- Joined
- Nov 3, 2004
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- Location
- Bay Area CA
- Printer Model
- CR-10, i560 ,MFC-7440N
Hello Everyone,
I thought I'd start a thread for people to start posting some basic help information and links about profiling. I've received some questions about it via email and I honestly don't know much about it.
Please post some of your own thoughts and links to basic information about profiling. If you have comments and links to more advanced information please label it as such and/or we can start another thread.
Regarding Profiles:
One of the reasons why many people do not take advantage of low cost paper, low cost carts or ink refilling is that it is common knowledge that the colors are not as good as with OEM ink and paper. This may be true, but only because the printer is calibrated for the OEM ink and paper. It is possible to calibrate the printer for other inks and papers using custom "ICC profiles". It is the goal of this thread to start a centralized "knowledgebase" of free profiles and documentation on how they can be used so that more people can take advantage of the lower costs without sacrificing their print quality.
If you follow the forum closely, you will have noted that ink suppliers sometimes change their formulations. When this happens, all of the past history for that ink supplier goes out the window. This is why so much information is requested when a profile is first posted - to let you see if you are using the same ink. Before trying a profile, take a careful look at the dates when you bought your carts/bulk inks and compare them to the profile's information. If the dates are very different, you might want to talk to your ink supplier to see if there have been any formulation changes between the two dates. You should also make sure that all of your inks were made during the same "formulation period". If you mix inks from different formulation periods, you may end up chasing ghosts. Obviously, you should never mix inks from different suppliers if you want to use these profiles.
Even though a profile was generated for a specific printer, there is a very good possibility that it will work reasonably well for other printers from the same supplier that use similar technologies. For example, the Canon i8500 and i9900 both use 8 ink colors and differ mainly in the maximum width that can be printed. It would not be surprising if the same profile worked for both of these printers. A printer with 6 ink colors would be slightly less likely to be able to use the same profile, and a printer with only 4 ink colors would be even less likely.
However, a profile generated for your ink and paper but on another printer model may well work better than the profiles supplied with the printer for the OEM inks and papers. If you are willing to spend a little time adjusting the manual color settings, you have a reasonable chance of "tuning" a profile from another printer. If you are successful in getting good results from another profile, please reply to the appropriate post with your settings and printer model so that others can benefit from your experience.
You may have noticed that some papers come with recommended manual color settings to be used with various OEM profiles when using OEM inks. In a similar fashion, it is very likely that a profile for the same ink and printer can be used for other papers, especially if you are willing to tune the profile to the paper. As above, please post a reply with your settings if you are successful.
It is highly unlikely that a profile will work for different inks. One exception might be when two ink suppliers buy their ink from the same source. If your ink has similar color problems to another ink that has a profile, give the other ink's profile a try. Just don't blame the profile if it doesn't work on your ink. Since different printer suppliers use different inks, there will be very little opportunity to use a profile from one supplier on another supplier's printer. As before, post any success stories along these lines.
Procedure for adding a new profile
If this is your profile, post it on the web. If you don't have the facilities to do this, contact me via e-mail and I will make the arrangements to do this.
Start a new thread with the title: "Profile for: Ink/Paper/Printer"
Copy the template from this post and fill in the information.
Ownership of profiles
If you generated a profile yourself or otherwise own the rights to the profile, a link to that profile is a welcome addition.
If a profile is already in the public domain, a link to that profile is a welcome addition.
Companies that provide custom profiles for a fee generally include a statement in their terms and conditions that says something to the effect that the profile is provided exclusively for use on the printer that printed the profiling targets. If this is the case, you do not own the rights to publish the profile, so please do not post it, and especially do not insert a link from this forum to such a post.
Template for information to be provided with each profile:
Printer manufacturer/model used to generate the profile (e.g. Canon Pixma iP5000).
Ink used to generate the profile (e.g. MIS).
Ink colors used by this printer (e.g. C, Y, M, K, PM, PC)
Date the carts/bulk ink were purchased (note - all carts/inks should be purchased at roughly the same time)
Paper used to generate the profile (e.g. Kirkland Glossy Photo)
Printer settings used to generate the profile.
Technique used to generate the profile (e.g. Spectrophotometer/scanner/hand edited/unknown).
The number of color samples used in the test prints.
Date when the profile was generated.
Relevant notes.
Profile name.
Link to the profile. If you are posting a link to a profile on some other site, be sure to link to the page where the profile is located, not directly to the profile itself.
Link to the home page of the profile provider (if this is a profile in the public domain)
If this is an "original" post of a profile and it is stored on "nifty-stuff.com", include the following statement at the end of your post:
"This profile located on "nifty-stuff.com" is provided free of charge for your personal use only. It is not to be copied for any other use, including posting on other sites or offered for sale. Permission is hereby given to link to this post, providing that external references do not link directly to the data, and that there is no charge for this information."
