Spyder Pro 4/Color Munki

[Mithras]

After several years of taking photos I am now considering joining the ranks of the color calibrated. I have reviewed the Spyder Pro 4 and the Color Munki. But I have a question that I have not been able to find an answer for.

My question is this - will the Color Munki calibrate both monitors of a dual monitor setup?


I looked on line and through the archives but didn't see anything specifically addressing this issue for the Color Munki. If I missed it please point me in the right direction.

Since I don't do much printing I am leaning toward the Spyder Pro 4 as the price is more attractive and it does do dual monitor setups; however, the Color Munki's ability to do a monitor, printer, and projector without having to purchase any other equipment is also attractive. I just don't know which way to go.

Thanks for any insight you are willing to offer,

Thanks.

[Cross_]

For what it's worth I returned my Color Munki after 2 weeks. It sure changed my colors- for the worse.
I am now using the Spyder 4 and it works as advertised though of course you don't get printer calibration

[Sailor Blue]

Can't answer the question about the ColorMonki. You can try asking them if you can find an email address or phone number.

With the Spyder system be sure to get either the Pro or Elite version. I recommend the Elite since it will give you the full software but the Pro version will calibrate two monitors as well. To get the best calibration use the Advanced calibration mode and manually adjust the Brightness, Contrast, and individual RGB using the monitors controls. There are on-screen guides to make doing this easy. After that the software will fine tune the color control.

Two caveats.

Unless your two monitors are identical you probably won't get a perfect match. I have two different monitors and Spyder3Elite and can only get the two monitors close, not even when using the StudioMatch function.

You are also best off if you have two identical video cards with 500 MB of memory and an new video processor. This way you get two LUT's, something you don't get with a single dual monitor card. Photoshop and Lightroom seem to be optimized for the new video processors, especially the Nvidia ones, and use the video processor so many operations are much faster with this type of video card.

[Mithras]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions folks.

Cross - when you had problems with the Color Munki did you try customer service? If so how did they treat you? Have you found yourself in need of printer calibration or do you send your stuff out for printing?

Sailore Blue - Unfortunately my monitors are not the same. One is an HP while the other is a Samsung. I hadn't considered that aspect but it is good to know so if I do go with the Spyder I won't freak when I can't get them to match.

Thanks for the comments.

[UgashikBob]

Mithras:
I still haven't gotten a definitive answer to your question about the ability to calibrate both monitors in a dual monitor environment. In order to do that you must dual LUT's or look up tables in your graphics adapter/card in order to have separate profiles for each monitor. I was able to calibrate both monitors with my Spyder 4 pro but only one profile could be used at a time because my graphics adapter only has one LUT. I've seen this question asked on several forums and the typical answer from the graphics experts is what is a LUT? I seen the answer that says most newer cards that have two or more connection points have them but they aren't documented well.

[Cross_]

Originally Posted by Mithras

Cross - when you had problems with the Color Munki did you try customer service? If so how did they treat you? Have you found yourself in need of printer calibration or do you send your stuff out for printing?

Customer service was slow but friendly. It basically came down to "Is that menu option checked? Did you try that button? Hmm.. ought to be working now". Except it wasn't- my prints got muddier and my monitor had an interesting split toning effect with purple shadows.

Any high quality prints I send out to labs, I just wanted the ColorMunki to get better accuracy for my laser & dye sub printer.

[Sailor Blue]

Mithras. as you can see in my signature my two monitors are a Dell and a Samsung. I get a close match, but not a perfect one.

Like you UgashikBob, I searched for the answer to the question of whether or not any dual monitor (DVI in my case) used two LUT's. I even asked the question on the Nvidia forum but got no answer. I did find one post there which basically said that there weren't any dual monitor video cards that used two LUT's. The only way I know to get that is to buy two video cards.

Cross_, it is a dumb question but sometimes we overlook the simple stuff. Did you tell your printer to use the profile generated by the ColorMonki instead of the normal printer profile? If not, that could be the cause of the problem.

[Cross_]

Originally Posted by Sailor Blue

Cross_, it is a dumb question but sometimes we overlook the simple stuff. Did you tell your printer to use the profile generated by the ColorMonki instead of the normal printer profile? If not, that could be the cause of the problem.

It's been a while but I believe I told my printer not to touch the incoming data and had Photoshop do the conversion based on the ColorMunki generated profile. Then I did the same thing using the OEM's ICC profile with noticeably better results.

[haha1111]

Mithras, have you decided on munki or spyder? I'm researching the same two units. Keep in mind that the $169 color munki display doesn't do printer/projector cal, but the $449 color monki photo does.

I read somewhere that spyder4 4 can handle wide gamut monitor (Adobe RGB), vs. the munki can only do sRGB. Can anybody confirm that the munki cannot handle a wide gamut monitor?

[Steve_in_FL]

I love what ColorMunki has done to my screen and to my prints. You DO have to RTFM carefully, but the results are amazing!