Profiling a printer

Once I started using my GraytagMacBeth EyeOne gizmo on my monitor, my prints look far better than they used to...

I'm now contemplating profiling my printer -- my printer produces skin tones that are slightly different than my monitor. Also, the prints that come back from a lab always look better than what I can produce. So I think the solution is to profile my printer the same way I regularly profile my monitor.

I use an Epson r2400 printer, and almost exclusively, Enhanced Matte paper -- or whatever they have renamed to this time. And I use profiles downloaded from Epson.com

I guess my choices are:
-- buy a color gizmo for the printer that works like my monitor gizmo
-- use a third party profiling service.
-- is there a third choice??

As for buying a new gizmo... do I need to use GreytagMacbeth? (They don't seem to have a inexpensive solution).

And who has used a 3rd party service for this? I remember reading perhaps on the old RG forums years ago that there was a compnay that would send a test print file -- you would print it and mail it back to them, and they would send you a printer profile within days. I don't know who this company is, or whether the results were worthwhile.

So who's been down this path? Anyone care to enlighten me?

Thanks!

Ron

Hi Ron,

A good printer profiling spectrophotometer and the associated s/w will set you back at least 500-600 bucks. If you do not change printers, papers and ink types (i.e. other brands of ink than Epson) too often, then I certainly would not recommend taking that route.

My choice would be to have a custom profile made by one of the better service providers, such as:
www.inkjetart.com/custom_profiles/
www.donsprofiles.com/
www.cathysprofiles.com/
etc...

Many people provide good references for Cathy and Inkjetart. I seem to remember that Greg here has had a profile made once by Cathy for his 1800, but then again my memory is not what it used to be ;-).

Third choice is to use the canned profiles provided by the paper manufacturer. Since 2400 is a very respectable printer, almost all paper companies offer custom profiles for that printer based on standard Epson inks.

HTH,

Cheers,

Ron, there should be no need to profile your printer. Perhaps you are confusing this with software for custom profiles for your 2400? (for example, Colorvision's Print Fix Pro....or similar products?)....these are used when there is no custom profile available for your specific paper, printer combo. My 2 pence would be to stick with Epson media (and profiles) for now, and go from there.

If your prints are not blowing the socks off (or at least equal to) what you are getting from your print lab, my guess would be that you have some basic setting set incorrectly within the 2400 driver GUI, or are somehow managing to mis-apply the profiles.

Unfortunately I use an 1800 and am not familiar with the 2400 interface. If they are similar, the most important thing is to set Color management to "ICM", tick the "Off, no color adjustment" box, and make sure you have the appropriate paper selected. If you then properly apply your profile (though PS, qimage, or the print engine of your choice, you should be all set.

-Greg

Cem's post popped up as I replied. Indeed, I've had some profiles produced by Cathy's.

I'd still suggest you get your colour-managed workflow "down pat" using epson media and profiles first, and moving on from there.

-Greg

Ron,

I agree with Greg. I use an Epson 2200 with the profiles that came with the printer. I had a custom profile made and quite frankly, I didn't like it quite as well as the ones that came with the printer.

In the beginning I had a problem with profiling the monitor. The computer didn't want to apply the profile and I got that worked out and everything has been great since.

Remember though that the monitor and the printer will never match exactly. You are dealing with glowing phosphors and pigmented ink and trying to get them to match. They won't, but they will get darn close.

Mike

Mike Harrold said:

Ron,

I agree with Greg. I use an Epson 2200 with the profiles that came with the printer.

Click to expand...

That will work, as long as the ink/paper interaction variability is low (or an average of production aims!). However, that may be an unworkable assumption in the case of a single sample of 'other' paper brands.

I had a custom profile made and quite frankly, I didn't like it quite as well as the ones that came with the printer.

Click to expand...

There's variability for you. The problem with custom profiles usually is the inability to tune them after-the-fact. That is the specific benefit of a more elaborate profiling system.

Remember though that the monitor and the printer will never match exactly.

Click to expand...

Correct, but IMHO that's not what the ultimate goal should be. Yes, it is helpful if the monitor proofing display is a good predictor of what the output can do (although it can't be the same, due to laws of physics), but for me I expect the printer profile to enable the best quality (maximum gamut, no banding in gradients) that can be achieved for that ink/paper combination. As long as the display profile is 'gamut challenged' in relation to what's possible in print, our goals should be higher.

