Helping Photographers get Great Colour Prints
You know how it is. You're a serious photographer. You're struggling to get good colour prints from your inkjet printer. You've changed your paper. You've calibrated your monitor. You even downloaded some 'free' paper profiles. You still have to print out every image several times, evaluate every print, and then tweak each image in Photoshop or Lightroom, before printing again.
Your prints are still not quite there! Perhaps a colour cast, or maybe filled-in shadow detail?
The answer is to have your own 'Bespoke' Custom ICC Printer Profiles made using our remote profiling service.
Your own printer, with your choice of paper, is profiled remotely by us after you've downloaded our special colour charts together with our comprehensive instruction manual, printed them, and mailed them to us.
All of our Profiles are 'Bespoke', as we don't do 'Off the Shelf'!
The price isonly £15 for a high quality Standard Custom Profile, or £23 (there's a discount for the Advanced Profiles if buying 2 or more at the same time) for the even better Advanced Profile. You should quickly save that by reducing expensive ink and paper wastage!
Why have Custom Printer Profiles made?
The generic 'canned' profiles supplied with most printers often do a reasonable job, providing you use the exact same paper type, printer driver, resolution and quality settings for which the profile was intended. Printers also vary from batch to batch, and over a period of time, as do inks and paper. Of course you may not wish to use one of the few types of expensive OEM paper which has a supplied profile. You may prefer to use media from Ilford, Hahnemuhle, Canson, Innova, PermaJet, Fotospeed etc. If you happen to use 'compatible' inks, then the generic Epson, Canon or HP profile has no chance!
How are our Custom Colour Profiles better?
Our profiling target (colour chart) has a large number of individual colour patches on a single A4 (US 'Letter') sized sheet. This is optimised to the real life colour gamut of typical inkjet printers.
Being printed by you, on your printer, using your ink and paper, and importantly, your printer settings, ensures greater accuracy than the 'canned' OEM profiles.
Our Advanced Colour Profiles
For clients who seek the ultimate prints, we have the Advanced option.
These profiles are made from two A4 (US 'Letter') charts containing no less than 1716 patches. They are especially designed for printers with a very wide colour gamut. The large number of colour patches also helps to capture any non-linear behaviour which might otherwise be missed, especially from non-OEM ink.
Our Special Media Advanced Colour Profiles
These are essential for thicker 'Fine Art' materials, including most canvas. They are made from three A4 charts.
What Colour Management experience do we have?
We have been a full-time professional Colour Management business since 1997, which was in the very early days of ICC profiling. We had many years of high quality colour experience in industry prior to that.
Will the Profiles be compatible with my system and software?
Inkjet printers, from desktop to large-format, dye-sub 'photo' and most colour laser printers are suitable.
Image editing software, such as Photoshop, is the best place in which to apply Colour Management, known as 'Application Colour Management', as it should do so with more precision and versatility than printer drivers or the operating system. It also allows predictable results from 'soft-proofing'
ICC Printer Profiles are 'Application Agnostic' meaning that they are not created specifically for individual applications, such as Photoshop, but are universal, being made to precise ICC specifications. They can be used for printing from any fully 'ICC-aware' application which fully supports 'Application Colour Management', including, but not limited to:
Adobe Photoshop, Elements, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, Capture One, Qimage, etc., but not Apple Photos.
If your photo editing software doesn't fully support printing with 'Application Colour Management', the workaround is to save images and print from specialist inexpensive printing software which does, such as Qimage or Print-Tool (Mac only) or the most recent version of Epson Print Layout and its Canon equivalent.
ICC Printer Profiles are also universal ('cross-platform') for all versions of Windows and macOS, but not mobile phone-based tablets.
What is the brief procedure to profile my inkjet printer?
You download the appropriate 'folder' from ourOrder page. This folder contains the printer profiling targets, order form, and our instruction manuals for both Windows PC and Apple macOS.
Print the custom profile targets very carefully.
Post them to us, along with theOrder form.
You pay with PayPal from our Order page. This will take you to PayPal's secure site. You don't even need a PayPal account, as they accept major debit/credit cards.
We analyse (read) the colour patches on your targets using the latest high-end spectrophotometers (i1iSis 2 or i1Pro 3 as appropriate) with the latest sophisticated profiling software.
We create your new Custom Printer ICC Profile and email it to you.
You install the profile, following our detailed instruction manual, and print away!
How about more than one type of media?
Each Profile characterises a particular combination of printer model, ink, driver settings, and media (paper) type. So each type of media requires a separate Profile, and of course, an extra set of charts to be printed.
How are the Advanced Profiles better than the Standard ones?
