So, for the sake clarity and the removal of doubt, do I understand correctly that you are saying the you are using the word “calibrate” to mean ‘measure and adjust to an external standard’ (e.g. colour temperature) whereas (and put simply) you are saying that a device profile (e.g. that of a printer) describes the behaviour of the device which allows colour management software (e.g. ‘Adobe ACE’ colour engine) to produce as accurate appearing as possible a range and relationships between colours that the device can produce/encode; and (for the sake of completeness) in order to facilitate this there are, in addition, a number of ways of interpreting this “accuracy” which are the Rendering Intents (e.g. “Perceptual”, “Absolute”, etc..) ?
Without getting too technical have I, in essence, understood correctly ? I am happy to be corrected where I may have got it wrong but colour management pedants please desist from being picky !
Basically, yes. You have it.
I like how your explanation waffles a bit on accuracy as accuracy is a) very tough to define, b) tough to achieve, and c) often not strictly desired. It's why I said "or something close that agrees with other colors in the process" as the "agreement" with other colors (including the paper) is how rendering intents get involved.
now from a different Simon...
Calibration doesn't normally apply to printers. Printers are profiled, which means measuring the colour space of the printer (usually the printer/paper combination).
I'd prefer to flip this around and say that when printing to an inkjet using manufacture drivers, calibration doesn't apply. In ALL other types of printing: RIP-driven inkjet, offset, flexo, screen, gravure, etc, etc, etc, calibration most certainly does apply (and is very important)