How accurate is Loupe?
Absolute color accuracy is the siren song of any designer. It’s no secret that the iPhone camera isn’t exactly the most advanced tool out there, so Loupe’s color averaging algorithms have been ruthlessly optimized to get the best results from the camera. And in the iPhone 3GS, the accuracy is even better with the improved camera’s white balancing. While you probably shouldn’t send your million dollar print project off to the presses without proofing any colors you get from Loupe, it’s certainly more than accurate enough for most applications. I did a very unscientific comparison with a Pantone Color Cue 2, and while it seemed about 90% as accurate as the Color Cue (and you can easily get it higher by adjusting with the sample size and positioning), it was also only 0.5% of the price. That’s a pretty decent trade off in my opinion.
