Who does good printer profiles?

[pobrien3]

Can anyone offer advice about where to go (on the internet of course) for good quality profiles these days?  My trusty R800 died after years of sterling service so I bought the R1800, and the out-of-the-box profiles are generally pretty good but I'm getting variable results with inaccurate skin tones.  Quality, not price is the criteria.  Thanks!
Peter

[Hermie]

Can anyone offer advice about where to go (on the internet of course) for good quality profiles these days?  My trusty R800 died after years of sterling service so I bought the R1800, and the out-of-the-box profiles are generally pretty good but I'm getting variable results with inaccurate skin tones.  Quality, not price is the criteria.  Thanks!
Peter
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See the profiling services listed here:
[a href=\"http://www.outbackphoto.com/tforum/viewtopic.php?TopicID=1930]http://www.outbackphoto.com/tforum/viewtop...hp?TopicID=1930[/url]

Hermie

[pobrien3]

Thanks Hermie - I'm generally aware of the service companies out there, I was hoping for some current personal experiences of them.  Found a couple of interesting links on that list though!

I have had four custom profiles made for my R800, all a couple of years ago, most of which were frankly worse than the canned one.  The best one for colour accuracy was made for me by the Gretag distributor in Hong Kong, but it did a very poor job of mapping out-of-gamut colours and caused blocking in dark greens.  The best for mapping those o-o-g colours was published on another forum.
Peter

[alfin]

[...]
I have had four custom profiles made for my R800, all a couple of years ago, most of which were frankly worse than the canned one.  The best one for colour accuracy was made for me by the Gretag distributor in Hong Kong, but it did a very poor job of mapping out-of-gamut colours and caused blocking in dark greens.  The best for mapping those o-o-g colours was published on another forum.
Peter
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=70320\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Peter,
The R800 has been a pretty tricky printer to profile. The way to do it is to use a good target with more than the usual 918 patches. Bill Atkinssons three page 1728 targets should work fine for A4 size. The only profiles that worked for me on this printer were made with Profilemakers LOGO colorful settings. I think the software has improved quite a bit with the latest updates. Andrew Rodney regenerated a profile for me recently and there are noticeable improvements. For your R1800 printer (A3+) I believe Andrew uses Bill's 4096 target, so it should straighten out the print driver enough. You'll find Andrew’s website in the link above.

BR/Lars

[Hermie]

I have had four custom profiles made for my R800, all a couple of years ago, most of which were frankly worse than the canned one.  The best one for colour accuracy was made for me by the Gretag distributor in Hong Kong, but it did a very poor job of mapping out-of-gamut colours and caused blocking in dark greens.  The best for mapping those o-o-g colours was published on another forum.
Peter
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I know what you mean.

I wasn't very lucky in profiling the R800 with GMB ProfileMaker. ProfileMaker 5.05b is supposed to resolve the problem of smearing in dark greens/browns. I redid a couple of R800's with 5.05b and noticed some improvement, but in my experience, the best profiles for the R800 are created with MonacoProfiler. But it's too late for you anyway.

Herman

[pobrien3]

Lars / Herman,

I was victim of that awful yellow / green smearing with my R800 (some users claimed never to encounter it), and I'm pleased to say that the R1800 seems to handle them very much better straight out of the box.  Epson claimed some gamut improvements in this printer over the R800, and apparently they created better profiles.  I've found them to be more than adequate for most purposes, but there are a number of images where I need better fidelity in the skin tones, so I need a well-written profile.

Thank you very much for recommending Mr Rodney - I'll make contact!

Peter

[pobrien3]

Andrew Rodney produced an excellent profile for me, and very quick turnaround too.  The prints are now better balanced with better skin tones, and prompted me to question the accuracy of my monitor profiles.  I spent some time on them this week and after trying several profiles and several profile software demos, I have the monitors set up better and now get a much closer monitor-to-print match than I had before.  WAY better than I ever had with the R800 and my old profiles!
Peter

[Gregory]

I spent some time on them this week and after trying several profiles and several profile software demos, I have the monitors set up better and now get a much closer monitor-to-print match than I had before.[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=71701\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

hi Peter.

which Monitor calibration software did you end up using?

[pobrien3]

Gregory, I preferred the way the ColorEyes software handled, but got a better profile from BasICColor.  I'm still working with the ColorEyes software to see if I can match it, but looks like I'll be buying BasICColor (can't used to spelling colour as 'color'!).

[efillink]

Can anyone offer advice about where to go (on the internet of course) for good quality profiles these days?  My trusty R800 died after years of sterling service so I bought the R1800, and the out-of-the-box profiles are generally pretty good but I'm getting variable results with inaccurate skin tones.  Quality, not price is the criteria.  Thanks!
Peter
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=70271\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I have a friend in the UK recently made profile for a 3 rd party ink for me.  He is currently on vacation or away somewhere.  I will ask him if he will provide profile service.