Digital Prints

Custom, remote profiles can be purchased from providers such as CHROMiX/ColorValet,
InkjetMall.com, digitalartsupplies.com, and from independent color consultants.
DIY Profiling
As with monitor profiling, you can purchase a profile-making package and create your own
printer profiles. Profile-making systems either bundle the printer-profile function with monitor
calibration or sell it separately. Doing it yourself has the highest start-up cost (several
hundred to several thousand dollars), but if you anticipate needing a lot of profiles, and
aren’t fazed by the learning and experimenting curve, this may be your best choice.
The workflow is the same as with custom profiles: a reference target is output to your print
device using identical print settings, ink, and paper as the final prints made with the resulting
profile. Those same patches are then measured with either a regular flatbed scanner or
patch reader (low cost, less accurate options) or a spectrophotometer or spectrocolorimeter
(more expensive but more accurate). The variances are recorded by the software in
the form of an ICC printer profile for that particular combination of variables.
Printer profiles can also be edited or fine-tuned by most profile-building and profilemanaging
software programs.
Caution: Please keep in mind that profiling software contains licensing restrictions; just because
you bought the software does not mean you are free to distribute profiles built with it!
Some of the most popular profile-making packages include (at the time of this writing):
Scanner- or Patch-Reader-Based: ColorVision ProfilerPLUS, ColorVision PrintFIX (see
Figure 4.13), Digital Domain Profile Prism, and MonacoEZcolor.
Spectro-Based: ColorVision ProfilerPRO, ColorVision SpectroPRO, GretagMacbeth Eye-
One Photo, GretagMacbeth ProfileMaker, MonacoPROOF, and MonacoPROFILER.
These choices include everything from inexpensive scanner-based packages to multithousand-dollar
packages with everything you would ever need to create and edit profiles.
However, you may not need everything. For example, if you’re only interested in
printing RGB files on a desktop inkjet printer, some of the more sophisticated options
would be wasted on you, and your money wasted on them.
Chapter 4 ■ Understanding and Managing Color 139
Figure 4.13 Designed for amateurs to
prosumers, ColorVision’s PrintFIX is
the first affordable, integrated
hardware/software product for printer
profiling. As a plug-in for Adobe
Photoshop or Photoshop Elements,
PrintFIX prints a target that’s read
back into the computer with a USB
patch reader. The software quickly
creates an RGB ICC profile for
supported inkjet printers.
Courtesy of ColorVision, Inc.