Our next step will be to learn about “printer profiles” and how to use them. Printer profiles are how your application (like Photoshop or Lightroom) tells your printer what colors to print. It’s really difficult; nor is it as intimidating as it sounds.
When you make a print, you must tell your printer which paper you are printing on. The printer profile does just that.
All papers made by your printer manufacturer (like Epson or Canon) have these profiles built into their software. In Photoshop, you simply tell your printer that you are printing on “Premium Glossy”, “Watercolor Fine Art”, or other paper and the printer will do the rest.
But what if you are printing on a paper that was made by another manufacturer? That’s usually not a problem since most independent paper manufacturers (like Moab or Lexjet) will provide paper profiles on their web sites for their various papers.
Now the problem… companies like Epson don’t make profiles for their papers for use on other companies’ printers. Or, conversely, they don’t make profiles for printing anyone else’s papers on their printers. So, if you’re going to print an Epson paper on a Canon printer, you’ll have to make your own custom profile.
Again, this is not difficult… but it is possibly expensive. To make a paper profile you’ll need a Spectrophotometer such as a ColorMunki, I-One, or Spyder 3. These devices can cost anywhere from $350 - $1500. But, they do a great job and can also be used to make profiles for your monitor and projector. There are companies around that will make custom profiles for you for $50 - $100 per profile.
Using a custom profile when you print is very straightforward also. Next time I’ll talk about the nuances involved when sending your image to your printer.
You can add your comments and questions below. I’ll be happy to answer them. The idea is to just enjoy and learn.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment