ColorMunki Photo

I'm just wondering if my old ColorMunki Photo will be up to making decent paper profiles for my new printer.

Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1100

It's not the ColorMunki itself that I'm worried about but I don't have much confidence in the newer software.

Any thoughts?

The Calibrite ccStudio software works fine with the ColorMunki Photo. You can also still download the last X-Rite version:


As far as I can tell the two programs are identical. Calibrite just seems to have changed the splash page.

Thanks for your reply. Have you actually been profiling papers with this newer software?

Yes. As I say, it seems exactly the same as the last X-Rite version.

Calibrite's monitor profiling software for the ColorMunki Display may be different and better, but I haven't felt it was worth $40 to find out. I use DisplayCAL for that.

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/65610732

Bob P.

Great. Thanks for the replies and the link. I really appreciate it.

rpjallan said:

I'm just wondering if my old ColorMunki Photo will be up to making decent paper profiles for my new printer.

Canon imagePROGRAF PRO-1100

It's not the ColorMunki itself that I'm worried about but I don't have much confidence in the newer software.

Any thoughts?

Click to expand...

I also have an aging ColorMunki Photo. The original ColorMunki Photo software IMO should only remain in your toolkit for one reason: spot measurements of colors. But the newer X-Rite i1Studio software (version 1.5.1 is the newest for Windows, version 1.6.0 for Mac OS) makes perfectly good ICC printing profiles.

Much is made of building printing profiles from readings of only 100 (for color) or 150 (for B&W) printed patches. However, only the first 50 are 'standard' patches, and after reading those, the software produces a custom set of another 50 or 100 patches to print and read, from which it then builds the profile. Given how 'smart' the software seems, I suspect that it tends to be about as accurate as a more traditional 'brute force' set of basic (non-custom) patches much greater in number.

FWIW, I also have a fairly new Calibrite Display Plus HL, their top colorimeter, and Calibrite Profiler installed, which I use for my monitor. I don't know whether I could use it for making printing profiles, either as is or after paying an upgrade fee, but I feel no urge to find out, given my contentedness with i1Studio 1.5.1.

If you look at the latest Calibrate software you'll find a whole lot of stuff greyed out...

Some of these bits of functionality are no doubt meant to replace the i1Studio functions at some point. Will it end up costing you money to try?

Given X-Rite's recent gutting of their extensive old software archive, I would strongly recommend getting hold of installers for older stuff whilst you can.

There is a strong mood amongst some companies to regard any support of older software/kit as a direct threat to revenues.

Thanks Keith. Will do.

Keith Cooper said:

If you look at the latest Calibrate software you'll find a whole lot of stuff greyed out...

Click to expand...

Yep. Maybe a year or two ago I tried the new Calibrite version of the i1Studio software ("ccStudio". I think), and some functions were missing but no new ones were added. I uninstalled it and reinstalled the last X-Rite version (1.5.1).

Keith Cooper said:

Some of these bits of functionality are no doubt meant to replace the i1Studio functions at some point. Will it end up costing you money to try?

Click to expand...

No because ...

Keith Cooper said:

Given X-Rite's recent gutting of their extensive old software archive, I would strongly recommend getting hold of installers for older stuff whilst you can.

Click to expand...

For years I've made a point of saving installers--maybe not every version, but at least some of them:



I strongly recommend that to everyone.

But the other problem is that some installers, or at least the first use of the software, will need to check in with some authentication and licensing server, and if that goes offline, then we have a new problem.

Keith Cooper said:

There is a strong mood amongst some companies to regard any support of older software/kit as a direct threat to revenues.

Click to expand...

I have a lot of cynical thoughts, but I'll spare you for now.

What are the missing functions you've noticed? I can't see any difference between ccStudio and the last X-Rite version. Neither of them have the spot color picker included in earlier iterations.

I don't use the Colormunki Photo for monitor profiling, so I don't know what Calibrite may have done there.

Hackensacker said:

What are the missing functions you've noticed? I can't see any difference between ccStudio and the last X-Rite version. Neither of them have the spot color picker included in earlier iterations.

