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ColorMunki is the all-in-one color solution offering from X-Rite and brings some really exciting capabilities to the photographic market. But what is a ColorMunki? It is a full circle calibration and profiling product that makes round-tripping from your monitor to your printer affordable.
The folks at X-Rite have just updated the software that runs the ColorMunki so the purpose here is to go over the new features with version 1.1. To read about the ColorMunki in general you can check out my review. The upgrade to version 1.1 is the same for both the Photo and Design editions with the exception of one feature, the licensing, which I will cover in a moment.
So what is new with version 1.1?
• New License Agreement – ColorMunki Photo version 1.1 now contains the previously announced new end user license agreement allowing users to install and run ColorMunki Photo software on an unlimited number of computers they own. Please note that this new license agreement does not apply to ColorMunki Design which still has a three-computer license agreement.
• Optimized Display Profiling – ColorMunki now offers the ability to optimize display luminance based on either ambient light measurements or user-specified luminance values.
• User-defined ambient light levels allows users to see actual ambient light levels, giving detailed luminance value information to make any appropriate changes to the work environment before calibrating.
• Precise control of display luminance target and actual measured luminance values now displayed while adjusting display luminance, ensuring total accuracy of this function. ColorMunki 1.1 also offers the option for automatic video LUT adjustments, for more exacting control over luminance display levels.
• Optimized display contrast and brightness (backlight) workflow — ColorMunki’s all-new automated contrast-clipping test provides a user-adjusted contrast option for an assured easier and faster workflow.
• Greater flexibility in display profile naming users also have the ability to change the display profile name before saving and applying a new profile, so they can easily identify profiles if they want to change or switch when adjusting for different ambient conditions and color temperatures.
• All-new AppSet Support — ColorMunki AppSet functionality has been enhanced to support more AppSet functionality than ever, automatically setting the printer profile to ensure color accuracy when printing. AppSet increases ease of use, while reducing the color management knowledge necessary to achieve accurate color results. AppSet now supports CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X4, Adobe InDesign CS4 (Mac and Windows), and QuarkXPress 8.
• Expanded Palette Synchronization — Palette synchronization for ColorMunki is now expanded to support more software packages than ever, so that user-created color palettes are automatically stored in the correct location and ready for easy access and use with Corel Painter X, Adobe® Photoshop CS4, Adobe InDesign CS4 (Mac and Win platforms), QuarkXPress 8 (ColorMunki Version 1.1 also offers palette export/import when automatically configuring Quark 8).
• ICC Version 2 & 4 selection provides increased workflow flexibility and support for software applications, printers, and printer drivers that do not currently support ICC v4 profiles.
As shown with this release of version 1.1, ColorMunki continues to grow and improve. As I said in my review of ColorMunki, if you have spent hundreds to thousands of dollars on your camera, more on your lenses, another $500 or more on your printer, why would you not own a ColorMunki to get the best output possible? You need to check it out.
If you already own a ColorMunki, then all you need to do is to get the free update to version 1.1 for ColorMunki Photo or Color Munki Design. I highly recommend this product.