Bart

i print with an epson 2400 but i use other papers more than epson papers (hahnamuhle, crane museo). i had eric chan do profiles for my papers:
http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/photos/profiles.html
i don't know dons profiles, but i certainly have heard good things about inkjet art and cathys. eric happens to be close to me geographically (and you too since you are in connecticut) and since you have to ship a print to the profiler that mattered to me. i too considered doing it myself, but the investment in having someone else do it was so much less expensive, not to mention less time-consuming!
i agree that you should make sure your color workflow is set correctly before doing anything else. since you have to print a target to profile, any mistakes earlier in the chain will render the whole process useless.

Using an Epson 2100 with a Lyson CIS and being limted to OEM profiles for only Lyson papers, I invested in a Printfix pro.

I achieved excellent results with the added benefit of being able tweak, although building your own profiles can be quite an iterative, time, paper and ink consuming process.

On the the other hand, since buyiing the HPB9180, I've yet to better the canned profiles on OEM paper, but have had some luck with other paper types.

My advice would be to 1) explore the OEM profiles, 2) invest in one or two 3rd party profiles and if you aren't getting the results you need then buy a spectro.

The Printfix pro is probably the cheapest one out there, its LED based device and the results obtained are variable, but if you are prepared to put the effort in (measuring large patch charts) then its worthwhile.

BTW, I've since loaned mine out to a few other photographers with HPB9180 printers, so as to share the load and build a library of xml datasets for different papers.

With hindsight and some convincing, it would have been more cost effective to do a local group purchase of a device. Perhaps this is something you might consider. You only need 4 people to bring the cost close to that of 3rd party profiles. Then between you all, you have the benefit of endless paper / ink / printer profiling capabilities.

Yes,

I should have mentioned that I use only Epson papers.

Mike

Please excuse my newcomer arrogance, but have we not perchance missed the point of Ron's original question? I might have missed the point entirely, but I do have some experience trouble-shooting printing questions.

Paper profiles, PrintfixPro, custom profiles and the like are like tea or coffee in the morning a lot of us, no? But what about Ron? I see him struggling with the basics. And that's OK.

Chime back in, Ron, Please? (yikes, I remember)

(Lambast me if needed)

-Greg

Greg,

You're right, Ron identified a print colour skin tone problem and posed a series of questions.

My first port of call is to check the OEM profiles, if one uses the right paper and ink combination, they should be pretty much spot on, if they aren't, then its a colour mgt process issue.

Check the application and printer driver settings, follow the instructions (most OEM ICC profiles have a pdf based setup guide) and then print out a few colour charts and examine them.

Most printer drivers have "auto" or "photo enhance" settings (vibrant or vivid) as default, whereas using ICC aware apps like photoshop require the driver to be set to "No colour Adjustment" to let the application manage colour.

A classic error I learnt from early on was double profiling, for example outputting the image from photoshop with a tagged printer profile and then letting the printer manage colour means disaster

OK, so if this all fails and your not happy with the colour then limit the application ouput to sRGB (some allow AdobeRGB), let the printer manage colour, set the input colourspace and tweak the driver settings. This method will use lots of ink / paper but you can get good asthetic results if you persevere.

Assuming one is still not happy with the print and you've exhausted the above, then consider moving into 3d party profile or spectro territory.

I've tried both and IMO the spectro is a better option. I've had 3 printers in two years and have built quite a paper stock, so OEM profiles are limiting and 3rd party profiling can be quite expensive.

Hope this helps.

sorry for my absense!

Lots of good ideas here. One thing is that its cheap and easy to buy a 3rd party profile. That's where I'm going to start and I'll post my results.

I don't think I'm a beginner, but every time I print, I feel like a beginner again. There are a lot of places in which to double check settings, and they don't seem to stay the way I sent them.

(Oh I do so miss Qimage! That makes printing easy! That was the only I thing I left behind when I converted to Mac -- but I digress, this has nothing to do with printer profiles.)

Ron

Hi Mike,

Not only qimage you left, but the also the answer to your current problems, Mike Chaney's profileprism.

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray West said:

Not only qimage you left, but the also the answer to your current problems, Mike Chaney's profileprism.

