Introduction:

A short story first -

Whenever we deal with colors, we are dealing with people whom are dealing with troubles. Hardly two persons can come to an agreement of the same interpretation of color. After the husband painted the bathroom from the color his wife has picked, she came in very much upset of the greenish bathroom turned out to be bluish grey. Her smart husband showed her the color sample and color code she had signed off, and showed her the label of the paint matching the color code she had picked. Still, he ended up repainting the bathroom.

How about my sister went to the store and came home with a pair of red shoes only to return them because they were not the same red she saw in the store.

Let's get back to the "huey" from Pantone, a color correction/calibrator for LCD and CRT monitors. Pantone has been around for many years. If you are in graphic arts or marketing, you might have heard of the name or used their products already. The "huey" is priced reasonably at around $70. There are three versions; Basic, Advance and Pro. The review sample is the "basic" unit.





A retail type of packaging reveals with hang tag after I took it out of the corrugate box. Looking around Pantone's website, I noticed the units could be purchased from "BEST Buy" chain store. After removing the clamshell plastic, I had to deal with the chipboard which is hot glued, a typical packaging for the mass market today; pain in the you know what.



content:

Software and driver CD

Manual

Two packs of "Klean"

"huey" unit

Cradle

USB extension card

The software is in multi-language and supports Windows XP/Vista and Mac O/S. According to Pantone, this is what "huey" does:

Designed for calibrating and profiling all types of monitors – LCD and CRT. Each individual package includes a huey measurement device (emission only colorimeter) with ambient measurement capabilities, and software for monitor calibration.

huey corrects the color on your monitor so photos and designs print more accurately, game graphics are more intense and movies are more true–to–life. Easy–to–use right out of the box, huey adapts your monitor for changing room lighting and applies your personal preferences for viewing accurate color all of the time.

Closer Look:

This little device measures about 4" (10cm) in length and 0.5" in width connected to your PC via USB. It has three sensors and eight suction cups on one side; 4-LCD in red and three optical readers on the opposite side.

It comes with a holder/cradle so that you can place the unit next to your monitor when you want it to monitor and adjust the setting automatically and continuously based on the changing color temperature changes in the room.

There is an USB extension cable provided in case the PC is placed a bit farther from the monitor. Without the extension the USB cable measures about 31" (77 cm), the externsion is about 46" (165cm). So, you have roughly 97" cable length in total.







The suction cups are to hold the "huey" onto the screen and the sensors facing the screen.

Installing the software is straight forware, and takes a couple of minutes; the application size is about 17MB. Please note the orientation of the "huey" placement onto the stand. The LCD should be facing down otherwise the sensors behind will be blocked.

Calibration:

Calibration or correction process takes about 3 minutes and the steps are easy to follow from the on screen display. It is best that the user works in a room with constant light source such as fluorescent or tungsten light source, whenever the color temperature changes so would how we perceive the colors on the monitor. Otherwise, "huey" provides the option to constantly monitor color temperature changes and adjust accordingly when the unit is placed next to the monitor.

After the software is installed, let's go through the process below;

Click to enlarge


Huey measures the color temperature in the room first, it will prompt the location to place the "huey" onto the screen.



Place the "huey" as shown on the screen and slightly pushed the unit onto the screen so that the suction cups will do their job making sure to follow the orientation indicates on the screen. Click "next', the unit will measure YRed, Green, Grey, Blue and White lights emitting from the display. When the process is complete, your choice to allow "huey" to monitor and adjust continuously, otherwise the sensor shuts off.




Interesting choice of options here; at the end "huey" asks your preference of color. In this case, I picked "Graphic Design and Video Editing".




Comparison:

The before (left) and after (right) shots were taken with digital camera, using screen capture would only defeat the purpose.

BEFORE---------------------------------------------------AFTER







For PC hardware enthusiasts, the following is for you; see the difference?



I found using "huey" on my Gateway laptop a bit tricky for two reasons. The suction cups were unable to keep it stay on the "shiny" display surface. I have to damp the suction cups a bit to make the unit stick. The outcome of the calibration returned a very "warm" color under tungsten light (the same condition I tested it on two standard 20" displays). I retested it in daylight, still with window shade down and the result was much better.

Conclusion:

The days of using color transparencies sliding into an enlarger in color print process were replaced by color analyzer sensor placed before the image; those were the good old days for photographers and darkroom hobbyists. We learned to make portraits a bit “warmer” to please. Often times, we enjoy looking at certain colors we like and not the true colors while others don't care or color blinded.

Today, PC monitors and digital cameras can be found in most households and adjusting those tiny buttons on the monitor is a pain; Pantone huey might come in handy. Now, just because you have calibrated your monitor, it does not mean you are going to have good color prints from your local photo labs. This depends on the editing or browser programs you use. sRGB (standard) or Adobe RGB color spacing produce different result which is an entirely different story. If you don't use Adobe RGB (mostly for professional) you should be okay most of the time.

I found calibrating the monitor under “day light” condition produces more accurate color than in tungsten lighting condition. Once the “huey” established the base-line, adjustments thereafter will be incremental. Resetting “huey” is necessary at times when too much changes in light source occurs the time I spent with the unit during test. I won't be using it to monitor the changes continuously as I found it unnecessary in my case.

Although I like the “huey”, I don’t think we should rush out to get one. Most LCD/CRTs provide auto adjustment and both ATI and Nividia driver software provide color adjustment unless you feel reading accurate colors from photos, art works and gaming is critical. If you don't notice the difference of the comparison photos on the previous page, you don't need "huey". Do I recommend the product? Yes.

Pros:

Easy to use

Reasonably priced

Cons:

No carrying case



You might surprise yourself after "huey" calibrated your monitor and the difference of the above photos surfaced at last.