Printer ICC profile editor for Mac

[steveclv]

I have a couple of Epson 3800 printers - one runs only genuine Epson K3 inks and the other has refillable carts with non-OEM inks that are I believe made by InkTec but cannot be certain.

Both printers work just fine except that (of course) the non-OEM inks appear washed out when printing the same image using the Epson ICC profiles.

So I ran off some calibration sheets (basically squares made up of the 8 'primary' colors) and compared them to the original K3 results. I have been through all of the ICC printer profiles including one I downloaded from Inktec for the 4800 (there were none for the 3800) - obviously each gives me a slightly different result and overall I can get an exact color match with the K3 but never all at the same time. The best two profiles each have 2 colors mismatched - but different ones.

So I'd like to edit the profiles to see if I can get something closer to what I need - can anyone recommend a relatively cheap software that I can use to adjust them?

Many thanks!

Steve

[Rhossydd]

So I'd like to edit the profiles to see if I can get something closer to what I need - can anyone recommend a relatively cheap software that I can use to adjust them?

Probably the best advice I can give is to forget the idea of editing a printer profile.
If you back read through this forum you'll find that even the world experts on colour management avoid editing profiles. There's little software available and the few products available are difficult and unintuitive to use.

The best advice I can give is to just get a custom printer profile made for your printer/ink/paper. I run www.colourprofiles.com in the UK and we supply profiles for just £15 including tax, there are other suppliers that offer similar services and prices in most territories around the globe.

[steveclv]

I understand that you run a company providing a service but being based in Malta means that it can take a week to get a profile done from the UK plus we have to use whatever papers are available at any point in time and so it's likely to that we will be changing papers so I need to have the ability to edit a profile. So at £15 a shot it can get expensive quickly.

I am sure there is some software available and as a software programmer I certainly have no problems getting to grips with most UIs

The alternative would be to invest in my own spectometer which I may have to do but I'd like to have a go at tweaking an ICC first and it it does fail miserably then I'd invest in a more automated system.

[Rhossydd]

I understand that you run a company providing a service but being based in Malta means that it can take a week to get a profile done from the UK plus we have to use whatever papers are available at any point in time and so it's likely to that we will be changing papers so I need to have the ability to edit a profile. So at £15 a shot it can get expensive quickly.

How much do you value your time ?
The smart thing is to settle on just a few papers and ensure you keep a good stock of them available, then you can just buy a few custom profiles for the ones in regular use. Plus you'll get to understand the characteristics of papers and how different images will work on your chosen papers.

I am sure there is some software available and as a software programmer I certainly have no problems getting to grips with most UIs

Yes, software is available, but it's very expensive. The UIs are generally no problem, the difficulty is understanding how to actually edit a profile and appreciating the effects of making those edits.
I'll repeat, go back and read previous discussion on here about editing profiles. I've never seen it recommended as a solution for your sort of problem.

The alternative would be to invest in my own spectometer which I may have to do but I'd like to have a go at tweaking an ICC first and it it does fail miserably then I'd invest in a more automated system.

Decent spectrophotometer and software packages start at £1200 and each profile will take time to make. Maybe a worthwhile investment if you have to make lots of different profiles to make, but do the sums yourself.

[steveclv]

If you live on a small island in the middle of the Med then your suggestion to settle on a few papers and keeping a stock isn't a practical solution. Our suppliers don't operate like they do in the UK - they keep a stock of only what they want to keep and not much of it - storing paper on an island is hard and expensive due to the humidity - and shipping it here is long winded and expensive. We have to go with whatever we can find, when we can find it and it may be something we have never seen before or even a no-name media.

Time is something I have a lot of - heck I live on a beautiful island with beautiful weather doing something I really enjoy - so it's not 'work' to me and if I learn something along the way then even better. You lot back in the Rat Race wouldn't understand it We work to 'Island Time'.

I did some more research and came across SpyderPrint from Datacolor - looks like I can get the whole kit and caboodle for £200 so maybe that's the way to go.

[digitaldog]

Probably the best advice I can give is to forget the idea of editing a printer profile.

I can't agree more! Even the best tools there were years ago to do this, it was often an exercise in futility depending on what you were trying to edit.
If you must, edit the document data, not the profile.

[Wayne Fox]

I don't know if I've ever heard of anyone trying to edit a profile to make it work for a different inkset or paper.

Get a colormunki and make your profiles. While not as good as other solutions they aren't that bad and would give you much better results than what you are considering.

[RHPS]

I believe your best bet is to have one custom profile made for your third-party inks on a "typical" paper. You will probably find that the same profile will give you reasonable results with a other papers of a similar type. The ink set is by far the biggest factor in the colour rendering and no amount of tweaking an OEM profile will get you as close as a single custom profile even when used on a range of papers. Take a look at this thread on another forum http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/52429438

[Mac Mahon]

If you live on a small island in the middle of the Med .....

I did some more research and came across SpyderPrint from Datacolor - looks like I can get the whole kit and caboodle for £200 so maybe that's the way to go.

I live on an island in the south of the Pacific - I know what you mean.  Making your own profiles for the papers you can get is the only way to go.

However, I'm with Wayne on this.  Try to get a Colormunki Photo - around the same price as the option you're considering but easier to operate and more accurate in my experience.

Tim

[digitaldog]

Get a colormunki and make your profiles. While not as good as other solutions they aren't that bad and would give you much better results than what you are considering.

I agree and the product is surprisingly good considering the number of patches one has to measure and the price.

[steveclv]

Thanks All!!

Looks like I am getting a ColorMunki Photo

I'll let you know how it works out.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Thanks All!!

Looks like I am getting a ColorMunki Photo

I'll let you know how it works out.

Sorry, I was on holiday and am coming in late.  If you are computer savvy you can also download ArgylCMS and use it to make profiles.  the software is free and supports the Colormunki.  It can be configured in lots of different ways to produce optimal results and I've been using it to good success for five years now (first with ColorMunki and now with an i1Pro).

Alan

[francois]

Stefano Lassini has a good tutorial for ArgylCMS here: http://www.lassini.com/blog/?p=259
It might look intimidating but really easy to follow.