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Colortmunki, is it useful?


Greg Law
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I don't use the Colormunki myself but I know people who do... maybe Jeff has comments on it... but I wanted to chime in to say that in general, for both 3D work and photography, it's very important to calibrate. If you don't there can be large differences between monitor and printer - you'll see color casts and unexpectedly bright or more often dark images that you didn't anticipate from what's on the screen. This has caused me a lot of grief in the past and when I started using calibration my prints got much better.

 

The simplest thing to do would be to calibrate your monitor and use a managed workflow with papers for your printer that have profiles available, but you can get deeper into it if you do your own printer profiling or get somebody to do it for you.

 

The 3DATS Advanced To Expert book has a pretty extensive chapter on all of this written by Jeff.

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Thanks Andrew,

Yes I just read that chapter. That is why I'm looking for a system to help me with this. The colormunki is in my budget limits so That is why I'm interested in it. I just want to make sure I get the right product for what I'm doing.

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The ColorMunki should be fine. I have one sitting on my desk, but have not had a chance to review it yet. Will be doing that soon. Although I can not confirm this, early reviews I read indicated they were not as accurate as the Eye-One (which are a lot more$), but I don't know if this is still true and to what degree if it is. I know Pierre-Felix, who is one of Autodesk's top max developers and one of their only color experts, uses one and demos it at AU, so I think your're safe. I personally like XRITE products and the UI and functionality of the Color Munki software is really good.

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I haven't used the Colormonki to profile a printer or scanner, but I have used it for the monitor, and for spot checking color. It is the third calibration device I have experience with, the others I have used are the EyeOne, Spyder3 Elite.

 

I would say that the Colormunki is a good all around tool. It will calibrate your devices, but can also be used to spot sample colors. Spot sampling color can come in handy when you need to quickly sample paint chips, or other colors. Though I don't know what the guarantee of these color samples being accurate are. I would rely on them more to make sure you are in the ballpark of the color you are after.

 

There are two main things about the Colormunki that concern me....

 

The first is that when calibrating a monitor you have less control over the settings. The Colormunki is more of a plug and play solution compared to the two other products I have used. Or at least I perceive it as more of a plug and play solution. You basically tell it the white point, and luminance, and it does the rest. It does not allow you to tweak the RGB settings to fine tune the display. This can probably be seen as both a positive and negative. Positive because it gives you less things to screw up, and negative because it gives you less control. Even though I have less control, I am been happy with the results I have received from the more or less automated calibration it does. Though I have only tried it on one brand of monitor, and this is the most finicky monitor I have when it comes to trying to calibrate it.

 

The second thing that bothers me about the Colormunki is the Industrial Design of the piece. Not the design itself, but the settings are not clearly labled, or clearly icon'd. Meaning I have to keep the instruction manual handy to make sure I know what setting it should be on.

 

Other than that it seems to do a fine job with calibrating and spot sampling. It also seems to be faster at calibrating than some of the other tools, though I have not times it.

 

Out of the 3 I have used, the Colormunki is quite a bit less expensive than the EyeOne, but easier to use than the cheaper Spyder3. The Spyder3 does allow you to do lots of fine tuning to the color/calibration settings, but lacks the spot sampling features of the Colormunki and EyeOne.

 

Also, as Jeff mentioned, Pierre uses the Colormunki, and included links in the latest 3DATS book to useful scripts he wrote that allow you to import the Colormunki's spot sampling files directly into 3dsMax, which is a plus. But you probably know that. ;)

 

Edit: I am using the Colormunki Design.

Edited by Crazy Homeless Guy
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The first is that when calibrating a monitor you have less control over the settings. The Colormunki is more of a plug and play solution compared to the two other products I have used. Or at least I perceive it as more of a plug and play solution. You basically tell it the white point, and luminance, and it does the rest. It does not allow you to tweak the RGB settings to fine tune the display. This can probably be seen as both a positive and negative. Positive because it gives you less things to screw up, and negative because it gives you less control. Even though I have less control, I am been happy with the results I have received from the more or less automated calibration it does. Though I have only tried it on one brand of monitor, and this is the most finicky monitor I have when it comes to trying to calibrate it.

