My regular readers will remember that I predicted a crash in monitor-calibrator prices as Windows Vista looms on the horizon - looks like I was right, even sooner than I expected. Entry-level monitor calibrator prices are diving.
The favorite party favor in Color Management circles should soon be the Pantone Huey device - with its $89 list price now, I expect it to be retailing below $50 when Vista hits the streets. The Huey is an OEM product from Gretag, if my info is correct, and this means swiss-designed hardware, and good quality control.
The Huey adds an interesting twist to calibration, as the sensor sits next to your monitor and continually feeds real information about ambient lighting to the computer. With Vista's measurement-based WCS capablities, this could mean that color is readjusted to match not only the ambient illumination intensity but also the fluctuation of color temperature with varying daylight or mixed lighting.
Of course, we can expect Gretag Macbeth to release a low-priced product of their own soon, before the Huey knocks the bottom out of the i1Display sales in the photo channel; also, I wonder how they're feeling at ColorVision, the company that makes the Spyder, the moderate-cost and moderately precise calibration product previously marketed by Pantone. As for Xrite, well guys looks like youre gonna have to lower prices too, but at least no one has ever complained about your product's quality !
Last, not least, about my tag-line: I would expect the Huey to be a favorite "bonus" item soon in the channel with Photoshop or Epson printer bundles, and hopefully a few screen makers will finally see the light and bundle calibrators with displays...
4 comments :
Great! Would you want an ever changing monitor - and call that "calibrated"???
The press release says, it´s for gamers and photo enthusiasts - and somewhere they also claim, it´s for professionals, just not to leava out any possible victim.
Let´s stick to serious tools!
Edmund, you're not just an evangelist, you're a prophet!
Check out www.graphintel.com/controlfreak to see the first example of the Huey being bundled free, in this instance with a touring seminar for graphic designers that is sponsored by GretagMacbeth and Pantone, among others...
you are informed right it´s a gretag oem. but I´m wondering if this thing really works ... the marketing says "for gamers & webshoppers" ... I don´t know if this is a way to go at least for photography. on the other hand i have seen colorvision spyder2express at macworld for USD 89 .....
pantone is a marketing company and has probably no big knowledge behing (digital) color ... on the other hand gretag is a swiss engeneering company ... if they oem it ... the question is: is the thing not good enough for gretags channels - so they burn it through pantone ?
....
I recently purchased the Huey to calibrate my laptop. It is a Gateway 675, 17" 1440x900, XP home, 128 mb Radeon 9600 with the latest drivers installed. Adobe Gamma is not running.
I ran through the calibration process and the before/after results show that the Huey adjustment has a green cast to it, less bright, and less contrast than without the adjustment. When looking at many pictures that I have taken with my Nikon D50, the colours (people, clothes, blacks, grays, etc.) look more realistic without calibration.
The Macbeth Colorchecker takes on a green cast in calibrated mode. Uncorrected I see more realistic colors, blacker blacks, etc.
I have calibrated several times, with the lights on and off and get the same results.
The dealer I bought it from said he has seen the same thing on some LCD's and laptops and is looking to Pantone for a solution.
Make sure you can return it if need be.
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