. It replaces a first generation Pantone Colorvision Sypder I bought in 2002. My desktop is year old quad core PC from HP running Windows Vista Ultimate, an Acer Ferarri 20-inch LCD monitor and photo printer is an Epson Stylus Photo 2200 printer. I've seen a number of negative reviews here that leave me baffled, so I offer some advice.
1) Before you install ColorMunki software, be sure to un-install and/or disable other color management software, like Adobe Gamma. On Windows, I'd recommend using a good registry cleaner, like RegCure, to insure no color management applications are being loaded in the background.
2) Check to make sure your graphics card software is set to the defaults. Some games and photo editing software might "tweak" the color management settings.
3) The ColorMunki "Easy" mode calibration requires a good, late model graphics card and software controllable graphics monitor. For best results, use the "Adanced" mode and check both "Optimize brightness" and "Optimize Luminance" boxes.
4) Don't calibrate you in monitor in "Advanced" mode a darkened room. A fairly high level of ambient light is needed to set reasonable levels of brightness and luminance on your monitor. This is likely the source of comments that brightnees on iMacs and other LCD monitors can't be turned down enough to make the ColorMunki happy.
5) When creating paper profiles a) allow test prints to dry at least two hours before you scan them and b) make sure you scan the strips on top of a white card or stack of like paper. My fist calibration of Epson Ultra Premium Presentation Matte paper was a little off because I scanned it directly on my blonde wood desk.
6) Most laptop displays really cannot be calibrated adequately for critical color work because they use an integrated GPU with limited capability. Results are going to be disappointing if the laptop does not have a dedicated GPU, like the ATI Mobility Radeon X800 or nVidia GeForce 9600M GT and fully adjustable display. Only high end laptops meet this criteria, like the new MacBook Pro or HP Pavilion X16-1040.
7) Take your time. The brightness and luminance readings take about 30 seconds each time you make a change.
Customer Review: Great device, but beware: color calibration is not for the meek
Summary: 5 Stars
I've used a number of color calibration tools, and find the munki to be about the best for the money. (I use it on a Mac Pro with a 30" monitor and an HP B9180 printer.)
Color profiles are very tricky to use on the Mac, and even trickier on Windows. Basically, you need to make very, very sure that you're not correcting the image twice. In Lightroom, for example, there's a pulldown for whether LR or the printer manages its colors. Make sure your setting matches the printer driver's setup! (This is somewhat done for you on the Mac, but not on Windows.)
Lightroom is the easiest tool to use for printing, at least in my experience. Doing it from Photoshop is harder, and you often have to wrestle with the various settings to get it right.
Anyway, I believe this double-correction issue has more to do with the negative reviews than any problems with the device itself. The munki is very, very easy to use. A lot of stuff that would be a lot of work in other tools (e.g. color calibration targets) is all integral to the device, and well managed by the munki software. The profiles themselves are absolutely great -- at least for my setup.
Finally, if you care about getting photographs right -- both on screen and on paper -- a tool like the munki is essential. Editing photos on a well calibrated monitor will help ensure your photos will have a life beyond your current computer or screen. Imagine the trouble if you notice all your old pictures look a little greenish on your next computer. Which was right, your new machine or your old? And will you enjoy editing 5,000 pictures to fix the problem?
Bottom line: great tool for the dedicated amateur photographer. Everyone should at least calibrate their monitors. If a munki seems a little rich for your blood, then consider a Pantone Huey instead: Pantone huey MEU101
Customer Review: ColorMunki Saves Time & Money
Summary: 5 Stars
Alright, no one wants to listen to me ramble or wax poetic, so here it is, short and sweet: I have used other monitor profiling hardware in the past, and all of them work to some extent, but nothing, regardless of cost, can compare with the X-Rite ColorMunki Photo. It is the most accurate and predictable piece of equipment like this I've ever used, and if all it did were accurately profile my dual displays, so that they finally matched for the first time since being purchased, that would be reason enough to be completely satisfied.
However, the real reason that I love my ColorMunki is that it also accurately profiles my Epson large-format printer. For the first time since buying this expensive puppy, what I see on my monitor actually appears on the prints that I produce. Regardless of whether the paper is watercolor, semi-gloss, glossy, or professional velvet, when the appropriate profile is created and then selected, the results are always 100% accurate and predictable. When you're spending approximately $15 out-of-pocket for every print that comes out of this machine, mistakes are costly and amount to considerable money very quickly. In the first month since acquiring it, I have easily paid for my ColorMunki in paper and ink savings alone, to say nothing of the enormous amount of time and frustration that has been saved. Recently, I created a dozen large-format prints that I had orders for using only twelve sheets of paper. Previously, I would've used between thirty-six and forty-eight to end up with perfect final products. That means, from this one print job alone, my ColorMunki saved me between $360 and $540!
Buy your X-Rite ColorMunki Photo with absolute confidence, but don't second-guess the setup or calibration procedure in any way. Follow the steps exactly as they are outlined in the extremely simple onscreen tutorial and your results will always be spectacular.
Customer Review: does what is says it'll do - almost
Summary: 5 Stars
I've owned the color munki for about a month now and I've done 3 or 4 monitor calibrations and two printer calibrations. Here is what I can say about it: the color munki comes with its own software and mine needed to be patched before I could use it. Of course, you have to install the software and then run the program before you know it needs a patch but before it tells you about the patch, the first thing it wants to do is have you register at their website, so I did. Then it told me about an update being available, so I downloaded it. The update does not auto install so you need to go through all that again. At which time it will again ask you to register the software. Now, that threw me a bit and I wondered if perhaps the first registration didn't take. So I registered again. No harm, no foul - just a bit of a bump during installation.
After all that, everything went smoothly and the color munki is performing as advertised. My monitor is calibrated and my printer is calibrated and almost everything prints as it is displayed on the screen. I say almost everything because my blacks are just different enough that I can notice. I haven't had the time to do an advanced calibration but I am hoping that when I do it solves that problem. The munki is on the expensive side of the scale, but I wanted a good calibrator and I'm sure once I deal with the blacks problem I'll be totally satisfied.
The munki is well built and the case it comes with is nice also. The zipper allows you to fully enclose the case but still access the port to plug the wire into it. Rotating the knob is a bit weird for me - just awkward I guess. But not a big issue.
I love the fact that you can calibrate several paper types and have the profiles saved for future use.
Customer Review: Can't be beat at this price point!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the third color calibration system I have used. It's really great but has benefits and limitations that I will outline below:
Generally, until now, being able to calibrate your monitor AND your prints has been impossible without spending $1000 or more. Of course, if you are a high end production photographer or someone who requires perfect calibration for pre-press, then this is not the tool for you.
This is a great tool for an advanced amateur who is satisfied with really decent monitor to print accuracy, but not absolutely perfect results. It gets you about 90% there. I use it to give my printer an advance look at what I think my digital files are capable of, as a guide to creating a final print. I also use it for all the home printing so that I don't waste paper. It's saved a bundle of $$ so far not to have to print twice!
I won't go into all the nitty gritty. The software is fairly intuitive, especially compared with the higher end products. It's a quick process - about 30 minutes from start to finish to set it up if your printer is already installed.
I found it to be a little less accurate with Black and White printing than color.
The best part is that with LCD screens you only have to calibrate once and it lasts as long as you have the printer. Find a friend who also wants to calibrate and share the cost.
You'll be pleased to finally be able to hit the print button and get what you expect from you printer!!! Good luck!