By Kelly Turner (Macworld)
Years ago, when I first jumped into digital photography, I knew just
enough about image editing to be dangerous. After one particularly
enthusiastic color-correction session, I sent off my photos to an
online service for printing. They’d looked great on my screen, but
the images I got back in the mail told a different story—my perfect
colors had become over saturated and infused with orange. I vowed to
never use the service again. But when I opened the originals on a
coworker’s screen, it was clear that I’d done the damage myself.
The problem, you see, was that I hadn’t bothered to calibrate my
monitor.
Most professional photographers and creative types understand the
importance of monitor calibration. The process helps make sure you
can trust what you see on your screen so your editing decisions are
based on the right information. But many digital photography
newcomers and hobbyists are a harder sell. For one thing, monitor
calibrators tend to be on the pricy side. One of our favorites, the
Spyder2Pro Studio () costs nearly $300. For another, the process
can be intimidating to people who aren’t clear on what color
temperature means—never mind how it affects their image.
I’m hoping that Pantone’s new monitor calibrator, Huey, will help
change this. Aimed at casual users and featured at this week’s PMA
show, the $89 calibrator attempts to take some of the mystery out of
the calibration process. About the size and shape of your index
finger, this lightweight device suctions onto the front of your CRT
or LCD monitor. You plug it into your USB port, load the software and
then use a simple wizard to start the calibration process. Huey runs
through a series of test, asks some simple questions about your
preferences, and lets you compare before and after results.
Read more at http://www.macworld.com/weblogs/editors/2006/03/
hueycolor/index.php
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