- Joined
- Apr 19, 2007
- Messages
- 8,712
- Reaction score
- 7,175
- Points
- 393
- Location
- USA
- Printer Model
- Canon MB5120, Pencil
Color management, as you might surmise by now, is not an easy task. Proper profiling of the printer, inks and paper only gives one side of the equation.
There is also profiling of your monitor, which may or may not be receptive to proper profiling and/or be old enough that profiling will continually diminish in its effect - and this is on top of the weekly to monthly repeat profiling to counter drifting of the monitor hardware over time. Then there is the basic need to match lighting in your computer room when profiling and then that same light condition when using the monitor for soft proofing.
There is also profiling of the camera, if you want to go full tilt at color management.
Regardless, you must use the same inks, paper, printer and ICC printer profile as when the ICC profile was made. Deviating from any of these parameters will throw your color management and the resultant printed image may lurch in directions you may not like.
Depending on your hardware and ability to manipulate software, you may never get WYSIWYG from your monitor and prints, but you can come close enough to be satisfied. This is a complex process and will require you to read much and experiment if you want to extract performance from your equipment.
Fortunately there are some shortcuts besides using all OEM products or making your own ICC printer profiles (which requires a different ColorMunki package). Precision Colors offers for download at no cost ICC printer profiles for their inks matched with specific printers and papers. You can see these profiles for you printer on their web site. Also, paper manufactures, such as Red River, may offer ICC profiles for their papers, but these usually are designed around OEM inks.
There is also profiling of your monitor, which may or may not be receptive to proper profiling and/or be old enough that profiling will continually diminish in its effect - and this is on top of the weekly to monthly repeat profiling to counter drifting of the monitor hardware over time. Then there is the basic need to match lighting in your computer room when profiling and then that same light condition when using the monitor for soft proofing.
There is also profiling of the camera, if you want to go full tilt at color management.
Regardless, you must use the same inks, paper, printer and ICC printer profile as when the ICC profile was made. Deviating from any of these parameters will throw your color management and the resultant printed image may lurch in directions you may not like.
Depending on your hardware and ability to manipulate software, you may never get WYSIWYG from your monitor and prints, but you can come close enough to be satisfied. This is a complex process and will require you to read much and experiment if you want to extract performance from your equipment.
Fortunately there are some shortcuts besides using all OEM products or making your own ICC printer profiles (which requires a different ColorMunki package). Precision Colors offers for download at no cost ICC printer profiles for their inks matched with specific printers and papers. You can see these profiles for you printer on their web site. Also, paper manufactures, such as Red River, may offer ICC profiles for their papers, but these usually are designed around OEM inks.