In Focus Vol. 1 No. 6

Profiling, Pudding & Paper

An ICC profile is only one ingredient in the recipe for accurate color. Here’s a great tip for using an ICC paper profile.

By Tom Hauenstein

When I’m talking to photographers or fine art reproducers about a new printable material, I’m often asked, “Is there an ICC profile?” This is a sign that our industry recognizes the importance of a color managed workflow, which is great. However, there’s a very important follow-up question that I rarely, if ever, hear… “Do you have the list of settings used to create this profile?”

Many believe that just by using a profile somewhere during their print process, the results should be perfect. Unfortunately, a profile is just one part of the solution, and a lot more needs to be considered. It’s kind of like looking up the recipe for a pudding and only finding the word sugar. So what else needs to be considered?

For the sake of this article, assume that your workflow from camera/scanner through Photoshop and color correction is sound. You are now at the point where you have a file that is ready to print.

You need an ICC Profile for the printer, ink, and media profile you ’re going to use. You can usually obtain these by downloading the profile from the manufacturer’s website. If there is no ICC profile for your printer, paper, and ink, then expect to always struggle with accurate color rendering.

You also need the list of settings used to create this profile; otherwise, the profile you downloaded is useless. Here’s an example of a typical printer settings document from LexJet for its profiles:

Note that there are four main settings that must be used in order for the profiles to work:

1) Media Setting
With the Epson driver, the media setting determines ink saturation (linearization), and media feed adjustment. If you do not select the same media used to create the profile, your results will be drastically different.

2) Resolution
1440 dpi is the resolution used for the profiles. If you were to use one of these 1440-dpi profiles and print at 720 or 2880, the chances of hitting perfect color are diminished greatly. We choose 1440 dpi because it gives the best visible resolution without wasting time and ink.

3) High Speed Checkbox
This determines whether the printer prints bi-directionally or uni-directionally. Bi-directional printing will reduce the amount of time to finish a print, but usually brings with it a loss in detail and image sharpness. To optimize the quality of your prints, leave high speed unchecked.

4) No Color Adjustment Checkbox
By checking this box, you disable the printer’s color management. This is really important because you want Photoshop to color manage the image with the downloaded ICC profile. Epson offers more information about this setup and the appropriate steps, which I've provided here. If your printer also manages color, the image will be double color-corrected, and the result will be dismal, kind of like an asparagus pudding.

Tom is LexJet’s technical support director.