This will depend on your needs, and on your printer and paper. For most photographers with standard inkjet printers, the Standard Profiles will provide very high quality prints. Printers with a wider colour gamut should get improved results from the Advanced Profiles, especially when made for very high quality media which allows very dark blacks and saturated colours. Also printers which give very poor results with OEM profiles, especially if using non-standard inks, should be considerably improved. Being made from a large number of colour 'patches' (1716) allows greater accuracy, and smoothness. There is a very large number of 'neutral' grey and near-neutral patches. The Advanced Profiles are also larger in size, having larger internal 'tables' ('LUTs').
Of course the downsides are more paper used to print the charts, and a higher cost.
You will need to download the correct folder, either 'Advanced', 'Standard' or 'Special Media' first, as the Targets aren't interchangeable.
Please be aware that if you are seeking profiles for thicker papers, such as 'Fine Art' (over 0.45 mm thick) you need to use the Advanced 'Special Media' service.
What about Sublimation (transfer), etc.
Sorry, we no longer make these.
Why we no longer make CMYK Profiles and what about RIPs?
This profiling service is solely designed for conventional RGB (Canon, Epson, HP, etc.) inkjet printers, and photo dye-sub, laser, printers etc. which ALL use RGB drivers, and therefore always require RGB Profiles, and CANNOT print CMYK images correctly unless driven by special (expensive) RIP software.
Although all inkjets use CMYK inks (and often additional colours), their drivers are designed to only work correctly with RGB images and therefore the photo editing and printing applications (Photoshop, Lightroom, Qimage, etc.) require RGB Profiles, to process the images in the print workflow.
However, some 'photographic' RIPs can use RGB printer profiles, in which case we can create RGB profiles remotely as normal. Please check your RIP manual for instructions and suitability.
Sophisticated large-format CMYK RIPs must have precise initial calibration ('Linearization, etc.') before profiling. A spectrophotometer needs to be connected to the actual RIP while calibrating. This can only be done on site and cannot be done remotely.
Because of these impracticalities we no longer produce CMYK Profles.
Printing the Targets
It is vital that the profiling targets are printed with ALL colour management disabled. This is the main reason why it isessential to read our manual! It can sometimes be very difficult to switch off Colour Management!
Regardless of which application you use to print your actual images, there are very few which can print our targets (or anyone else's) properly!
Use the Adobe Color Printer Utility for Macs and PCs.
In the vast majority of cases Profiling Targets (but not actual photo images) must be printed using this free Adobe Utility. You don't need to be running Photoshop, etc.
IGNORE the warning on the Adobe site about the Utility not working in macOS Catalina onwards as it DOES work! Please see our pages below:
How to Print Colour Charts with the Adobe Utility from a Mac
How to Print Colour Charts with the Adobe Utility from a PC
Download Adobe Color Printer Utility free from the Adobe site: Adobe.com
Note that there are separate Windows and Mac versions of the Adobe Utility.
Use this utility and NEVER Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, Corel Draw, Affinity Photo, Capture One, Windows Photo, Apple Preview or any other image editing or viewing application, to print profiling targets.
Note that the Adobe Utility is for printing RGB profiling targets only, and not for printing actual images. The Adobe Utility is very easy to use, as there are NO Colour Management settings. Simply select the relevant profiling target.
Of course, for printing actual images using your new Custom Profiles, you can use Photoshop, Lightroom, Capture One or any other imaging software which is fully capable of printing with 'Application Colour Management'.
If using a Windows PC you must ALWAYS check that Colour Management is turned OFF in the printer driver.
Check your Printer First!
Before you even begin to print the Profiling Targets it's a good idea to check that your printer isn't suffering from blocked jets. All printers come with software to do this, and you can use almost any paper. See your printer manual. Even one 'clogged' jet can skew the results!
We won't create profiles from charts which have blocked jets. It would be a waste of time measuring them, just to have our software refuse to create a profile because of 'inconsistencies'.
In fact it's a good idea to regularly run this simple test, especially before printing critical images on expensive paper!
It's also a good idea to check that you have the latest version of the printer driver installed. It's usually far better to check this on the manufacturer's support website (if possible), rather than using Mac or Windows Software Update, although sometimes consumer models may not be listed.
Printer Settings
Print the targets using the exact same printer settings (media, resolution, quality, etc.) which you will use for printing images with the new Profiles. Save these settings, AND write them down! Check the settings for each of the targets, to ensure that they are saved properly!
There are small visual ('Telltale') test colour and grey patches on the top of the targets to help you ensure that the printer settings are correct, and especially that Colour Management hasn't been applied, and that all targets have been printed identically.
