X-Rite Color Munki question.......

So admittedly, I borrowed my friends color munki display calibrator and software to calibrate my display. The question I have is the device meant to be plugged in measuring the ambient light at all times? I keep getting a message that it needs to be calibrated even though I just did it. My friend wasn't sure as he didn't like what it did to his display and doesn't use it

Well, I'm very happy with my ColorMunki, but I can tell you that the software doesn't play well with multiple user accounts on Windows (both 7 and 8.1). For example, I have three accounts on my Windows 8.1 PC, and had the same setup on my previous Windows 7 machine. Both my account and my wife's account are Standard accounts with limited privileges, and then I have one Administrator ("Root") account. I ran the calibration under my account and all is well there. I did not do any calibration on my wife's account, but the X-Rite software wants to be running in the system tray anyway, and if left there after a few minutes it will pop up and say that it is uncalibrated (which it is on that account). The easy fix is to right click the icon and select "Exit" to turn it off. I seldom restart, preferring to sleep instead, but whenever I do a restart I have to remember to exit the X-Rite software on her account.

I could easily go into the Color Management Control Panel and select the "calibrated" monitor profile for her account, but the X-Rite software would still think it is uncalibrated. I leave her account set that way because some of the Windows image viewing software doesn't seem to like the calibrated profile.

Hope there is an answer for you somewhere in all that rambling...

By the way, if you don't use the reminder function or do ambient light monitoring there is no reason to have the software running in the background. Once you point Windows Color Management to the correct profile that's all that needs to be done.

Rimmer wrote in post #16830905
Well, I'm very happy with my ColorMunki, but I can tell you that the software doesn't play well with multiple user accounts on Windows (both 7 and 8.1). For example, I have three accounts on my Windows 8.1 PC, and had the same setup on my previous Windows 7 machine. Both my account and my wife's account are Standard accounts with limited privileges, and then I have one Administrator ("Root") account. I ran the calibration under my account and all is well there. I did not do any calibration on my wife's account, but the X-Rite software wants to be running in the system tray anyway, and if left there after a few minutes it will pop up and say that it is uncalibrated (which it is on that account). The easy fix is to right click the icon and select "Exit" to turn it off. I seldom restart, preferring to sleep instead, but whenever I do a restart I have to remember to exit the X-Rite software on her account.

I could easily go into the Color Management Control Panel and select the "calibrated" monitor profile for her account, but the X-Rite software would still think it is uncalibrated. I leave her account set that way because some of the Windows image viewing software doesn't seem to like the calibrated profile.

Hope there is an answer for you somewhere in all that rambling...

By the way, if you don't use the reminder function or do ambient light monitoring there is no reason to have the software running in the background. Once you point Windows Color Management to the correct profile that's all that needs to be done.

OK, so is the device meant to plugged into a USB port at all times to monitor the ambient light and then adjust the display accordingly?

Canon_Shoe wrote in post #16831582
OK, so is the device meant to plugged into a USB port at all times to monitor the ambient light and then adjust the display accordingly?

It can be used that way but you don't have to. I've never tried using mine that way because the area where I do processing is pretty consistent in lighting.

Yes, as part of the program/process/profil​e the ambient lighting is always being monitored. I believe you can get around this by selecting an option to not update or remind to re-profile the monitor, but I don't know if that is an option.

If it were my software design, I would design the system so it didn't work unless the ambient light monitor was plugged it. That way I would generate more sales knowing that I would make it tougher for people borrow a friend's software to calibrate their monitor.

Having used the software for 1 year, I am able to see that my monitor does need to be re-calibrated @ 1 a month to get the contrast and brightness set correctly before running the calibration tool. And this is with a Dell UltraSharp monitor.

BufordFZ1 wrote in post #16832625
Yes, as part of the program/process/profil​e the ambient lighting is always being monitored. ...

Only if the ColorMunki is plugged in and that option is selected in the program. "Enable Ambient Monitoring" is an option that can be turned on or off as desired by the user.

The reminder function and ambient light monitoring are two separate functions. The former doesn't require the CM to be always available; the latter does. (That's going from memory from first set-up two years ago. I don't use either function and my CM sits in its box most of the time.)