Wacom recently announced the availability of its updated Wacom Color Manager, the company’s custom color calibration solution. For photographers, Wacom Color Manager delivers true-to-life on-screen and print color reproduction, but it does much more than that. In fact, the tool is also designed for animators, visual effects artists, designers and other creative professionals who demand color accuracy across their workflow and need to match the colors on their pen display(s) to the final output, be that photos, prints, animation or video.
The Wacom Color Manager combines a colorimeter and custom software for color profiling with proprietary advanced Cintiq Pro 27 hardware level calibration, co-developed by market leading color expert X-Rite Pantone and Wacom, delivering a higher level of color accuracy for easy and fast color management that ensures finished work is reproduced exactly as intended.
Delivering, according to Wacom, “ brilliant 4K resolution in 10-bit color as well as 99% Adobe RGB and 98% DCI-P3 accuracy in these two important color spaces, the Cintiq Pro 27 combines with the Color Manager to offer specific performance advantages to users. For example, the ability to create up to four Look-Up Tables (LUT) provides objective color measurement and allows users to improve true color intent based on personal likes or color direction from film or video creative team supervisors. Colors are also captured at the display level which offers users convenient and fast access regardless of the computer being used.
“Because of the Cintiq Pro 27’s advanced color gamut, users who employ Wacom Color Manager with the Cintiq Pro can alleviate the need for a second monitor, eliminate trial and error time, improve productivity and reduce equipment expenditures,” says Faik Karaoglu, Executive Vice President of Wacom’s Branded Business Unit. “Our work with X-Rite Pantone is ultimately helping creative content professionals easily manage color and reduce possible rework or rejection costs.”
Both the Cintiq Pro 27 and Wacom Color Manager faithfully reproduce the Pantone Matching System (PMS) colors and Pantone SkinTone library, providing professional artists with the highest level of confidence in viewing and editing colors and skin tones across all platforms, including film, TV, mobile devices and print. The Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 has been awarded the distinguished Pantone Validated and Pantone SkinTone Validated approval by passing Pantone’s rigorous testing criteria.
These approvals verify that the Wacom Cintiq Pro 27 can authentically reproduce the diverse set of colors found in the Pantone PMS and SkinTone Guides. Additionally, support for the DCI-P3 color space expands the use of the Cintiq Pro 27 for a better visual color experience when designing for digital cinema and video, a key group of pen display users for Wacom.
“We worked closely with Wacom to customize the software for direct and seamless communication with the Cintiq Pro 27,” says X-Rite’s Jan Keller, Vice President OEM Sales. “With the unique updates to the Wacom Color Manager, combined with Pantone Validated approvals, users will definitely appreciate the true-to-life visual color experience and the creation of finished work that looks as intended on every output device.”
If you want to know more about the importance of color and how professionals are using Wacom’s solutions, read the interview with Safari Sosebee, co-founder and CCO at Narwhal Studios, a company that relies in Cintiq Pro for its work. In a post-2020 world, work on films and TV isn’t always being done at a desk in a studio. For many creators, production work has extended to home offices, or pop-up offices in new cities. “The size and footprint of the Cintiq Pro on the desk is a major factor,” says Sosebee. “It features not only typical tablet functionalities but also precise color calibration in 4K quality that we use in our virtual pre-lights.”
The Wacom Color Manager, available now for both PC and Mac users, can be purchased from Wacom’s eStore for $249.95 (USD), or from authorized resellers. In addition to support of the Cintiq Pro 27, the Wacom Color Manager works with the entire Cintiq Pro family as well as the the MobileStudio Pro 13 and 16.