Who makes the better paper ICC profiles?

N
Posted By
NoSpam
Oct 28, 2007
Views
175
Replies
3
Status
Closed
Hello Group,

This will be a question regarding the relative
usefulness of custom made versus canned
paper profiles for various printers, such as
Epson’s.

Epson distributes profiles for their paper and
printer combinations. I have used these profiles
and they work.

I have also read that these "canned profiles"
do not lead to results as good as can be obtained
by using profiles obtained from companies specia-
lizing color management or by profiles made
at home with various commercial hard and
software components.

Is there any truth to these statements? It is hard
to believe that a company like Epson would not
be capable to produce profiles for their products
which are at least as good as those made by
others.

Thanks for any suggestions.
GR.
Related Tags
icc paper profile

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J
Jim
Oct 28, 2007
"NoSpam" wrote in message
Hello Group,

This will be a question regarding the relative
usefulness of custom made versus canned
paper profiles for various printers, such as
Epson’s.

Epson distributes profiles for their paper and
printer combinations. I have used these profiles
and they work.

I have also read that these "canned profiles"
do not lead to results as good as can be obtained
by using profiles obtained from companies specia-
lizing color management or by profiles made
at home with various commercial hard and
software components.

Is there any truth to these statements? It is hard
to believe that a company like Epson would not
be capable to produce profiles for their products
which are at least as good as those made by
others.

Thanks for any suggestions.
GR.

I make my own with Monaco. As I have posted previously, this software may not still be around because Monaco sold out to Xrite (if I remember correctly).
I see little difference between those that I make and those that Epson provides. My experience with other papers is limited to those from Red River, and I prefer my own custom made profiles.

Making your own paper profiles requires the use of a flat bed scanner. Jim
B
babaloo
Oct 28, 2007
Epson has the most reliable paper profiles for its printers and markets the widest variety of paper surfaces.
From my personal experience I would say that Canon is pretty bad at this and in order to see what their high end printers are capable of you need to generate custom profiles or learn to tweak the ones you have. The Monaco Optixx system, using your scanner and a target they supply as an intermediary, definitely improves on the Canon profiles but not on Epson’s. The lowest price system for profiling your prints directly with a reflective colorimeter is now less than $500.
I could not justify the cost for myself but would get it in a heartbeat if I could split the cost with a few other users.
In truth, if you really like a particular paper surface, it is not that difficult with a few trial and errors to establish settings that will work reasonably well as your own custom profile.
N
NoSpam
Oct 28, 2007
Thanks for the answers.

In the meantime I have come to realize what is
meant by canned profile and custom profile. A
canned profile is for the printer, dye and paper
as it is generally sold by their makers. A custom
profile appears to be made for your printer and
the set of papers you have and the dyes you have
at any given time

The custom approach is intended to get around the
change your printer have undergone since leaving
the factory or the difference between different paper
batches and dyes.

I do not see that paper and dyes should change
noticeably between batches if the products are well
quality controlled. The printer may change in its
ability to squirt ink through piezo-electric nozzles.

In either case I do not think that these changes are as
significant as they are on a monitor. The repeated
calibration of a monitor may be much more important
than remeasuring the icc profile for a given printer-
dye-paper combination. This process seems to be
rather expensive and time consuming.

Any opinions on this?

Thank you
GR.

since
"flambe" wrote in message
Epson has the most reliable paper profiles for its printers and markets
the
widest variety of paper surfaces.
From my personal experience I would say that Canon is pretty bad at this
and
in order to see what their high end printers are capable of you need to generate custom profiles or learn to tweak the ones you have. The Monaco Optixx system, using your scanner and a target they supply as
an
intermediary, definitely improves on the Canon profiles but not on
Epson’s.
The lowest price system for profiling your prints directly with a
reflective
colorimeter is now less than $500.
I could not justify the cost for myself but would get it in a heartbeat if
I
could split the cost with a few other users.
In truth, if you really like a particular paper surface, it is not that difficult with a few trial and errors to establish settings that will work reasonably well as your own custom profile.

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