Making your own printer profiles - Is it really worth the effort?

Keith looks at why you might want to make your own profiles along with many reasons you might decide it's not worth the effort and expense for the benefits gained.

Keith discusses more about making profiles in these recent videos:

Making pro level profiles

Making profiles for better art and photo prints

Unsure of why profiles matter?

Keith's 2003 review of the ColorVision PrintFIX

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[jbairdexp]

Interesting as always Keith. I have custom profiles for all my papers, but the paper manufacturer creates them for me. That is one job that I'm happy to outsource!

[MrMick]

Many thanks, always nicely explained.

[michaelduffy]

I have found learning about ICC profiles and similar topics from your videos enormously helpful in understanding the results I am or am not getting. In some cases, I realized, I was choosing papers based on the quality of the manufacturer’s ICC profile as much as based on the actual paper.

[DJO]

Hi Keith, thank you for this video - this was what I needed to hear 🙂I've been tempted for a while to go off on a tangent, investing time and money into creating my own paper profiles. Not because paper manufacturer-provided profiles are not doing it for me, but because I like to know the technical ins and outs of the end to end workflow. Even if in the end I'd probably go "interesting to know, but I'll get someone else to do this". Your recent videos have helped me to gain a better understand the more technical side of creating custom paper profiles, whilst giving me the realisation to "keep it real" and focus on what goes on out in the field, during post-production and when printing using the paper manufacturer's profiles. Thank you!

[dunnymonster]

Excellent advice as always Keith. I've produced a few custom profiles for my ET2650 using the i1 Studio but I wouldn't recommend somebody who's only printer is a very basic entry level one spending what amounts to more on profiling gear than the printer cost.
The only reason I happen to own the i1 studio in the first place is because I use it on my Canon Pro 100S. That said, if a paper provider supplies generic " canned " ICC profiles I'll always use them rather than make my own. Frankly I doubt my relatively modest i1 studio could produce much better custom profiles anyway. It's likely the likes of Fotospeed and Permajet use a vastly more expensive profiler than my i1 studio to make their profiles 😊
I only produce custom profiles for papers for which the provider doesn't, i.e. for when using Epson papers on my Canon or discontinued Ilford papers ( of which I purchased a lot in bulk ). The fact that I have the i1 studio already means however that I can still use it to create good profiles for my much cheaper ET2650. I'd say I'm getting about as good as this printer can possibly get by doing this. Do printer profiles make a difference on printers like these entry level Epson Ecotanks? Absolutely they do! When I first used my ET2650 I printed on some HP Advanced Glossy which I had. Needless to say I had to use Epson's generic Premium Glossy setting in the driver ( the ET2650 only has that, Matt and plain paper to choose from!). The results were terrible, very dark prints with a green tint on them. Once I created a custom ICC profile the results were night and day. Not perfect by any means ( I've found my Canon Pro 100 and my little Epson don't like HP paper for some reason lol ) but vastly better. I now use Ilford Smooth Pearl on my Epson with a custom profile and the results look fantastic. The Epson premium gloss media setting with my custom profile combined produce excellent results.
So what would be my advise to somebody considering buying the newer ET2850 who wants the best prints it can produce without having the budget/desire to also purchase a profiling device like the i1 studio?
Simple...stick to buying only Epson's own gloss/semi gloss/lustre papers ( and set the paper type to premium glossy in the driver ). Failing that try alternative quality papers that are similar ( no not that cheap nasty Kodak paper you can buy from Asda or the no name rubbish from Poundland) and cross your fingers. To be fair, my ET2650 does a good job using it's driver on most good quality gloss/semi gloss and lustre papers, whatever the brand ( except HP ) so give it a whirl.
I've not tried any Matt papers with the ET2650 on account it's an all dye based printer, I expect the ET2850 however might fair better given it now has pigment black 😋

[robertsimpson]

Excellent video thank you. I use a Canon Pro 100s and went down the road of trying profiling some papers during lockdown using Spyderprint. It was a very good learning process and entertained me greatly, filling up my spare time. It produced no useful profiles. in my opinion the important thing is to use manufacturers ink;
manufacturers paper for least effort; good paper with recommended profiles (I use Permajet and Paperspectrum) and concentrate on your photography

[dougson]

Thank you Keith, I have a Canon G850 which has been printing very light prints but now that I have changed the Driver from a Secure AirPrint to just plain old AirPrint I actually get Prints that near enough match the screen. 😅😅

[RAS-pzst]

Just a fantastic video!
Printer: ET 8550
Camera: canon D700
Profiler: Xmas present (last) CCcolour Studio
My experience: with the Epson profiles management: these prints gave me very good results especially with skin tones.
My own profiles: fantastic (better) than Epson profiles, but disappointing with skin tones ( jaundice look ), after 5x attempts

[MrWhizzo]

Mr. Cooper this is the most relevant video within your oeuvre in which to address my question. I put the cart in front of the horse several years ago and bought several bundles of Canon papers. These papers were intended for use with the Canon Pixma Pro 9000. Now I own the Pro 200 and wondered was there a way to use these papers with this newer printer? Thanking you in advance, a horrible procrastinator.

