Printer Profiles
for sale by
Digital Domain Inc.
Hits since Sep, 2003:

Quick Links

• Printer profiles and why we need them

• Pre-made profiles versus creating your own profiles with a profiling tool

• View/purchase available printer profiles

Printer profiles and why we need them

Perhaps you have discovered that the color of your prints is not accurate or that your prints do not match your monitor. With the myriad of different papers (and even inks) available for printers these days, there is a high probability that you will encounter problems with color accuracy in prints at some point. When you start to research solutions for managing printed color, you may find that ICC profiles offer the only "scientific" method of ensuring color accuracy. Many people try manually "tweaking" driver settings to get better color by process of elimination and while this process can improve color, there is no assurance of true accuracy across a wide range of colors. Other methods of ensuring color between cameras and printers do exist, but they are not as robust as ICC profiles, are generally not as accurate as they only describe general settings, and are often controlled by a small number of companies making the solutions proprietary and often short lived. ICC profiles are the professional color management solution and follow an international and accepted standard to enable accurate printed color for all colors that your printer can reproduce. In contrast, achieving accurate color via manual tweaking is nearly impossible due to the complex nature of printer color response. Your printer will have a different color response for each type of paper and ink used, so you'll need to find an ICC profile for the paper/ink combination that you are using to be able to utilize ICC profiles. In addition, your printing software must be ICC aware since not all software supports ICC profiles. Take a look at our own Qimage if you are looking for cost effective printing software that fully supports ICC profiles.

ICC profiles offer the ability to manage color properly to ensure accurate output on various devices. Image Color Management (ICM) based on the use of ICC profiles is a powerful tool, however, it requires that users be able to obtain accurate profiles for the device/media/ink that they are using. To ensure accurate color in prints, you start with an image in a known color space and associate the proper profile (for the printer/paper/ink you are using) with your printer. Once you have associated the appropriate profile with your printer, you are off and running. Sounds easy until you realize that obtaining these profiles is often far from trivial. Profiling tools such as Profile Prism allow you to create your own custom profiles for any printer/paper/ink combination but require that you have a good quality scanner and require time and effort to print the targets, allow them to dry overnight, scan, place crop markers, and create the profiles. Realizing that not everyone has the time or necessary equipment to build their own profiles, Digital Domain Inc. has begun developing profiles for sale at a reasonable price for specific printers/papers/inks. Purchasing a profile for your printer/paper/ink will take the burden out of creating your own profiles, however, custom profiles offer other advantages. See the next section for information regarding the best option for you.

Pre-made profiles versus creating your own profiles with a profiling tool

Creating your own custom profiles (Profile Prism @ $79):

Pros:

• Any printer/paper/ink combo can be profiled so you are not limited to certain media/ink
• More cost effective in an environment where you need to create many different profiles
• Can be more accurate under the right conditions because your specific printer/paper/ink is addressed
• If paper stock changes, inks are reformulated, or you get a new printer, you can create new profiles
• Allows you to make changes/tweaks to some degree to tailor your profiles

Cons:

• Requires your own time and uses some of your media/ink to create the profiles
• Requires a good scanner
• Can actually be less accurate if using a poor quality scanner or not following proper procedures

Using pre-made profiles (printer profiles by Digital Domain Inc. @ $25):

Pros:

• Up and running almost instantly: "connect" the profile, set driver settings, and print
• Less opportunity for error: we build the profiles under controlled conditions
• More cost effective if you only need a few profiles or just want to try ICM in your own software
• Doesn't require additional hardware such as a scanner just to be able to profile your printer

Cons:

• Limits you to certain papers/inks based on the profiles that are available
• Profiles can be less accurate if paper stock changes or inks are reformulated
• Not cost effective if you often use many different types of media and need profiles for each

Printer profiles currently available

What you get: When you purchase a printer profile below, you will receive (via email) a ZIP file that contains the profile itself along with a text file describing how to install the profile and the exact print driver settings required to be able to use the profile. Since profiles are very specific to print driver settings, it is imperative that you set print driver settings as outlined in the text file prior to using your profile(s). Also, please understand that to be able to use ICC profiles, you must be using software that is ICC aware as not all software supports ICC profiles. For cost effective software that is fully ICC aware, check out our own Qimage.

Note: Results may vary slightly from printer to printer and across different lots of paper/ink, however, the profiles sold on this page should provide excellent overall results when used with the recommended print driver settings.

Canon:

• i950
• i960

Epson

• Stylus Photo 1270
• Stylus Photo 1280
• Stylus Photo 2200
• Stylus Pro 7600/9600

Olympus

• P400

Canon i950:

The following Canon i950 profiles are based on Windows XP i950 driver version 1.62a
The profiles should work on all other Windows drivers for the i950 as well
While the profiles can be used on Mac systems, applicability has not been tested on Mac OS

Canon i960:

The following Canon i960 profiles are based on Windows XP i960 driver version 1.72
The profiles should work on all other Windows drivers for the i960 as well
While the profiles can be used on Mac systems, applicability has not been tested on Mac OS

Epson Stylus Photo 1270:

The following Epson 1270 profiles are based on Windows XP 1270 driver version 5.20
The profiles should work on all other Windows drivers for the Epson SP 1270 as well
Epson 1270 profiles will also work on the 1270's smaller equivalent: the Epson 870
While the profiles can be used on Mac systems, applicability has not been tested on Mac OS

Epson Stylus Photo 1280:

The following Epson 1280 profiles are based on Windows XP 1280 driver version 5.21
The profiles should work on all other Windows drivers for the Epson SP 1280 as well
Epson 1280 profiles will also work on the smaller Epson 890 and European 1290
While the profiles can be used on Mac systems, applicability has not been tested on Mac OS

Epson 2200:

The following Epson 2200 profiles are based on Windows XP 2200 driver version 5.40
The profiles should work on all other Windows drivers for the Epson 2200 as well
While the profiles can be used on Mac systems, applicability has not been tested on Mac OS

Epson 7600/9600:

The following Epson 7600/9600 profiles are based on Windows XP 7600 driver version 5.31
The profiles should work on all other Windows drivers for the Epson 7600/9600 as well
While the profiles can be used on Mac systems, applicability has not been tested on Mac OS

Olympus P400:

Note: This profile had been tweaked and tested specifically for the P400 printer and will render much better results than our free P400 profile available here.

The following Olympus P400 profile is based on Windows XP P400 driver version 1.11
The profiles should work on all other Windows drivers for the P400 as well
While the profiles can be used on Mac systems, applicability has not been tested on Mac OS

More coming soon: We plan to expand the list of available profiles by providing profiles for a wider selection of printers/papers in coming weeks. Check back here often for the most up-to-date info.

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