When you get the ColorMunki, you get a USB spectrophotometer; that is based on the much more expensive i1 Pro product from X-Rite. It is zipped in a pouch with a sandbag handle. It looks about the size of a construction grade tape measure. You also get a small manual and the installation software. The CD only contains a downloader so you will need an internet connection to get the latest version of the software; and since this is a new product you will definitely want to keep up with updates. The product license also allows you to install and activate ColorMunki on 3 separate computers.
After installing the software, to use the ColorMunki as a monitor profiler you select ColorMunki icon and you are presented with three options. The first is for round tripping between the monitor and the printer; which is probably what you will want to do when you first set up the system. The second option is for monitor calibration; which you will want to do on a regular basis, and the third is for printer calibration. Because the first option encompasses the latter two, I will focus on the second two as individual steps.
The beauty of the ColorMunki system is that it walks you through everything that you need to create a color calibrated monitor. Once you make a couple selections you are requested to hang the product over a spot on the monitor and the system takes over. Basically what happens is that the software displays specific colors on your monitor and the ColorMunki uses its spectrophotometer to measure the colors displayed for correctness. After it completes its process it then gives you the opportunity view the before and after results. You are then asked to save the profile.
Part two is the profiling of your printer. This consists of printing a test chart that contains 50 sample colors in five strips of ten. Once the test chart is printed, you are asked to wait for 10 minutes for the sample to dry; the system puts a timer on the screen which can be overridden if need be. This is where you will need to use some judgment because the longer you wait for the image to dry the better your representation will be, but that could lengthen your workflow because that will also be how long you will need to wait for your actual images to dry to see if your colors are matching.
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