[JH-qvxv]

Well I haven't asked but I too have been thinking another good reality check. I can stay with papers that comes with a profile and I should be able to get a very good print not withstanding I need a good image as a starting point. So more time to take pictures with the camera. I have to keep reminding myself that there might be a difference if I compare any two prints but stand back two feet from the prints and is the difference enough to use up my camera time? Keep your reminders coming so I can have more time making images. Thanks

[geoffcrump]

I was considering getting a munki to produce some icc, as I have many printers and many papers but after this video I will just carry on getting papers profiled by suppliers..less hassle😉 thanks Keith

[brycekampjes]

For me, testing paper, a profile is very useful. Otherwise it's hard to spot what's a profiling issue and what's the paper. This is really true for shadow areas etc. I'll use one sheet to do a basic Argyll CMS profile, then the other for a test image. That gives me something I can compare. Without the profile there are too many variables that I don't have the eye to see through. I'm printing using Linux on an ET-8550. The i1 Studio isn't too expensive if you need something to profile your screen too. But even on Linux now, manufacturers standard profiles possibly work, I haven't tested. For me the real benefit is I can print an image on several papers without needing to re-edit, the profile takes care of the differences.

[jpdj]

Something not so obvious in many photography cases, is that we can make (e.g.) two dramatically different prints from the same shot.
One of my portfolio shots - high fashion, historic location, available light, indoors - works really well in very soft low contrast and light rendition, but I can make it much darker, moodier, almost Goth, too. The raw image has perfect exposure anda neutral rendition is in between. All good, big differences and different impact.

[jean-claudemuller]

Hello Keith
As allways very interesting video. In the past I made a lot of custom profiles with the Printfix device. It was a nightmare getting correct measurements of the color patches and with that lost cost solution precision was never as good as professional profiles made with expensive high end gear.
Nevertheless with a lot of time I got some very pleasing profiles and I was very satisfied with the results in an artistic way, not a scientific way. What was very interesting was the possibility to fine tweak profiles with one and the same measured patch values file.

My question : is it possible to rework and fine tune (in an artistic way) existing paper manufacture profiles to the own taste ?

[jpdj]

Yes we can. Good video, Keith. I print Epson and Hahnemuehle at A4 and larger, Ilford at 5"*7" (13*18cm).
The paper manufacturer profiles are good, and the instructions too, but the hassle is to keep track of what Epson branded paper I need to select in the printer driver for each of the Hahnemuehle papers, or Ilford.
In that sense, Lightroom adds zero value.
Do you have different experiences?

[MrBlubb]

My experience with the Pro-1000 is that some profiles by manufacturers simply don’t work. The calumet brillant papers and those from fotospeed for example. Even for some hahnemühle papers with their profile I get result that have a slight but noticeable magenta cast (not relative to screen but relative to prints on other papers).
Also the prints are all quite dark.
I now purchased a rather low budget Color calometry profiling system and while it’s quite some work and not foolproof I prefer the results in terms of fidelity.

[danielrossi]

Hello Keith one more thanks fort the video, I have got a question with a friend we are using a new Epson SC P7500 printer and we have one problem (the monitors are profiled and we use manufacturer's profiles for our papers (Hahnemuhle and Tecco) and we have got a problem, the shadows are too dark if comparing with with the image on the screen....
Thanks for your answer.
Daniel

[albertjones]

Hi Keith, I have a colour Munki which I use to profile all my printing papers (A3) on my Epson 2880, are you saying it is not the best way to achieve a better reproduce more colour accuracy?

[noelbutcher]

Hi Keith,
Another interesting video, many thanks. In this one you mentioned that you can 'tweak' profiles.
Can you explain this further please?

Another thing I would like to see is a comparison between prints (same image/ printer/paper/ink) but made using profiles made with different devices eg your super duper dcevice featured recently and say the Colorchecker Studio.
Would there be any/many differences of note?
Cheers nb

[k_DEDb]

hello. just started learning sublimation printing. i have an ET-4800. Hiipo sublimation inks and A-Sub sublimation transfer paper. ive searched a lot and found an ICC for another printer and the colours are way off. id like to make my own ICC while hoping that would be possible. do you have any suggestions based on my situation perhaps. i would take it only as friendly aevice an not badger you any further. enjoyed this video a lot thanks so much