A spectro what? That’s what most people say when I tell them what this little device is actually called. But for me “The Munki” is far easier to say. Created by the minds at X-Rite, the ColorMunki Photo is the answer for people who take lots of pictures, but always wonder why what they see on the monitor isn’t what they remember shooting. This little gizmo profiles your monitors, even your printers and projectors, to allow you to display your shots exactly the way that you remember taking them on all your displays.
What is a Spectro-thing-a-ma-bob?
A spectrophotometer is a specialized device that “sees the full spectrum of colours”. This allows the device to measure the actual colour of everything that it looks at. As a result, it can quickly and accurately judge colours across a wide range of output devices like monitors, printers and even projectors. If you’re working with a multitude of output devices, you can see how this can come in handy to ensure that every device shows you the same picture. In other words, weird Uncle Bob will look just as drunk on the projector as he does in the family photos that you printed.
The folks at X-Rite have managed to squeeze all this functionality into the tiny chassis of the ColorMunki Photo, which we’re going to check out today.
System Requirements
You don’t need a fancy graphics workstation to use the ColorMunki Photo. X-Rite recommends…
Macintosh®
- Mac OS X 10.4 or higher
- 512 MB RAM
- G4 processor or higher
- 300 MB of available hard disk space
- Powered USB port
- Monitor resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels or higher
Windows®
- Microsoft Windows XP or Microsoft Vista
- 512 MB RAM
- Intel Pentium IV/AMD Athlon XP or better
- 300 MB of available hard disk space
- Powered USB port
- Monitor resolution of 1024 x 768 pixels or higher
Overall, the system requirements are pretty moderate so any modern PC should be able to use it. If you are using your computer for graphics editing, more RAM always helps.
What’s Inside the Box?
The ColorMunki Photo comes to us with the following goodies in the box:
- ColorMunki Photo Spectrophotometer with built-in Calibration Tile and Optics
- Protective Case which also works as a Monitor Holder
- USB cable (mini to standard)
- Software CD – Printer/Display/Projector Profiling, DigitalPouch, Photo Color Picker, Diagnostics, Operational Videos
- Quick Start Guide
Usually when you get a whole crap load of stuff in the box, you think you are getting a good deal. In reality, that just means that you’re in a world of hurt and setup. The ColorMunki bundle was kept simple on purpose to make the experience simple, friendly, and trouble free.
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The ColorMunki Photo
The unit itself looks far to simple to be able to do all the things that it claims to do. However, here it is. The neoprene cover that it comes with wraps around the unit itself and protects not only the unit itself from bumps, but prevents the unit from scratching up monitors that you are planning to profile. The strap that is attached to the unit is actually filled with sand and is weighted to allow you to easily position the unit onto any monitor for easy calibration.
Setting It Up
You know, I’ve never really been a stickler for colour calibration, simply because in the past, you’d need to invest in a heavy sum of specialized equipment to make it happen. Not only was it not cheap, but you’d need to be somewhat aware of what you were doing. Not so with the ColorMunki Photo.
Originally, I was concerned about the lack of documentation, which was totally unfounded. The setup process is very easy to follow and accomplish. Mac or PC, it doesn’t matter. Just answer the questions and follow the setup instructions and you’ll be through your first calibration and setup before you know it. I now know why a quick setup guide is the only thing they included to get you going. I mean, if all products were this easy to get going, we’d save a heckuva lot of paper.
Calibrating Stuff
The process of calibrating your display was really surprisingly easy. In fact, the first time I went through it, I had to ask myself if I did it right.
The calibration process is 100% wizard driven. So much so that, literally, a monkey could do it. I guess that’s why they call this the ColorMunki. Just pick an operation and follow the pictures and the prompts on the screen to get the job done. I wish everything was this easy to setup. Putting something in the microwave takes more effort.
The hardest part I found was just positioning the ColorMunki Photo Spectrophotometer unit on the screen as the weighted strap was just a tad bit too light to keep it there at times, espcially on larger monitors like my Dell 24 inch Widescreen. Since the process is so quick, I ended up just holding it up. I had no problems on laptops or smaller screens. Just something you should be aware of if you are a rich bastard with a couple of Apple 30 inch Cinema Displays.
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Calibrated to Perfection
At the conclusion of the calibration, you are greeted with a before and after screen that allows you to toggle between the original and the calibrated settings for your monitor. Although this is all fine and dandy, the shocker is when you actually go back to your desktop and notice the new found three dimensionality of your desktop picture.
Moving through some recently taken pictures, I was surprised by just how poorly my monitor was setup. Now just think for a sec how much time you spent adjusting your photos. In fact, you might not have needed to adjust anything. I did a before and after of a few pictures that I had thought I had adjusted properly and man, what a waste of time. The ColorMunki Photo will save you time.
The ColorMunki Photo Has Other Tricks
In addition to allowing you to calibrate your monitor to match your printer and vice versa, it also does projector calibrations as well. Off topic, I actually found gaming with a ColorMunki Photo calibrated monitor much more enjoyable because of the level of detail that is revealed. If you think about it, game developers and graphics artists have their screens calibrated as well, and the only way to get what they see is to be calibrated as well.
If you’re into interior design, you’ll find the ColorMunki Photo useful for creating colour palettes for projects. The Photo ColorPicker software allows you to not only extract colours from your own pictures, but allows you to take readngs from real objects. Tethered to a laptop, you could create a colour palette from any scene. The software also allows you to catalog and tag all the colours so you can quickly recall a palette to use for a project.
Finally, it would suck if all this calibration ended up in the dump once you take it out of the office. X-Rite has bundled software called DigitalPouch that wil zip up the files and embed the calibration profile that you used to edit your work into your files so that it will look the same no matter where you view your files.
Final Thoughts
The X-Rite ColorMunki Photo was a real surprise to me. Not only was it super easy to use, but it brought forth tangible benefits that I could see right away. You would think that this device would only be good for Shutterbugs and graphics artists, however, I found that everything looked better after a good calibration.
From DVD movies, to games, to even my desktop wallpaper, things just seemed to look more realistic and three dimensional after using the device and the software. I seriously could not imagine looking at another monitor again without running “The Munki” on it first. The only issue for some people is price. At $499 US, this solution certainly isn’t cheap, but considering how easy it is to use and how good the results are, it’s hard to rule it out if you are doing a lot of things that depend on the colour accuracy of your display. This is especially true if you are not only doing graphics, but also editing video as well. It’s truly a pro-tool for the masses. Get one if you can afford one. You won’t regret it.
Pros
- So easy to use and setup, a monkey could do it.
- Tangible benefits were seen immediately after the use of this product.
- Can not only calibrate monitors, but does projectors and printers as well, out of the box.
Cons
- It’s not cheap at $499 US
Overall Rating: 9.5 / 10.0
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