Earlier this week X-Rite announced the X-Rite ColorMunki family of products including the X-Rite ColorMunki Design, ColorMunki Photo, and ColorMunki Capture. I have had the chance to use this product with the latest ColorMunki Photo software this week as well. Below I’ll share some initial remarks on this exciting new color management spectrophotometer.

Initial Impressions of the X-Rite ColorMunki:

The X-Rite ColorMunki is a pretty small device that could easily fit in a bag, measuring only 4×4x1.5in thick. In the center is a a dial you turn to orient the measurement window to the different measurement functions.
Simply align the white arrow on the dial to where you want to measure. Turn the dial all the way down to measure printed charts, spot measurements, and LCD/CRT monitors at the 6:00 position. Calibration is performed at the 7:00 position. The 9:00 position allows you to measure projected images and 12:00 for measuring a light source. Pretty nifty.

Monitor ICC Profiles:

The process of creating a monitor ICC profile is really simple. The whole screen flashes the colors instead of a small patch in the middle of the screen where the ColorMunki is positioned. The ColorMunki did not recognize my Eizo CG LCD display as DDC controllable. I don’t think this is a real issue as you would probably have a puck supported by the Eizo ColorNavigator software anyways. The quality of the monitor profile seemed fine with no immediately apparent issues. Maybe this was because the Eizo monitor was corrected previously in Eizo ColorNavigator software which adjust the monitor not the video card LUTs. The ColorMunki comes with a jacket that slips over the device and has a sand filled strap. The sand filled strap is the counterweight needed to hold the ColorMunki for monitor calibration and profiling.

Printer ICC Profiles:

Creating a printer ICC profile is very easy. Simply align the white arrow to where you want to measure. Turn all the way down to measure prints at the 6:00 position. To print your color chart X-Rite ColorMunki allows you choose any printer from the list of printers available in your Printer Setup on the Mac or Printers on a PC. Printing of color ICC charts is done directly from the X-Rite ColorMunki software without the need save a file. If your RIP publishes a printer then ColorMunki software will send a CMYK test chart instead. The printer selected from the list dictates which chart is sent, no user selection. This makes it much easier and more fool proof insuring the charts gets printed properly. For this quick test I used an Epson Ultrachrome RGB print driver with Epson Prem SemiMatte 250 paper.

The first printed chart has five columns of 10 patches each. The color patches are pretty large and fat. The measurement area on the ColorMunki is relatively 1/3 to 1/2 the color patch size, so there is a lot room to wiggle. And wiggle and swerve I did. The ColorMunki is pretty forgiving and I was able to measure the 50 patches pretty easily in less than a minute. The ColorMunki software munched on those measurements and came up with a second chart based on the first measurements. I printed this second chart of another 50 patches and went through the measurement process again. I was then able to save the custom ICC profile and optionally have ColorMunki configure my Adobe CS2/CS3 and Quark 7 apps.

The Results:

Well I have to say hats off to X-Rite. The results are extremely impressive. I printed a test image that I was very familiar with and is difficult to reproduce well. The results were good flesh tones, good separation in the shadows, acceptable pastels and neutrals. This was very exciting and surprising at the same time!

So then I am thinking, lets compare these results to a professional color management packaged. I choose the X-Rite MonacoProfiler Gold v4.8 and X-Rite DTP70 spectrophotometer bundle as the reference for comparison. I printed MonacoProfiler’s standard 729 RGB patch chart and built a GCR ICC profile. After converting from the file’s native Adobe RGB color space to the new MonacoProfiler Gold ICC profile, I reprinted the same test image. You can compare these results with your own test images by downloading the ICC profiles listed below.

Though the results were very close to the reference there were differences when compared side-by-side and someone was looking for a difference between the two. In all honesty though, the X-Rite ColorMunki is way more than acceptable and pretty darn close to the reference professional color management package. Though I haven’t tested extensively, from this initial test it’s clear X-Rite has achieved the amazing feat of getting color management spectrophotometry into the hands of a larger audience, at a price point they can consider investing into.

Download X-Rite ColorMunki ICC profiles to review against X-Rite MonacoProfiler 729 patch, X-Rite DTP70.

Dan Reid
ColorGeek2.com