articles/Digital/colourMunkidisplay-page5
by Art Suwansang Published 01/06/2012
As advanced as this software is, it still has two modes of operation, the basic and advanced, depending on your colour workflow needs. Where the basic mode would still give you controls, however, the interface prompts are simplified and act in a similar fashion to the ColourMunki Display. The advantage of the i1Display Pro beside the software is its speed; on average this device is about five times faster than the industry standard ColourMunki Display; therefore it is ready to take on a large set of colour patches to create profiles for display or projector with greater accuracy.
After a few weeks of playing and testing these devices, I am more than happy to recommend any of these two colourimeters to anyone who is just profiling displays and projectors. From end users that are just getting started with display profiling to photographers who are beginning to create their colour workflow to advanced photographers, printing and publishing; this device comes in a small package that will not disappoint. The ColorMunki Display carries a manufacturer's retail price of £139 inc VAT ($189 US) and the i1Display Pro at £199 inc VAT ($269 US). They are amazing colour profiling devices, you can't go wrong so give it a try.
Mike's bit - we've not had a rant for ages!
We asked Art to write up this feature having seen him effortlessly set up the system provided in his seminar room at the Convention. Up until that time setting up a projector had seemed a little fraught! We went back for another go when we got home. Our experience is not quite as rosy as Art's.
Initially the i1 Display system kept throwing up a warning that the optics were aimed too high. A couple of adjustments later they were saying we were too low and so it went on until we put the i1 Display onto a vernier tripod head and adjusted it a degree at a time! This did not solve the problem it still refused to co-operate, going from too high to too low within a degree! The next day we tried again with the projector further from the screen.
This worked first time and delivered a very accurate profile which audited to within a couple of error points.
Next we reset the projector by allowing it to 'auto set-up' - big mistake, all settings were lost and an error of up to 36 points was reported. Then the system started on the 'optics too high optics too low' antics and we were unable to make a profile on the reset projector even after a few hours of grinding. We then went back to using an i1 Pro and GretagMacbeth Eye 1 Match. This behaved perfectly and made a profile. However, when we tried to audit the profile using i1 Display it refused, saying that the profile was incompatible with the system.
This seems in addition to the problem that the newer system makes Type 4 icc profiles and these are known to be incompatible with many Mac systems. You can also make Type 2 profiles off the i1 Display by changing the preferences. By this time the i1 Display was getting close to being introduced to the frogs in my garden pond, the issue with both i1 Display and i1 Publish had been going on for almost three days! It should be noted that the profiling and auditing of monitors was progressing reasonably well although some goofy audits were being returned from what were obviously OK calibrations.
There are 0 days to get ready for The Society of Photographers Convention and Trade Show at The Novotel London West, Hammersmith ...
which starts on Thursday 1st January 1970