Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: BURRometer on July 25, 2006, 02:11:57 pm

Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: BURRometer on July 25, 2006, 02:11:57 pm
Hello,

I'm looking for a north american company/individual who can produce an icc profile for my printer.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

-Frank
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: francois on July 25, 2006, 02:22:37 pm
Frank,
DigitalDog - Andrew Rodney (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showuser=9184) (author of "Color Management for Photographers: Hands on Techniques for Photoshop Users") on this forum provides custom profile services.
Or your can use Google and look for cutom printer profiles (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=custom+printer+profiles&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8).
HTH
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: pobrien3 on July 25, 2006, 02:24:36 pm
I recently opened a thread Who does good printer profiles? (http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?act=ST&f=6&t=11481) and received some helpful replies - try there.

I had a profile made by Andrew Rodney (digitaldog in this forum) and he did an excellent job.  Good enough to make me question if my monitor profiles were as accurate as I thought they were, so I re-calibrated the monitors with better software and now get as good a match as I think I can expect from my consumer-grade printer.
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: mikeseb on July 25, 2006, 09:19:38 pm
Inkjetart.com (http://www.inkjetart.com/profiles/profiles.html). I had a half dozen made. All but two were good; i'm still evaluating those but IJA is usually good about making things right.
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: thompsonkirk on July 25, 2006, 10:56:42 pm
Inkjetart makes inexpensive profiles, & I get one from them whenever I want to try out a new paper.  But Andrew's profiles produce a more neutral grayscale & are subtler in shadow detail & tonal gradation.  It's because he starts with the much larger Bill Atkinson 16-bit targets & measures many many more color samples.  The .icc file itself is much larger.  

When you figure out what papers you really like, spend the money to have Andrew do your profiling.
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: pobrien3 on July 26, 2006, 07:52:30 am
This is not a comment aimed at IJA as I've never used their services - I'm sure they're excellent.  I've found to my cost that getting the profile done right first time is better value than experimenting with cheaper ones.  For my little R800 I had four separate profiles made for one paper, and none of them gave me very much of an improvement over the standard profiles - in some cases even worse.

Good advice from Kirk (I presume?) - If you know what paper(s) you're going to be using, splash out.

Peter
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: awofinden on July 26, 2006, 03:08:45 pm
Do people think it's worth getting custom profiles for a 9800 for use with epsons premium luster or are the canned ones as good as a custom one?
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: alfin on July 26, 2006, 05:34:14 pm
Quote
Do people think it's worth getting custom profiles for a 9800 for use with epsons premium luster or are the canned ones as good as a custom one?
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a] (http://index.php?act=findpost&pid=71798\")
At least try Bill Atkinson's free 9800 profiles if you have not tried them yet. But yes, $100 for accurate color is well worth the cost considering your printer.

[a href=\"http://homepage.mac.com/billatkinson/FileSharing2.html]http://homepage.mac.com/billatkinson/FileSharing2.html[/url]
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: awofinden on July 27, 2006, 06:51:50 pm
Quote
At least try Bill Atkinson's free 9800 profiles if you have not tried them yet. But yes, $100 for accurate color is well worth the cost considering your printer.

http://homepage.mac.com/billatkinson/FileSharing2.html (http://homepage.mac.com/billatkinson/FileSharing2.html)
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=71806\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I've tried the Bill Atkinson profiles which are interesting. I'm not asking if a custom profile is worth the price, I'm asking if they are better than the canned profiles which are remarkably good.
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: BURRometer on August 05, 2006, 03:01:55 pm
I've decided to try www.cathysprofiles.com.  So far communication with them has been excellent and they've just recently upgraded their profiling system but have yet to revise the website detailing the change.

I'll post comments on the profile when it arrives.

-Frank
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: marcmccalmont on August 05, 2006, 05:01:24 pm
Quote
I've decided to try www.cathysprofiles.com.  So far communication with them has been excellent and they've just recently upgraded their profiling system but have yet to revise the website detailing the change.

I'll post comments on the profile when it arrives.

-Frank
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=72654\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: marcmccalmont on August 05, 2006, 05:20:18 pm
I just had 2 profiles done by Cathy's profiles and the result was excellent. Both papers that are very different (Fuji Pro to look like a traditional photo and Innova F type for the fine art look) the color and output are almost exact. She also profiled my HiTi 640 dye sub that I use for proofing and now both printers, my monitor and all 3 papers match. I also noted that the output in both color and detail improved over the canon profiles (iPF 5000) on either the above papers or Canon paper. Images appear to be more detailed, more lifelike and more defined on the edges. The differences are subtle on the iPF5000 and quite noticable on the HiTi. (I think the HiTi (manufacturers) profile was deliberately over saturated for the consumer market). The improvements were using both Qimage (8 bit windows driver) and the Canon 16 bit CS2 plug in. I hade made a mistake on one set of targets and Cathy re did them for free and it was my mistake-Highly Recommended-Marc
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: thompsonkirk on August 06, 2006, 02:52:25 pm
Marc, I'm glad you got good results from Cathy for your Canon.

At least for Epson, I've had better results from Andrew than from Cathy (or Dry Creek or IJA).  The most noticeable difference is that Epson drivers have trouble differentiating details & gradations among green tones, sometimes reducing gradations of 'grass green' to mush.  The profiles she made for me didn't fix this.  Andrew's - presumably because they're based on more sample patches - seem to fix what Epson had broken.  

Also more shadow detail, a little more saturation, & better skin tones, when printing the PhotoDisk target.
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: marcmccalmont on August 08, 2006, 07:08:45 am
Quote
Marc, I'm glad you got good results from Cathy for your Canon.

At least for Epson, I've had better results from Andrew than from Cathy (or Dry Creek or IJA).  The most noticeable difference is that Epson drivers have trouble differentiating details & gradations among green tones, sometimes reducing gradations of 'grass green' to mush.  The profiles she made for me didn't fix this.  Andrew's - presumably because they're based on more sample patches - seem to fix what Epson had broken. 

Also more shadow detail, a little more saturation, & better skin tones, when printing the PhotoDisk target.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=72704\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: marcmccalmont on August 08, 2006, 07:13:25 am
Quote
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=72795\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Kirk
Ill give Andrew a try next time maybe even better yet
Marc
Title: Printer Profiling Service... WHERE?
Post by: BURRometer on August 08, 2006, 10:56:23 am
The new system of cathysprofiles uses 1728 samples, nearly twice of what their previous charts contained.  As mentioned above the new charts aren't posted on the website  but they'll email the required files if you contact them.