 Pantone Huey
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What is it? A monitor colour calibration tool
We clicked with: Easy to use, ambient light sensor, cheap, did I say easy?
Shots in the dark: None really!
Our quick verdict: Accurate colour reproduction at a reasonable price
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Links: Read other
member reviews of the Huey, get more
Pantone information and visit the
Pantone website
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Visit a TV shop and take a look at the displays. Chances are that all the different screens will show the same pictures but the colours all look different. Now you know they all started out life the same because the BBC only transmits Eastenders in one colour but they all look different because their colour bias is different. Now that's not too serious (who really cares exactly what shade Dot's hair is this week?) but when you get into digital photography it becomes a little more important.
If my screen looks different from yours then who's right? If we both send a file off to a lab to be printed, will it match yours or mine or neither (because it certainly can't match both). Welcome to the complex world of colour management.
Colour Confidence supply all sorts of devices, programs and gizmos to help you through this maze so we were delighted when they sent us one of their latest (and least expensive) toys to play with the Pantone Huey.
Let me say this right away. If you only ever look at your pictures on your own screen and print them on your printer and aren't too fussy then you don't need a colour calibrator. If you want to show them to other people or print them on “outside” printers (e.g. a lab), or display them on the web or simply get the best possible tonal reproduction then read on. You're going to need some way of calibrating your screen and this is one of the easiest.
What it does
I'm going to start with what it doesn't do. No screen calibrator makes your prints match your screen. I put that in bold because it's the most common misconception about colour calibration. What a colour calibrator does it match your screen to everyone else's. Pictures on your screen will look very similar to mine. This means when you put something on the web all the people who have calibrated their screens will see pretty well the same thing. More importantly, your screen will be similar to that used by your lab when they set their printers. It will also be similar to the one used by Canon or Epson or whoever when they write their printer drivers. It doesn't mean your prints will match your screen but unless you calibrate your screen it's pretty unlikely they will.
You might stop and wonder at this point why screens aren't calibrated by the manufacturers and by Microsoft/Apple. The answer is that they are - but not for photography. Most screens and computers are set up for using Microsoft Word since that's what the majority of them are used for. The best settings for showing black text on a white background aren't necessarily the best ones for displaying subtle shades of colour in a photograph.
Also, if you have explored white balance then you will know that tungsten light is a different colour from fluorescent light which is a different colour from sunlight. Unless you have carefully controlled lighting (and pro repro houses do!) then the colours on your screen will shift every time the light changes.
That's where the Huey is so clever. Like most calibrators, it measures the screen and produces an “interference” pattern. If your screen makes things a bit more red than it should then a colour profile effectively says “reduce the red by 4 points” to get the colour it should have been in the first place. But the Huey goes further - it sits on your desk and monitors the light. Every few minutes, it measures the light falling on the monitor and adjusts the screen so that the correct image is displayed. And it does this seamlessly in the background. All you see is that the monitor looks correct regardless of the ambient lighting. At least that's the theory - let's see.
Installation
A doddle.
Put the disk in your drive and run the install. When it prompts you, plug the Huey into a USB port and follow the instructions. You will be guided to place the Huey on your screen and wait while it measures different colour patches and builds a profile. When it has finished (and it's quicker than most calibrators) it shows you the difference it has made and prompts you to put the Huey in its cradle on your desk. Then just forget about it until it reminds you it's time to calibrate again (weeks later - monitors drift over time).
This is the easiest calibration device I've ever used.
My only slight concern were the suckers on the back of the Huey. On a CRT (old school monitor - big and heavy) this would probably be fine. LCDs are a little more fragile. Most people recommend not sticking anything to an LCD screen. I opted to hold it in place during the calibration.
You can also choose various different “activities” for your profile such as Game Playing or Graphic Design. Naturally I chose Photography.
Does it work
Yep. Testing calibrators is actually pretty tricky unless you have all kinds of reference materials or a second device to check it with. Human eyes are very good at adapting to colour casts and effectively neutralising them. This is why a hardware calibrator is important - if you try adjusting by eye it's a very subjective process.
To test the Huey I set my Mac up with twin Dell Ultrasharp screens. I calibrated both with my own Spyder (this is the original Pantone one - later models are supposedly more accurate) and did some careful checks in Photoshop to make sure that they were pretty close to each other. Then I installed the Huey and recalibrated one screen (note that it ONLY works with one screen). I checked the calibrated sreen of colour accuracy using the other as a reference. They were pretty close but the Huey screen was noticeably cooler and more neutral than the Spydered one - eyeball checks make it looks like it gives a better colour balance than my Spyder.
Then I left it for 10 days. I use my computer at all times of day and night with a mixture of close to daylight halogen lights and natural light coming through 3 different windows. Periodically I checked the screens for colour balance using some reference files. The Huey one at all times looked more natural and slightly cooler than my Spydered one. I've been using the Spyder for a couple of years because it gives good results - the Huey is better to my eye and automatically adjusts when the ambient light changes.
I was initially worried that the ambient sensor could produce wild variations for example if a blue mug was close to it or a shadow passed over it. In 10 days I didn't spot this happening. Periodically I turned off ambient light correction - the difference was always very subtle. I could easily get by without it but it's a nice addition.
What's not to like?
If the Huey supported dual screens then I'd buy one tomorrow (actually I'd call Colour Confidence and explain how a freak accident took out their review model…). However, ther is no support at all for 2 monitors.
I'm really not crazy about the suckers. Monitors cost a fair bit and are reasonably fragile - I'd prefer a counter weight to hold it up like my Spyder has.
There's no support for individual RGB calibration - on higher end calibrators you can make tiny adjustments to your monitor before calibration for a more accurate result.
Our Verdict
If you use a single monitor, don't have any kind of calibrator and want to get accurate colour reproduction at a reasonable price then go and buy a Huey. It's pretty well that simple. Screens just can't be calibrated by eye. The Huey will do it for you. Best of all, since it's sitting on your desk and reminds you when to calibrate you will actually use it. Your screen should always be up to date.
You can spend more on calibrators and they will generally give you better results but even the worst hardware calibrator will give you better results than you will get on your own. This is by far the easiest to use calibrator I've seen.