I don't use the Colormunki Photo for monitor profiling, so I don't know what Calibrite may have done there.

Click to expand...

Your last statement explains it, at least partially. Off the top of my head, the difference I remember was for monitor profiling with my X-Rite ColorMunki Display colorimeter. Calibrite eliminated the ability to try to measure / account for flare / glare on the surface of the monitor. There was some debate about how useful this function is, but IMO taking the option away from the user was a bad move.

Subsequently Calibrite offered me (and at least many registered X-Rite owners) a new, top-of-the-line Display Plus HL colorimeter for half price, so now I use Calibrite Profiler with it to calibrate and profile my monitor.

I figured it was something like that. Have you noticed any practical difference between the old and new device (aside from speed) or the results?

Hackensacker said:

I figured it was something like that. Have you noticed any practical difference between the old and new device (aside from speed) or the results?

Click to expand...

In terms of how the monitor calibration looks / its apparent accuracy, I have not noticed much if any difference between after calibration and profiling with my older X-Rite ColorMunki Display and my new Calibrite Display Plus HL colorimeters. So why did I upgrade:

(1) Future-proofing: the new top model will work with pretty much any display, including some 'new technology' models and models with internal LUTs, which mostly don't support the older model.

(2) Bargain: the new top model is normally $340, but I got it directly from Calibrite for $170. Sometimes the deal is too tempting even if the need is marginal.

(3) Reported performance benefits: over on LuLa some of the experts were discussing colorimeters, and at least one reported that when the newer X-Rite / Calibrite models came out that could e.g. support high-brightness / HDR displays, they also produced more accurate results with 'standard' display. Just because my uncalibrated eyeballs don't notice much differences does not mean there's no visible difference.

(4) Potential benefits / flexibility from higher-end software: the older model uses relatively basic software, but the newer one uses more sophisticated software. There may be benefits from that, albeit not yet figured out by me.

(5) Device life: every device has some limited lifespan, either until it stops working, or at least until it stops working with peak accuracy / precision. My older device was not old, but was IIRC seven or eight years old. I can't assess the importance of that / predicted useful life, but it did occur to me.

All of that might not add up to much, and maybe it wasn't a wise expenditure. But I did it, and those are the reasons I did.

So it looks like the last software available for printer profiling (I'm not concerned with monitor profiling currently) with the ColorMunki Photo is CCStudio 1.1.4 from 6/4/23. Would that be correct?

I also still have I1Studio v. 1.5.1 & 1.6.0.

rpjallan said:

So it looks like the last software available for printer profiling (I'm not concerned with monitor profiling currently) with the ColorMunki Photo is CCStudio 1.1.4 from 6/4/23. Would that be correct?

Click to expand...

I don't know. Although I tried some version of ccStudio ...

rpjallan said:

I also still have I1Studio v. 1.5.1 & 1.6.0.

Click to expand...

I'm back to i1Studio 1.5.1 (for Windows) for printer profiling.

Yes, that’s the most current version.

The 1.6 version of the X-Rite program is Mac only. The last Windows version is 1.5.1. For printer profiling it really doesn’t matter which branded one you use. If you read through the help sidebar of ccStudio you’ll see it’s still referred to as i1Studio.

I paid around $170 for a used i1Display Pro, so that sounds like an irresistible deal.

I am using a Mac so I'll see how I go.

I just got an email this morning saying the printer is ready to collect but I'm not sure if I'll be able to pick it up before Friday.

Thanks again for all your helpful replies.

Yes. That Calibrite complete version sure does seem to be stillborn. I'm just happy that the ccStudio version works on M1 Mac and with my ColorMunki Photo.

It took some work, but I also bought a scanner target for a very low price from X-Rite and was also able to profile a flatbed scanner.

Overall, here in the States, I found the X-Rite and Calibrite customer service to be good-excellent. Very impressed with all the work they went through to get a $10 item to me and with super-packing. This is what our companies used to be like.

As Keith says, download everything you can while we can.