Click to expand...

Am I missing something here? Profile Prism, if I understand it correctly is just another option... I will say that Qimage is unlike anything else I've used and it's brilliantly elegant, but does the same hold true for Profile Prism?

Its looks like it is software only -- no hardware device is need. How does it work? Am I correct in that you are printing then visually matching colors with a test chart?

http://www.ddisoftware.com/prism/about.htm

Ray's had good luck with this... anyone else?

I still like the idea best of sending sample charts out to be converted by a 3rd party -- cheap, simple, low risk, and did I mention cheap?

I also have a couple of Xerox office printers that print in color but bad color. I'm tempted to profile those to see if they would work for high-speed cheap proofs.

Ron

P.S. Greg and John and others that have suggested that more fundamental issues might be at stake... such as double profiling, having printer or app override the profile, matching paper to profile... I've been down all those paths many moons ago. That changed my world from 'print directly over trash can' to my current state of affairs...

The distance from where I am -- very good color -- to where I want to be -- excellent color, is small. I'm convinced it's the printer profile/printer combo. The basic theory of Epson's printer profiles is that every instance of every Epson R2400 printer is identical, and therefore the profiles they provide will work for every instance of that printer. I'm working under the theory that there are indeed slight differences between your R2400 and mine -- and they perhaps need different profiles for same paper and ink. (Or maybe its ambient temp & humididy in my office, but something is differnent.)

Hi Ron,

No luck involved. It is explained on Mike's web site. Basically you prepare your own profiles - takes about 10 minutes. You can edit the profiles, if you wish, but I do not know why you would want to do that.

I also followed Mike's explanation on how all this stuff works, most folk seem to want to make it appear complicated (I wonder why ;-). Using his manual method of setting up the monitor (getting rid of the adobe nonsense), I found little improvement later by setting it with Monaco system. However, the software for generating the profiles is for PC only.

I expect many of the folk offering a printer profiling service are just using his system. Of course, he would sell more copies if he charged $700.00 for it, I expect. btw, I believe Mike offers a profiling service too, or at least he did.

Best wishes,

Ray

ron_hiner said:

Am I missing something here? Profile Prism, if I understand it correctly is just another option... I will say that Qimage is unlike anything else I've used and it's brilliantly elegant, but does the same hold true for Profile Prism?

Its looks like it is software only -- no hardware device is need. How does it work? Am I correct in that you are printing then visually matching colors with a test chart?

Click to expand...

Hi Ron - actually you print out a "test chart" and scan that sample along with a reference chart supplied with the software. The software then compares the results and builds the profile based on the differences.

Later,
Johnny

ProfilePrism is good option, but bear in mind to get good results, you will need a colour calibrated quality scanner to profile the charts, which no doubt adds to the complexity and cost.

Hi John,

Not so. When you scan the print, at the same time you scan a standard test chart. If the scanner is absolute rubbish, (not many are today), then you can edit the resulting profile.

But, some folk prefer paying others to do simple tasks, that's OK.

Best wishes,

Ray

Ray, I've tried profile prism and a few other scanner based printer calibration apps.

The profiles they create off cheap scanners are average at best. A quality scanner will cost as much as a spectro.

Scanner-based profiles are not nearly as good as those created used spectro-based systems, and even the people who sell the scanner-based software seem to agree.

That said, I've tried a number of third-party solutions and to my mind/eye (for my Epson 2200 and Epson 7600) Andrew Rodney at http://digitaldog.net/ produces extremely good and accurate profiles, worth every dollar he charges.

It's basically a matter of going to his web site, downloading the targets and following his instructions on printing them and sending them off to him. Very critical in the process is making sure you have the ink load set right for your printer and paper combination. I believe Andrew has one or two test targets that help with that too.

You'd think Epson with their vast resources would provide the best possible profiles for their printers, but their stock profiles seem lacking as far as ultimate quality, and do tend to block up in the shadows for prints that push the gamut.

Mike

Mike, I totally agree with you.

BTW, my Epson 2100 was consigned to lesser duties due to a partially burnt out magenta printhead, so I replaced the printer with a HPB1980.

However, I got my hands a secondhand 2100 for a song and used it for spares. The old 2100 lives again, as I still rate the sheer vibrancy of this printer's output with Lyson cavepaint.