How do I determine what ICC profiles really pertain to?

[NAwlins_Contrarian]

Recently I've been learning about color-managed printing, both with an Epson R280 at home and a Canon Pro-100 at work. In both cases I've been using the respective printer manufacturers' papers and inks, and the profiles they include with the printers / driver software packages. Unfortunately some of the descriptions don't tell me what paper and/or printing conditions a profile really pertains to. I have attached as PDFs the information I've compiled on each. In addition to the specific questions below, by all means I'd appreciate any corrections or comments on anything in the attachments.

(1) Quality options: I think that with the Canon 1 is the highest quality, 2 is intermediate, and 3 is lowest--is that right? Can you be more specific, in other words, what are the settings in the printer properties dialog box to which they correspond?

(2) Canon paper names: What is the difference between Canon's "Photo Paper Plus Glossy&Gold" and its "Photo Paper Plus Glossy&Gold A"? What is the difference between Canon's "Photo Paper Pro Platinum" and its "Photo Paper Pro Platinum N"? How do these correspond to the more common designations and/or codes (like LU-101 for luster), in others words, does Canon have different 'model numbers' for each, and if so, how can I tell what's what?

(2) Epson paper names: What is Epson's "Matte Paper-HW"? I understand matte, but is this for any Epson matte, or does "-HW" mean 'heavyweight', or what? And one might suspect that "Photo Qlty IJP" means 'photo-quality inkjet paper', but do you use that any time you aren't using one of the more specific profiles? Or how can there even be a generic profile?!

Thanks!

[Mark D Segal]

If you don't get the answers you need here, may I suggest you contact tech support in the two companies, if you haven't already done so. I would like to help but I don't know the answers, except perhaps for # 3, where I'm pretty sure "HW" means heavyweight and "Photo Qlty IJP" means what you say. It is possible that the same profile is usable for several similar papers especially where a very high degree of colour accuracy is not all that critical.

[NAwlins_Contrarian]

Thanks Mark.

I have submitted the respective questions to the support e-mail sections of both the Epson and Canon websites. If I get any useful information, I'll post it here. But I figure the crew around here probably knows at least as much as whoever is answering website-submitted questions at Epson or Canon. Maybe I'm being too cynical on that point.

In the meantime, note that Canon does have a webpage sort-of addressing the issue--https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART153168--but that page is both inaccurate and incomplete. It is inaccurate insofar as, at least for the Pro-100, the number that's the last character of the profile's file name does not indicate the quality. In all cases the number is 0. In fact the second-to-last character in the file name seems to indicate quality, A = best, B = intermediate, and C = lowest. It is incomplete insofar as it does not cover paper types VA, VC, WB, XB, YA, or YC. Yes, I submitted that critique at the bottom of the page. And of course you (or at least I) have no idea how to tell whether the paper I have is the regular or 'A' or 'N' version. In case that page disappears or changes, I'm posting with this message a PDF of it.

[NAwlins_Contrarian]

To update anyone who may be interested on the situation:

Neither Canon nor Epson covered itself in glory responding to my website-submitted questions about ICC profiles for the Pro-100 and R280, respectively. But at least by the end of the first business day, both did issue a personal response.

Canon
A Canon representative replied Sunday night. The initial response was just to regurgitate the information about profile names / meanings on the U.S. website (https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=ART153168). But after a several-e-mail exchange, I received this clarification, or at least assertion (given how the exchange went, and what they say about printing on "N" paper, I don’t have complete confidence in its accuracy):

Regarding the two different pairs of profiles for (1) "Platinum" and "Platinum N" and (2) "Matte" and "Matte N":

By looking at the paper, you would not be able to differentiate between "N" and "non-N" paper. The N profiles were created to enhance the output on both types of paper. The "N" paper is created with a different formula, so that type of paper is different than the original. "N" paper has been available for 4 years now, so obtaining "non-N" paper would be the exception, not the rule.

Regarding the two different pairs of profiles for "Glossy&Gold" or "Glossy&Gold A":

There are no different paper types for Photo Paper Plus Glossy and Gold, it's all one type of paper, so the two different profiles have subtle changes so that if a customer is unhappy with the results of one they can try the other.

Epson
Epson replied late Monday. The first response was just wrong, including,

In response to you concern, please be advise that we only have icc profiles for selected printers and the STYLUS PHOTO R280 is not included. You may check https://epson.com/search/?text=profiles for the list of printers that has ICC Profiles.

I replied by pointing out that Epson's response is clearly incorrect. In fact installing the R280 driver package--the latest version downloaded from your U.S. website--installs 7 ICC profiles. My question is mostly to what papers do some of the profiles apply.

Note that all quotes should be verbatim, and I decided to omit [sic] from multiple places.