ColorMunki

[stratman]

Does anyone on the forum have experience with X-Rite's ColorMunki, the monitor and printer profiling package?

I just purchased a Dell 2408WFP and thinking about a Eye One Display 2 to calibrate it, but the ColorMunki also does printer profiles which would be great for flexibility in using and experimenting with different paper for printing.

 

[Smile]

Does anyone on the forum have experience with X-Rite's ColorMunki, the monitor and printer profiling package?

I just purchased a Dell 2408WFP and thinking about a Eye One Display 2 to calibrate it, but the ColorMunki also does printer profiles which would be great for flexibility in using and experimenting with different paper for printing.

Since I provide color calibration services including printers and I use equipment from GretagMacbeth, now X-rite I had opportunity to try the equipment myself.

If you are looking to calibrate your monitor you better should try the Eye One Display 2 it's more precise equipment and often leads to wonderful results. The same can't be said about ColorMunki. Maybe because it's all-in-one solution maybe because it's X-rite creation (GretagMacbeth technology could not be replicated by X-rite so they paid enough to merge the companies).

If you intend to use ColorMunki to calibrate a printer you will be disappointed because you will waste allot of paper due to large print squares that make the target print and low printer profile quality since you have very limited amount of target swatches and you have them very big that increases error rate drastically.

 

[stratman]

Thanks for your feedback. I do like the Eye One Display 2. It has a solid performance record. Half the price of ColorMunki and probably a better calibration even theough the Display 2 uses a colorimeter and the ColorMunki uses a spectrophotometer.

My impression is that a ColorMunki printer profile requires only 2 sheets of paper, each with 50 patches printed on them. This profile can be augmented with a further paper with a selected image/patches if desired but does not necessarily produce any benefit beyond one additional iteration. Two sheet of paper doesn't sound too unreasonable a use of paper. I have also read that some printers and some paper will not produce good profiles even with its iterative process. Maybe your printer or paper was one of the problem ones or your ColorMunki was defective. Maybe the ColorMunki is not ready for primetime.

What kind of equipment are you using for calibrating monitors and printers?

 

[Smile]

Thanks for your feedback. I do like the Eye One Display 2. It has a solid performance record. Half the price of ColorMunki and probably a better calibration even theough the Display 2 uses a colorimeter and the ColorMunki uses a spectrophotometer.

My impression is that a ColorMunki printer profile requires only 2 sheets of paper, each with 50 patches printed on them. This profile can be augmented with a further paper with a selected image/patches if desired but does not necessarily produce any benefit beyond one additional iteration. Two sheet of paper doesn't sound too unreasonable a use of paper.

Two sheets A4? I wanted to say that what matters is sheet patch ratio, the more patches you can print on a sheet of paper the less is wasted. For example imagine expensive paper that a box of 50sht costs 100euro and you waste 2sheets to make a profile from 100 patches? That is very stupid in the first place. Least expensive profiles I make are from 45 patches for line-art and 936 for photos with 4 color CMYK printer. More patches or special requirements upon request.

I have also read that some printers and some paper will not produce good profiles even with its iterative process. Maybe your printer or paper was one of the problem ones or your ColorMunki was defective. Maybe the ColorMunki is not ready for primetime.

The problem I see are large patches, in my experimentation if patches are larger than needed that leads to bad profiles as software has to average more than it is needed. The results speak for themselves, you need optimal patch size not too small not too large. And sufficient number of patches to handle your task.

Some printers require linearization to print correctly (meaning you print one special chart measure it build profile and using this profile print real target that once read will be used for your real profile) some don't. And you can't do any of this using basic packages.

What kind of equipment are you using for calibrating monitors and printers?

I have more than 4000Euro invested into equipment, I have established privately owned business and have 5 years color profiling experience. I mostly work locally as this ensures great results once you see the equipment yourself can adjust it etc. as most clients don’t know how to do this.
But I can work (make remote profiles) via paypal, just contact me via forum.

As I said I use GretagMacbeth i1 Pro with automation “iO” for hardware and software with custom written software too.
I also provide paper evaluation sevices that are to determine if a paper has any optical brighteners and to read paper spectral curve that you can use to judge how linear the paper is. It's usefull to determine will paper show correct colors as expected or not. As you said some papers can't be profiled that happens if paper has alot optical brighteners and equipement can't compensate it, or equipement used to make profile does not have UV filter or both.

You can see video here since it's been removed by manufacturer: http://rapidshare.com/files/152508744/io.avi

 

[stratman]

As I said I use GretagMacbeth i1 Pro with automation iO for hardware and software with custom written software too.

Nice!!

No one believes the ColorMunki would compete with the i1 Pro. The question is, does it give good profiles, not great like i1 Pro, but good usable profiles for the non-professional. For the hobbyist, the ColorMunki may fill a need for printer profiles, something a few knowledgable sounding people say it can do. The monitor profiling has had mixed reviews with those in the know - some think it capable while others prefer their colorimeter-made profiles (Lacie Blue Eye Pro or Eye One Display 2 for instance).

