Georg N. Nyman PhD.

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COLOR MANAGEMENT WITH X-RITE PULSE COLOR ELITE SYSTEM

Color management is essential for all photographers who wish to obtain reproducible, correct and consistent color throughout the entire imaging chain from taking the picture over scanning, viewing, editing and finally printing it. Among the various systems available for these tasks, there are two of them, which stand out of the crowd and are probably the ones which gained widest acceptance - the Gretag Macbeth system and the one, I am reviewing here, the X-rite Pulse Color Elite System.

This system consists of two devices - the Monaco Optix display calibrator and the Pulse Spectrophotometer and of course a lot of software. The monitor calibrator is an optional element, but I would not recommend it to be left out. Monitor calibration is essential and this little mouse-like device is fully integrated into the software and should be included in the color management process.

Similar to the Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Display system, this device connects to any USB port and once the color management software had been installed, it is recognized automatically. Contrary to the Gretag Macbeth device, it does not come with an ambient light measurement accessory, which is OK but I prefer to have the ability to see if the ambient light quality and intensity is according to recommendations for color management work. Yes, one can work well without it, but it is nice to check the ambient light level once in a while as well.

Monitor calibration with the Monaco Optix calibrator

The X-rite Pulse Color Elite software is installed and activated - so let's start. As soon as the SW is called up, you get the initial screen with all the choices available - as you can see, I had connected the PULSE device already, therefore I got the confirming message to tell me that it is connected - if you connect the Monaco Optix device, you do not see that message of course

We select Display Profiles now and get to the monitor calibration start screen

As you can see, there are two options - the "Calibrate and Profile" requires you to set up the contrast, white point and brightness of the monitor before profiling it whereas the option "Profile only" takes your current settings for the three values and profiles the monitor based on these settings. The option 2. offers you the choice between a CRT monitor and an LCD monitor. Gretag Macbeth offers in addition a third choice - Laptop screen. I think that for serious photography, to calibrate a laptop screen is a luxury and not really necessary but it is a good option for those who give presentations using DLP projectors and presentation programs like MS PowerPoint - then one should have the Laptop monitor and the projected image color managed -and this is currently still an exclusive feature of the Gretag Macbeth system.

The next screen tells you what to do with the attached Monaco Optix device - place it on an opaque flat surface - you can use your desk, a book - basically anything which is not transparent. But slightly holding it down, the dark foam which surrounds the measurement area seals it completely off from the ambient light and the dark calibration is done correctly and automatically within a few seconds.

Next you have to choose which color temperature you prefer to use - the standard viewing conditions are D5000, which is 5000Kelvin but if you prefer the "standard daylight" of 6500K, you can select it as well as any other white point optionally. Regarding gamma, you can select the traditional 2.2 value for PC or the 1.8 value for MAC, again, your choice.

The next step is to place the Monaco Optix device on the screen (don't move it - I fastened it with by attaching the included little weight), and press "Measure". My recommendation is to dim the ambient light a bit if you are working in a bright office - which is anyway highly recommended for proper color work. Now do as the text tells you and a few seconds later, the measurement is done. Leave the device there and go to the next screen

The measurement process starts as soon as you press the appropriate button - it is done automatically and takes a couple of minutes at most, depending on your PC performance. 35 different colors and shade of grey are displayed inside the square. This square is located at the same place is the one before, that's why you need to leave the calibrator untouched.
The Gretag Macbeth system has a search and find routine built into the program - you can place it somewhere on the screen and the program will find it automatically by displaying bright patches in various locations until the device was located. I think that this is nice but not really necessary unless your monitor has got a setup program which is always displayed at the center of the screen, exactly there where the standard location of the measurement square is located - this is the case with one of my LCD monitors (KOGI). For that monitor, I like that feature of placing the calibrator somewhere off center and let the program find it. I need to do this as the Gretag Macbeth system requires me in the Advanced Mode to adjust contrast and brightness during the measurement process.

This brightness adjustment is required here as well (adjust it until an arrow is inside a range of green) and therefore, same is true for this system - either you can move the monitor setup screen out of center or move the program window or the device. If you have a screen resolution higher than 800x600, then you can move the program window - that was an option which I have chosen for this system as my screen resolution is 1280x1024.

Anyway, after a couple of minutes, the automatic measurement is done and we get to the next screen which tells us that the measurement process was completed with success

The next screen is now the one which tells us that we are just about to create the monitor profile

The information displayed gives you a quick overview concerning three important monitor values - white point, black luminance (darkest black) and white luminance (whitest white) and now you can create the profile.

You can select a name and place the created profile in the proper folder - here it is shown for Windows XP. That was all, the monitor is calibrated and that profile is taken as default profile from now onwards.

Gretag Macbeth adds here a reminder option as monitor profiles should be updated once in a while - yes you can do it yourself, why activating an electronic reminder, but for those who are very busy or when more than one person works on the same monitor, it is a nice feature. I do not like it too much as after the active period has ended (as example 4 weeks) you always get a reminder popping up during PC start-up, telling you that your monitor profile is out of date. OK, maybe a question of preferences, but I prefer to do it myself whenever I want to do it.

Regarding the main differences between the Monaco Optix and the Gretag Macbeth Eye-One Display, see my direct comparison webpage which you can find here:

 Comparison X-rite vs. Gretag Macbeth *coming very soon

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Last modified: 19-May-2007