Design and features
Any photographer is aware of the critical role of colour management in their workflow. The affably named ColorMunki is a spectrophotometer — or in plain English, a calibration tool designed for photographers, designers, or anyone looking to effectively capture and manage colours on their computer, printer or projector.
So from the outset ColorMunki Photo has to cover a lot of ground, yet its stylised look gives little away. The quadrant is coated in black plastic and on one side has a rotating dial that you have to switch between different modes during the calibration process.
The other interesting feature is that the ColorMunki is able to extract a colour from just about anything you stick it on. We tried it on a sleeve and a table, with the ColorMunki picking up an accurate colour reading of the surface.
ColorMunki comes with a protective carry case, weighed down at one end with a sand-filled holster that's designed to counterbalance the weight of the unit when positioning it over your screen. It's compatible with Windows XP and Vista, as well as Mac OS X 10.4 or later. Also included is a mini USB cable, as well as an installation guide and the CD containing the software...
Performance
...or at least, that's what we thought the CD contained. As it turns out the initial installation process involves inserting the CD into your computer which then prompts for you to download the installation package from the company's website — a 318MB file.
After a frustrating to-and-fro with the download (make sure to use a download manager as we experienced a lot of trouble with drop-outs), the installation process was ready to begin. Until we reached yet another stumbling block — having to install the .NET framework on our machine.
All in all the process took the best part of two hours to piece together, and this will depend on the speed of your internet connection. The distributor of ColorMunki in Australia told us that they would be happy to provide customers a CD with the installation files on request, though we don't see why this isn't just a standard procedure to include one in the box.
ColorMunki can profile an LCD display, laptop display or a projector. Starting the calibration process is fairly simple, and you can choose whether to run the diagnostic in easy or advanced mode. During the calibration you are provided with graphical instructions on how to turn the device so it can measure the ambient light falling on your monitor. The next step is the calibration process itself, which involves placing the device directly on your monitor while secured in the provided pouch, tethered at one end to your computer via the USB cable and weighted on the other via the pouch strings. During this time your screen will flash several different colours and the device will read the monitor's output — be prepared to make a cup of tea during this time as it will take around five minutes.
You have to make sure that the device is sitting in the pouch correctly otherwise it will be unable to take a reading from the screen.
The one thing that we did notice mostly after the monitor calibration was that the display appeared a lot less harsh. The software allows you to swap back and forth between profiles to show you what your screen looked like in a before and after montage.
The software also has provisions for calibrating your printer to match your monitor's display. This is specially for photographers who want to make sure that what they see on their monitor is what they get when printing images. The process involves printing test strips and sliding the ColorMunki up the coloured strips to obtain readings. A custom printer profile is then created to match your display profile.
Conclusion
Despite the frustrating set-up process, the ColorMunki Photo does deliver on its premise of being an effective colour management tool for photographers. If you've previously been put off by the complexity of managing monitor and printer profiles, the ColorMunki is relatively straightforward to use once you get over that initial stumbling block. However, the ColorMunki won't make up for a poor input so it's still essential for the photographer to ensure a correct workflow process at every stage, from capture (correct exposures) to printing.
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