For people like yourself, Smile, it is not going to be sufficient. It's like the difference between fillet of beef and hamburger. I don't want to spend $$$$ and I do enjoy a good hamburger, so, I am asking for opinions from those who have used the ColorMunki if it will be sufficient for the non-professional.

I'm still leaning towards the Display 2 at this time as it is ~$200 less expensive and it does monitor calibrations well. Since I only print for my enjoyment and do not sell prints, if I need to change photo paper I can obtain an icc profile as needed.

BTW, I read a post (not an "expert") that one can reduce the size of the printed patch output by 50% (IIRC) and get what appeared to them as the same resultant profile. Otherwise, with default patch output, when it worked, the expert reviewers thought the 100 patch iterative approach did a good job, suprising themselves too. While one reviewer said that a single profile made with ColorMunki appeared to work as well as one profile made from the traditional expensive equipment like yours, the other usable profiles were decent but not great. And they lamented that the hardware was capable of more but the software was lacking, maybe so as not to compete too closely to X-Rite's higher priced packages.

Some reviews I've read:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/reviews/profiling/colormunki.html
http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=24632
http://www.it-enquirer.com/main/ite/more/1311/
http://www.thinbits.com/2008/05/colormunki-pretty-much-doesnt.html

I found a YouTube video that might explain why some people are getting poor printer profiles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tw9qPRLuNw. The German fellow is funny and uses some adult language but he might be on to how to best set up for making printer profiles with certain printers and paper.

 

[Smile]

Like you said Display 2 is less and it's doing the job right. If you are going to need a profile for your printer you can use the money you saved to make full professional quality profiles.

X-rite doesn't even allow you to download software for colormunki online, talking about support

Vendor Matching (on MAC) will use the color profile installed by the printer driver. You should have this list of profiles empty when printing targets and use software that supports profiling so don't have to add them to this list in first place.
Colorsync is color profile Color Management Module (CMM) that translates ICC/ICM profiles. Windows uses "Microsoft ICM", Adobe uses "Adobe (ACE)".

I watched your video at youtube and all I can say is that this is exactly what happens if you dive into color management without knowledge. No miracle gadget will make you profiles that simple. And cost does not matter, you can take i1Pro and make even worse profiles. The key is knowledge you get over time. And because time is money it is wiser to buy a profile that has been professionally made and avoid all quirks.

It's also possible that you can get some even professionally made profiles not work for you because there has been a boom of advertisements online about unheard companies making profiles for 10$ or 20$ again you get what you pay for.
Color management is a linear business you can't skip a step and time is money - if you apply this logic then you come to a conclusion that there cannot be good and cheap profiles at the same time.

Colormunki was designed to compete with datacolor print fix (printer profiling) or spyder (monitor profiling) devices as all-in-one, its all clear however that it works worse as you would expect from any all-in-one.
Read some reviews about printfix Pro 3 or spyder its similar device with better track record. This time datacolor included a ruler to use the device more like i1Pro and avoid the strain it takes to scan each path one by one.

Keep in mind that hardware alone does not make good package, you need to have software that works reliably too. For example there is a company www.barbierielectronic.com they make very expensive devices for color management but they are not very popular and only their software understand how to communicate with their devices. If anyone buys their device then it's impossible to try the device with other software and see it it works better because no other software works.

Display 2 shines here as many different manufacturers support it.

All I want to say is that even software version can have huge impact, one works better for BW prints the the other for color prints etc. One software make can profile LCD better the other CRT. If you device is supported by third party software you are free to choose the one that works for you.

And I do have doubts about “Afterwards the software thinks to itself for a minute or two and creates a second set of coloured patches to 'fill in' information for problem areas with your printer/paper/ink/settings.”

This process is not designed to make profiles better it is designed shorten the time and patches you need to get acceptable quality profile (think of this “better than competition”). If you could print 900 or so patches you would make i1 grade profiles (it’s advertised to have i1Pro technology inside doesn’t it).

More patches allow the profile generation software to know that you are on the right track instead of having to calculate everything synthetically. After all your eyes is the final judge here.

BTW just remembered the time colormunkit tells you to let your prints dry for 10minutes is a joke at best. You must wait for 24hours and do not use hairdryer. Some paper can be left to dry for as long as a week.

 

[stratman]

Everything you wrote is supported in my reading. Very good post tying together a variety of elements.

I think the Eye One Display 2 is the way to go for me at this time. Have thought about the Lacie Blue Pro for its advanced reporting features but it's probably less useful for me as I'm only going to profile 2 monitors and the $100 plus is more than I care to spend at this time. The Display 2 should work quite nicely for my needs.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Smile]

Have thought about the Lacie Blue Pro for its advanced reporting features but it's probably less useful for me as I'm only going to profile 2 monitors and the $100 plus is more than I care to spend at this time. The Display 2 should work quite nicely for my needs.

Thanks for your input.

If you decide to buy Display 2 you can try third party software for it.

Try this software basICColor display 4 http://www.basiccolor.de/Datenblaetter/display/display.htm

You can get reporting like Lacie Blue Pro, the trial is 30 days and you can use full features. This means you can make profiles and do not need to buy the software.