Pantone Huey Pro review
Posted July 2nd, 2009.
As you no doubt know, no 2 screens are the same. Due to manufacturing differences, software settings, and the age of your screen, each display shows colour differently. When printing this obviously creates a problem.
If your working on corporate ID using Pantone colours having a 100% accurate screen probably isn’t critical as you’ll be referring to your Pantone swatch book for colours and will know exactly what to expect. For anything full colour your monitor needs to be right.
For a roughly accurate display you can try to match onscreen colours to you swatch book, though doing it by eye is never going to be perfect.Between changing ambient lights and your brain correcting what you see, you’ll never create a truly accurate profile.
This is where monitor profiling hardware like the Huey Pro comes in.
Monitor profiling tools such as the Pantone Huey Pro, are sensors you place on your screen which read test patterns to create a monitor colour profile to match your printed media.
While there is a selection of profiling hardware available it seemed logical to buy the Pantone Huey Pro since they also manufacture the inks use in commercial printing. Unfortunately I was met with mixed results when using my new purchase.
Firstly, to attach the Huey Pro you must push the unit onto your screen so the 6 small suctions cups stick to it. I pushed a firmly as I was comfortable with only to have the Huey fall off repeatedly. In the end I held the unit on the screen while the calibration ran, not willing to press any harder on the LCD.
When calibrating my monitor for the first time i was disappointed to find my Huey was in fact faulty, making my screens horribly green. After emailing Pantone, I searched the internet for a solution I found I wasn’t alone, my problem is apparently very common.
Additionally, despite all the Huey Pro’s claims of working on LCD’s screen I found an answer from a Pantone tech, buried in the depths of their support forum stating it does not work on gloss LCD screens, which have been standard for a few years now.
Pantone did however reply to me the next day and send a replacement no questions asked, great service on their part.
Conclusion
After getting my replacement unit it worked great. It’s important to note too, that the Huey Pro supports multiple monitors while the Huey standard does not.
Beware though, as i said earlier there does seem to be a high percentage of faulty units. Another product to take a look at if the Huey doesn’t fill you with confidence is at the Datacolor Spyder.
