What happened to Monaco?

General Color & Graphics Monitor Calibration & Soft Proofing
1

Is Monaco still in business? There website monacosys.com doesn’t seem to exist anymore, and Chromix is one of the only sites that comes up in my searches.

I bought a Monaco Optix XR calibration device and EZcolor software a couple years ago for my Windows machine. However, I just bought a Mac and before installing this older version I wanted to see if there was an newer version available anywhere for Intel Macs.

I can’t find any current info about them and don’t want to install old, unsupported software on my new system. I was also noticing some strange colours in recent profiles, so I’m not sure if the device is even working properly anymore.

Chromix is still selling Monaco stuff, so can someone please tell me what’s happening with the company?

Thanks,

Andrew

2

Monaco was purchased several years ago by XRite who continues to support their products. You can find the latest software downloads at xrite.com/support_downloads.aspx

There are a number of XRite and non-XRite applications that support the DTP94 (OPTIX) that you have for display calibration. Color Eyes Display Pro is notable for it’s advanced features like white point tuning, time tracking, L* tone encoding, verification etc.

Scott Martin
www.on-sight.com

3

Thanks for the reply. I found the latest version of EZcolor and will give it a try.

Cheers,

Andrew

4

So I installed the latest version of EZcolor, but after calibrating and profiling my monitor had a noticeable pink tint. I was also testing ColorEyes, but was getting similar results.

The common element here is the Optix XR device. Could it be defective or maybe it wasn’t really designed to work with LCD displays? It is a couple years old, but I’d rather not replace it if I don’t have to.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

Andrew

5

The OPTIX was so well made with such good QC (I wish I could say the same for the EyeOneDisplay) that I doubt it is the cause of your pink cast.

This is always hard to troubleshoot without looking at your environment but could it be that you have a good bit of green and/or cyan colored light in your studio that the monitor seems pink from relative comparison? If so, I would suggest using ColorEye’s “White Point Tuning” to tweak the color of your whites to match the color of your light as viewed reflectively from a white piece of paper. Or consider installing high quality lighting (like that from Solux) that will enhance your print viewing and increase your ability to get an excellent print to screen match.

6

Thanks for your reply. My walls are an egg shell white, my curtains and blinds are pure white, and I use a daylight balanced compact fluorescent bulbs at night. However, I usually try to calibrate during the day with the blinds and curtains drawn and the lights off, so the lighting is very moderate. However, I can still see the pink cast clearly when I look at the Getty reference tiff file in photoshop. When I revert to the default profiles created by the Mac the color cast is gone and the grey scale is very neutral.

I also find it hard to believe that the Monaco is defective, but I don’t know how to determine this or what to do next.

I still appreciate the advice and will have a closer look at my environment as well.

Cheers,

Andrew

7

Don’t forget to try the “White Point Tuning” feature.