ALL Colour Management ('ICM', 'ColorSync', etc.) in the printer driver must be OFF! This will also be the case when printing actual images using your new Custom Printer profile, for which you will use the more accurate Application Colour Management.
Checking and Posting
Check the targets for size, colour, etc., using the information in the Instruction Manual.
Our customers find the little 'Telltale Colour Checker' patches at the top of the targets very useful for this.
Leave them to dry for 24 hours.
Post the targets and order form to us. In the U.K. you'll normally need a 'Large First Class' stamp, but it's usually best to check at the Post Office, as incorrect postage can severely delay delivery.
How do I Pay and do I need a PayPal Account.
You pay via PayPal on their secure site, from our Order page.
You don't even need a PayPal account, you can pay PayPal with normal credit/debit cards.
We cannot accept cheques, credit cards, electronic banking, etc.
How we create the Profile
On receiving the targets we inspect them for colour, size etc.
We measure the targets with a highly accurate spectrophotometer. From this colour data, using sophisticated profiling software, we then create your custom RGB ICC Printer Profile.
Profiles are checked against known images with smooth skin-tones and neutral 'gradient' backgrounds in Photoshop on a new Eizo CG2730 display.
We then email your new custom profile to you.
How long does it take to get my Profile?
We normally email the Profiles to you within 48 hours of receiving the printed charts.
Installing and using your new Profile
On receiving your profile, you install it following our instruction manual, in the standard location (as appropriate for Windows or Mac), where it will be visible to all 'ICC colour-management-savvy' image editing applications.
Printing with your new Profile
Our instruction manual shows you how to print from recent versions of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom, and information about other editing applications. We recommend using these high-end applications to undertake colour management. These applications allow greater control over profiles and rendering intents, allowing greater colour accuracy, smoother gradation, and often less 'filling-in' of shadow detail.
Your printer driver settings must be exactly the same as those you used to print the profiling targets with, and with Colour Management still switched OFF in the printer driver. The normal setting isLet Photoshop (or Lightroom, etc.) Manage Color, which is more accurately. known as 'Application Colour Management'. You definitely don't want 'Double Colour Management! If you are presently getting weird colour, you may want to check this before getting a profile made!
More information on printing images (not profiling targets!) with Custom Profiles:
Newer versions of Photoshop:
Photoshop CS6/CC Printing.
Lightroom:
Lightroom Printing.
How about my Monitor?
You should calibrate the display to match the prints as closely as possible, inyour viewing environment, as the printer cannot be calibrated to the monitor!
You should always 'soft-proof' images on a calibrated display.
A frequent topic on photography forums is that prints are sometimes darker than the display, with both generic and Custom Printer Profiles. The answer is that the display is usually too bright! In fact we've written an article about this.
Why Prints Sometimes Appear Too Dark?
More info: Monitor Calibration Soft proofing: Photoshop Soft Proofing
Which are the Most Popular Printers that you Profile?
These days it's probably the Epson Sure Color Pxxx series, from the P400 all the way up to the very large P20000. The equivalent Canon large format models are also fairly common, while the A3+ Pixma Pro 200, Pro 300 and the larger Pro 1000 are well represented.
What won't our Profiles fix?
Our Custom Profiles will usually improve your printing, but won't help very much in the following situations:
1) Printers in a poor mechanical condition with streaking, blocked ink jets, etc.
2) Very poor quality ink or paper, especially when deep black or saturated colours can't be achieved. This can happen with non-OEM ink.
3) Problems caused by poor-quality, or poorly-calibrated, monitors which aren't matching the print by a long way.
What we can't Profile
Unfortunately, we can't create Profiles in the following circ*mstances:
1) Targets showing streaking, blocked ink jets, etc.
2) Printers with colour channels completely missing!
3) Targets printed with 'basic' printer drivers in which Colour Management can't be disabled, such as the Apple AirPrint driver. In particular certain Canon consumer printers, such as some of the 'TS' series and 'G' series printers, when printing from a Mac. Check on the Canon Support site that a genuine Canon driver is available.
4) Wrong colour ink cartridges installed!
5) Targets which have been printed the wrong size or with parts missing.
6) Targets which have been printed on 'scored' or 'cut' media, such as labels or jigsaws.
How about Support?
We think we have covered just about every eventuality in the Instruction Manual, however if you need support, please email us (and not phone) after reading the manual, using the contact details in the Manual.
How Much?
£15.00 per Standard RGB Printer Profile.
£23.00 per Advanced RGB Printer Profile, which are discounted if ordering two or more Advanced Profiles at the same time.
Please see ourOrder page for details of ordering, and to download the Instructions andTargets.
How to Download Profiling Targets and Order Custom Printer Profiles
This page updated January 8, 2024