I thought I'd start a thread for people to start posting some basic help information and links about profiling. I've received some questions about it via email and I honestly don't know much about it.
Please post some of your own thoughts and links to basic information about profiling. If you have comments and links to more advanced information please label it as such and/or we can start another thread.
Regarding Profiles:
One of the reasons why many people do not take advantage of low cost paper, low cost carts or ink refilling is that it is common knowledge that the colors are not as good as with OEM ink and paper. This may be true, but only because the printer is calibrated for the OEM ink and paper. It is possible to calibrate the printer for other inks and papers using custom "ICC profiles". It is the goal of this thread to start a centralized "knowledgebase" of free profiles and documentation on how they can be used so that more people can take advantage of the lower costs without sacrificing their print quality.
If you follow the forum closely, you will have noted that ink suppliers sometimes change their formulations. When this happens, all of the past history for that ink supplier goes out the window. This is why so much information is requested when a profile is first posted - to let you see if you are using the same ink. Before trying a profile, take a careful look at the dates when you bought your carts/bulk inks and compare them to the profile's information. If the dates are very different, you might want to talk to your ink supplier to see if there have been any formulation changes between the two dates. You should also make sure that all of your inks were made during the same "formulation period". If you mix inks from different formulation periods, you may end up chasing ghosts. Obviously, you should never mix inks from different suppliers if you want to use these profiles.
Even though a profile was generated for a specific printer, there is a very good possibility that it will work reasonably well for other printers from the same supplier that use similar technologies. For example, the Canon i8500 and i9900 both use 8 ink colors and differ mainly in the maximum width that can be printed. It would not be surprising if the same profile worked for both of these printers. A printer with 6 ink colors would be slightly less likely to be able to use the same profile, and a printer with only 4 ink colors would be even less likely.
However, a profile generated for your ink and paper but on another printer model may well work better than the profiles supplied with the printer for the OEM inks and papers. If you are willing to spend a little time adjusting the manual color settings, you have a reasonable chance of "tuning" a profile from another printer. If you are successful in getting good results from another profile, please reply to the appropriate post with your settings and printer model so that others can benefit from your experience.
You may have noticed that some papers come with recommended manual color settings to be used with various OEM profiles when using OEM inks. In a similar fashion, it is very likely that a profile for the same ink and printer can be used for other papers, especially if you are willing to tune the profile to the paper. As above, please post a reply with your settings if you are successful.
It is highly unlikely that a profile will work for different inks. One exception might be when two ink suppliers buy their ink from the same source. If your ink has similar color problems to another ink that has a profile, give the other ink's profile a try. Just don't blame the profile if it doesn't work on your ink. Since different printer suppliers use different inks, there will be very little opportunity to use a profile from one supplier on another supplier's printer. As before, post any success stories along these lines.
Procedure for adding a new profile
If this is your profile, post it on the web. If you don't have the facilities to do this, contact me via e-mail and I will make the arrangements to do this.
Start a new thread with the title: "Profile for: Ink/Paper/Printer"
Copy the template from this post and fill in the information.
Ownership of profiles
If you generated a profile yourself or otherwise own the rights to the profile, a link to that profile is a welcome addition.
If a profile is already in the public domain, a link to that profile is a welcome addition.
Companies that provide custom profiles for a fee generally include a statement in their terms and conditions that says something to the effect that the profile is provided exclusively for use on the printer that printed the profiling targets. If this is the case, you do not own the rights to publish the profile, so please do not post it, and especially do not insert a link from this forum to such a post.
Template for information to be provided with each profile:
Printer manufacturer/model used to generate the profile (e.g. Canon Pixma iP5000).
Ink used to generate the profile (e.g. MIS).
Ink colors used by this printer (e.g. C, Y, M, K, PM, PC)
Date the carts/bulk ink were purchased (note - all carts/inks should be purchased at roughly the same time)
Paper used to generate the profile (e.g. Kirkland Glossy Photo)
Printer settings used to generate the profile.
Technique used to generate the profile (e.g. Spectrophotometer/scanner/hand edited/unknown).
The number of color samples used in the test prints.
Date when the profile was generated.
Relevant notes.
Profile name.
Link to the profile. If you are posting a link to a profile on some other site, be sure to link to the page where the profile is located, not directly to the profile itself.
Link to the home page of the profile provider (if this is a profile in the public domain)
If this is an "original" post of a profile and it is stored on "nifty-stuff.com", include the following statement at the end of your post:
"This profile located on "nifty-stuff.com" is provided free of charge for your personal use only. It is not to be copied for any other use, including posting on other sites or offered for sale. Permission is hereby given to link to this post, providing that external references do not link directly to the data, and that there is no charge for this information."