How To Get a Print Profile.

This workshop will show you how to get a Print Profile for your selected Printer, Paper and Ink combination.

A print profile (sometimes referred to as an "ICC Profile") is a data file that characterises your printer, paper and ink combination. By printing a test chart we then process it through our "Eye-One" profiling system, which will generate a custom ICC Profile to give you the best possible printing results for that combination. If you change any one thing in that combination, you must have a new profile created.

Please note: It would be beneficial to read the complete workshop before you attempt to follow the procedure. If you would like a print out to read, please follow the links at the end of this workshop.

Step: 1. Before you start this workshop you will need to download the "i1 RGB 1.5.tif" file. To download this file click on the "i1 RGB 1.5.tif" target file image below. You will then get a message saying "Do you want to open or save this file". Click "Save". You will then be asked where you would like to save this file. Save the file in a convenient location on your computer where you will be able to find it at a later stage in this workshop. Click "Save". The download process will start. The file you are downloading is 975kb in size, so the download times will vary depending on your internet connection speed. When the file has downloaded you will get a message saying "Download Complete", click "Close". If at any point when you are saving the file a “Tiff Options” box appears, accept the default settings of, Image Compression - None, Pixel Order – Interleaved (RGBRGB), Byte Order – IBM PC. Click OK to continue. The file is now downloaded onto your computer and ready to use. We will use this file later in the workshop.
Note: The “i1 RGB 1.5.tif” target file is A4 in size. If the paper you wish to profile is A3 or above you will need to cut the paper down to A4 when it comes to the printing stage in this workshop.

Step: 2. The next important thing to do is carry out a nozzle check on your printer. Please refer to your printer manual to carry out this task. The printer must produce a perfect nozzle check print before you continue.

Step: 3. We are now going to set our Colour Settings in Photoshop. To do this, go to Edit>Colour Settings. In the Colour Settings dialog box select “Custom” from the Settings drop down menu. In the Working Space set the RGB by selecting “sRGB ICE61966-2.1” from the drop down menu. (In past lectures and instructions we have been instructed to use “Adobe RGB 1998” as a colour setting, but this is based on industry standards and not for home users. Monitors are not capable of displaying
Adobe RGB and ink-jet printers cannot reproduce Adobe RGB, so it is pointless using anything other than sRGB!). Set the CMYK to “Euroscale Coated v2” and set both the Gray and Spot to
“Dot Gain 15%”. In Colour Management Policies set the RGB, CMYK and Grays to "Preserve Embedded Profiles" and tick the 3 options boxes. In the Conversion Options set the Engine to "Adobe (ACE)" and set the Intent to "Perceptual"and tick the 2 options boxes. The Advance controls are set to 20% and 1.00 but un-ticked. Your Colour Settings should now match the Colour Settings dialog box shown below. If your dialog box doesn’t show all the options, click on the “More Options” button on the right hand side.

When you have matched all the settings in the dialog box, click “Save”. In the Save dialog box we need to give our new custom settings a file name, I used “My Custom Settings 18-07-08”. I included the date in my file name so I know when the settings were created. Click Save.

The next dialog box to appear is the “Colour Settings Comments”. Here you can make comments about your custom colour settings. I made a quick comment on where these settings had come from. Make your own comment or leave it blank. Click OK.

Your Colour Settings dialog box should now look like this (see below). Settings will show your new custom settings name, and any comments you made will appear at the bottom. Click OK to save and apply these new custom settings.