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Graphics product maker X-Rite sent in a sack of goodies the other day that left me happier than a geek loose in a computer mall.

 The bag contained four items - X-Rite's Digital Swatch Book, Monitor Optimizer, Colorshop 2.5 software and a Colortron II.

 What is all this junk and why should you care? Well, if you are an average PC user with a Wintel box who mostly plays video games and surfs the Net, read no further.

 If you are a designer, photographer, digital artist or anyone who uses computers to create colour, this is something you should know about.

 Colorshop 2.5 helps you create, blend and translate colours. It lets you describe colours in device-independent terms rather than the CMYK ink percentages that many digital artists are used to using.

 CMYK percentages yield different colours depending on the printer or press you output with. Device-independence means more consistent colour from monitor to printer to press.

 Colorshop's real appeal, however, is its ability to help you pick colours. Start with one, and the Color Harmony tool will show you six complementary colours.

 Throw your colour into the Compare tool and it surrounds it with a background colour. Change the background colour and you can see how it changes the way your main colour is perceived.

 Put your colour into the Lighting tool, and you can see how it will look under various types of lighting. Very useful if you have ever had a conversation with a client which involved the phrase: '. . . but, you didn't tell me it was going to be displayed under fluorescent lights!'  The Digital Swatch Book and the Colortron II are similar. Both are colour spectrophotometers, meaning they measure the exact colour of an object and transfer that measurement to your computer.

 Why would you need such a thing? Well, when the Colortron first came out, the manufacturer thought it was just the thing for designers who wanted to match the red of an apple exactly, or who needed to match a colour sample brought in by a client without a lot of fiddling with Pantone chips.

 You just put the business end of the Colortron on the skin of the apple and you instantly get an exact, device-independent description of the colour transferred to your computer.

 I do not know how many designers are willing to spend US$1,000 just so they do not have to fiddle with Pantone chips, but the thing that really made the Colortron was using it with colour-management software.

 With the Colortron and an application such as PrintOpen or ColorBlind, you run out a number - say, 200 to 900, depending on the software and the device being profiled - of colour patches on your printer and your press.

 Measure the patches with your handy colour spectrophotometer, and the software compares the results with the original file and generates a description file or ICC profile which tells your computer how the printer or press alters the colours.

 Use these files in conjunction with graphics software such as Photoshop, Quark, Apple's Colorsync or Microsoft Window's ICM, and you can use your printer to simulate your press, allowing for consistent, predictable colour from design to finished product.

 There are a few minuses. The Colortron can calibrate monitors, something the Swatch Book cannot do. However, X-Rite's own literature points out that the requirements which need to be met when measuring a monitor are different from those of a reflective measuring device.

 Moreover, I found the Colortron II to be poorly constructed and slower and less comfortable to use than the Swatch Book. That is important when you have to measure 300 little colour patches.

 Finally, the Colortron demo I was given failed its own diagnostic test. And the lack of enthusiasm the staff at X-Rite had for the Colortron gives it all the appearances of a product with a limited future.

 The Monitor Optimizer was impressive. This device sticks to the monitor screen with a suction cup and then measures it, zeros the colour to a given proofing standard, D50 or D65, and generates an ICC profile.

 As before, this profile helps you get more accurate and predictable colour from monitor to printer, to press.

 I have tried a similar calibrator from Radius, and the X-Rite is far better. Monitor colours appeared snappier and more neutral. Even one Sony monitor which has defied calibration by at least four other methods was finally tamed.

 The Digital Swatch Book can be bought directly from X-Rite for HK$12,690. The Colortron sells for HK$9,050 and the Monitor Optimizer for HK$5,410. All include a full version of Colorshop 2.5, which also can be bought separately for HK$1,320.



Great gadgets set just the right tone for geek heaven