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Munki business with the projector

November 5, 2008 I promised a week or so back that I would report back with news about my experience with the Color Munki as a projector calibrator tool.

Here ’tis: I love it!

The Munki makes color palettes, profiles your computer display, and will make printer profiles. It’s a real 32-band spectrophotometer, and it’s modestly priced (under $500). I have now tried everything it will do, and I like all of the features of the Munki.

My only gripe with the monkey for projector profiling is that the button to tell it that you’re profiling a projector is two levels deep under Profile my display – only then does it say “projector.” After that, the process is a breeze. First you calibrate the Color Munki, which takes only a few seconds, then you position its wheel to point out the front of the device, and point it at the projection screen.

About five minutes later, your projection screen looks extraordinarily similar to the computer display.

I tried it on a nice Epson projector in a classroom at the University. This projector had given me some grief in previous weeks. I am teaching Color Management this quarter, and it has been difficult to teach about color because the projector is so out of whack. When I put a gray rectangle on my screen, the projector would show a purplish color. Light tans were yellow-green. It was very odd.

Once I ran the Munki profiler on the projector, my whites were whiter, my brights brighter! Most significantly, the colors being projected looked almost the same as my computer screen. Now it's in-whack (the opposite of out-of-whack).

I have several iOne Pro spectro instruments, and I have a couple of the base units called “beamer” by X-Rite. I have profiled a projector once, but I don’t remember when. The reason is that the projector profiling process does not use ProfileMaker Pro software. It uses another program that I never remember to put on my MacBook Pro. As a result, I always forget to take the right combination of pieces to the classroom. The Color Munki solves this problem by making the process all-in-one.

It’s really nice when you can show your audience how something works, and have them see almost the same thing as your computer’s display. Score: Munki 4, old way of doing things: 0. This is a terrific product.

Posted by Brian Lawler on November 5, 2008 | Comments (0)