The objective of this analysis is to inform about the differences between X-Rite / Pantone’s professional prepress colour management system, the Eye-One Pro with software, and the new ColorMunki Design. In order to compare systems that resemble each other as closely as possible, the Eye-One Pro Design package deal was taken as the comparison basis. Another option would have been to take ProfileMaker Pro Publish as the software basis. This would have made the price difference considerably more explicit (by 1,700.00 EUR), but the feature set would differ too much (Profile Editor, measurement of scanners, multi-colour devices, etc).

This analysis will first discuss the differences between the compared systems ("business processes"), then briefly discuss the cost and cost-effectiveness of both systems and then finally present you with a basic risk analysis.

The Process with Eye-One Pro Design

The Eye-One Pro Design package contains a hardware component and a software component. The hardware component is the Eye-One Pro spectrophotometer with a ruler system, some accessories to position the device on spot colours, and a free Eye-One Display 2 that comes included when buying from specific online stores.

The hardware component is of good quality, the output is at prepress level (inter-instrument deviations are less than 0.4 deltaE), and the construction of the devices is so that a maximum of versatility and accuracy are obtained for the design and prepress market.

The software component is Eye-One Match 3.x software, a program that allows users to easily and simply create a monitor calibration and profile, scanner and projector profiles and RGB or CMYK printer profiles. The software component is easy to use, but still difficult enough to require a manual to be read before using the system at its fullest.

The combination of the components enables an average designer to create profiles for his/her colour-capable equipment with the exception of digital cameras (extra module). The software component does not support the creation of colour patches, nor does it do anything to make the task of colour management easy.

The Eye-One Pro Design package is clearly aimed at creating a colour management workflow. Some creative support can be had in the form of the free i1 Share program, a utility that comes with the software and allows users to measure spot colours, set different lighting environments and see the differences between each environment in terms of the colours measured.

I have measured the learning process, the profiling process, and the i1 Share creativity support. Most of these measurements were timing the different processes, while others involved a qualitative assessment of the process. It will be obvious that the time it takes to learn the whole system will depend on a number of factors, while the qualitative assessment is wholly subjective. I therefore am not including the timing and quality assessment results. What I did instead is give the Eye-One Pro Design package a mark on a scale from 1 to 10. This mark is based on my considerable experience with colour management systems.

The Eye-One Pro Design package got a mark of 7.5 for colour management workflow support. For creative support, the solution earns a 5.5.

The Process with ColorMunki Design

ColorMunki Design also contains a hardware and a software component. Again, the hardware component contains a spectrophotometer, but this time without any accessories. All accessories are built-in. The hardware component was extensively covered in the review of ColorMunki Design, and is of good quality. The whole system is less versatile than the Eye-One Pro, and the accuracy is less, but results are very close to what can be obtained with an Eye-One Pro.

The ColorMunki Design system is aimed at designers who work with spot colours --more specifically, the Pantone spot colour system-- on a regular basis. The software component serves two goals: one goal is to enable a designer to easily create a colour management workflow starting with the monitor and ending with a printer. The second goal is to support the designer’s creativity.

The first goal was extensively discussed in the ColorMunki review. I concluded that creating a colour management workflow can hardly be made any more simple than with ColorMunki Design. From monitor calibration to printer profiling, the user is guided all the way, and assistance is available with every step in the form of short videos that explain how to proceed.

The second goal is left to the instinct of the designer. Although all functionality of the program that supports the creative process, is explained with the same short video method, it is up to the user to discover and explore the ColorMunki Design interface for colour patch creation, etc.

The overall objective of the system is to make sure designers can concentrate on their creative work, not on the technology. To that effect, there are a number of features built-in that allow designers to enjoy the shortest path to colour consistency. Examples are PrintSafe, which turns off colour patches that can’t be printed using the selected printer profile and Swatch synchronisation that synchronises colour swatches in different design applications with the palettes the user creates.

ColorMunki Design therefore serves two different but related processes, of which only one can be compared with the Eye-One Pro Design solution: colour management workflow setup.

Again, I measured the output of ColorMunki Design processes and found it to be better in some areas than the Eye-One Pro Design package. For example, creating a printer profile involves less fiddling because the colour patches are huge and there’s no ruler needed to guide the instrument. The concept itself resulted in far less misreadings of the instrument.

For colour profiling and calibration, I would give ColorMunki Design a 7. For creativity support, the solution merits a 7.5.