 

 

Its actually not a fault, but rather a benefit. Because this is a new calibration device, the expectation is that it will be used on LCD displays (not CRTs) that do not have individual color controls and are DDC capable. New displays and video cards use DDC (Direct Digital Communication). DDC automatically adjusts the brightness, contrast and color controls that you use to do on the display. It does this by communicating with the display, video card and calibration software. This method is a lot more accurate and consistent.

Edited by Jeff Mottle
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Its actually not a fault, but rather a benefit. Because this is a new calibration device, the expectation is that it will be used on LCD displays (not CRTs) that do not have individual color controls and are DDC capable. New displays and video cards use DDC (Direct Digital Communication). DDC automatically adjusts the brightness, contrast and color controls that you use to do on the display. It does this by communicating with the display, video card and calibration software. This method is a lot more accurate and consistent.

 

 

Good to know. I always liked having access to the controls because I thought I could see what it was doing a little better. Move the red, hit read, move the green, hit read, etc...

 

It was probably all in my head. It probably isn't the firs thing, and won't be the last thing that is just in my head. LOL.

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Thanks for the advice. One more question.

Would you go for Colormunki design or Photo?

I'm leaning towards design because I also do a lot of photoshop colour plan work.

 

I'm going in the Colormunki direction for now as it fits in my current budget. I will consider the I1pro later if I need more input.

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I can't really recommend the Spyder3 Elite to anybody - been using it for a few years but it's never quite worked the way it ought to. Colours are ok but not spot on, despite many re-cals.

 

It doesn't help that monitors these days have switchable colour profiles (sRGB, 1998 etc). Very confusing.

 

I might pick up a copy of that Advanced > Expert book - Jeff - do you cover setting up colour management and dealing with monitor profile spaces too in the book?

 

Cheers,

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I might pick up a copy of that Advanced > Expert book - Jeff - do you cover setting up colour management and dealing with monitor profile spaces too in the book?

 

 

Yup, I have summarized as best I can my personal experience and about 2000-3000 pages of reading on the subject into about 50 pages. I cover the theory as well as practical applications and set ups.

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Yup, I have summarized as best I can my personal experience and about 2000-3000 pages of reading on the subject into about 50 pages. I cover the theory as well as practical applications and set ups.

 

that sounds excellent. think i shall pick up a copy.

 

was just wondering is it possible to get the currency to display in GBP on the new shoppe?

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Jeff covers the subject well from my point on view as a beginner on the subject. Something I personally should have read years ago. Would have saved a lot of issues for me over the last 10 years and will help my work place when I get back. I'm really surprised we haven't got on to this earlier.

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that sounds excellent. think i shall pick up a copy.

 

was just wondering is it possible to get the currency to display in GBP on the new shoppe?

 

Hey Alex,

 

Sorry the shoppe only displays currency in USD as that is how we pay for all of our products. The conversion will be approx 93 GBP including international shipping.

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Hey Alex,

 

Sorry the shoppe only displays currency in USD as that is how we pay for all of our products. The conversion will be approx 93 GBP including international shipping.

 

thanks Jeff. would be nice to be able to have a dropdown conversion box if possible but looks like i'll be ordering anyway.

 

cheers,

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thanks Jeff. would be nice to be able to have a dropdown conversion box if possible but looks like i'll be ordering anyway.

 

cheers,

 

 

The shoppe does have this feature, however I opted not to turn it on as I did not want to cause any confusion about what the actual cost will be. A lot of times people use a drop down and think this is the exact amount that would be charged to their credit card. Due to bank fees and the differences in exchange rate when the bank actually processes the card and the result can vary from 2-5%

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The shoppe does have this feature, however I opted not to turn it on as I did not want to cause any confusion about what the actual cost will be. A lot of times people use a drop down and think this is the exact amount that would be charged to their credit card. Due to bank fees and the differences in exchange rate when the bank actually processes the card and the result can vary from 2-5%

 

Ah right that's fair enough. I usually just use XE anyway, at least to get a rough idea.

 

Cheers,

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