Can you create custom colour profiles manually?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guy
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Guy

Does anyone know of a way to manuall create/modify a printer profile
manually?

I have found my new Formulabs inks in my Canon have a strong magenta cast so
all I really need to do is knock of some magenta in all prints. While I can
do this in Photoshop it not really practical with all the photos I have to
print.

Is it possible without spending a lot of money on colour profiling
equipment. I am happy to just eyeball the results with a bit of trial and
error. I thought perhaps starting with the sRGB profile would be an option
and modify from there.

Thanks in advance

Guy
 
Most drivers for inkjet printers allow for you to make some universal
color changes in an advanced area within the driver settings, and then
save that "profile" under a new name which you can load at any time to
use instead of the more "neutral" profiles they provide. The
adjustments in these drivers usually are somewhat crude, but will have
sliders or other settings for CMYK levels plus brightness, contrast,
saturation, for instance.

They won't be sophisticated color lookup tables, so a color bias or cast
may not be fully resolved in all densities, however, it can help in
getting you a closer result without having to correct each image in
Photoshop, for instance.

Art

If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/
 
I feel like an idiot for even asking the origonal question now. Having read
your post I went looking and found what you mean, hopefully it will be
exactly what I need. As you say, I am just eyeballing it so fairly course
adjustments are all I need

PS: The printer is a Canon i4500

Thanks for your time

Guy
 
Does anyone know of a way to manuall create/modify a printer profile
manually?

I have found my new Formulabs inks in my Canon have a strong magenta castso
all I really need to do is knock of some magenta in all prints.  While I can
do this in Photoshop it not really practical with all the photos I have to
print.

Is it possible without spending a lot of money on colour profiling
equipment.  I am happy to just eyeball the results with a bit of trial and
error.  I thought perhaps starting with the sRGB profile would be an option
and modify from there.

Thanks in advance

Guy
Click to expand...

Since you can get a reasonable profile for $25-40 it doesn't sound
reasonable to do trial and error. You will use up supplies at a far
higher rate. Printing with profiles has reduced my waste to almost
nil, brain freezes are my only way of wasting paper, leave the wrong
profile or some stupid thing like that. Anyway if you do go down this
road don't work from an unknown source, get a copy of the PDI test
image (just Google it) and do your testing from that, then you have a
standard to conform your editing to. If you do trial and error on
every print you will be paying a fortune on supplys and get very
little for it. Been there

Tom
 
I was only ever looking to make a single overall correction to the colour
profile, not one for every print etc.

I have found correcting a black and white image a great way to balance
colour photos on standard printers. They still use the colours a lot even
with a black cart so achieving clean grey very difficult with after maket
inks that vary from genuine.

I found on the Canon, -50M and +50C+50Y pretty much balances it out on their
Glossy II paper although on CDs I just found the colours are pretty accurate
with no adjustments. I have lots of ink and lots of prints to do in the
future to work out a few basic adjustments that will get me acceptable
results as the results I was getting without making these changes were throw
away jobs...

As I introduce the whole after market colours I will have to adjust again,
not too much of a problem in this case.

Cheers

Guy

Does anyone know of a way to manuall create/modify a printer profile
manually?

I have found my new Formulabs inks in my Canon have a strong magenta cast
so
all I really need to do is knock of some magenta in all prints. While I
can
do this in Photoshop it not really practical with all the photos I have to
print.

Is it possible without spending a lot of money on colour profiling
equipment. I am happy to just eyeball the results with a bit of trial and
error. I thought perhaps starting with the sRGB profile would be an option
and modify from there.

Thanks in advance

Guy
Click to expand...

Since you can get a reasonable profile for $25-40 it doesn't sound
reasonable to do trial and error. You will use up supplies at a far
higher rate. Printing with profiles has reduced my waste to almost
nil, brain freezes are my only way of wasting paper, leave the wrong
profile or some stupid thing like that. Anyway if you do go down this
road don't work from an unknown source, get a copy of the PDI test
image (just Google it) and do your testing from that, then you have a
standard to conform your editing to. If you do trial and error on
every print you will be paying a fortune on supplys and get very
little for it. Been there

Tom
 
In message

Ink manufacturer OCP does some useful free test charts in pdf format,
just download them from the web site. It's still doing it by eyeball -
presumably you intend to try to match print output to monitor to make it
WYSIWYG but the charts (particularly the cmyk chart) gives you some
useful clues about which to plus and which to minus.

Go to www.ocp.de, support, test charts. (It's all in English)

To cut down on material usage I print them out A5 or 6x4 to start with.
As with any of these things, the paper makes a difference as well so I
ended up with a few profiles saved.
 
Does anyone know of a way to manuall create/modify a printer profile
manually?

I have found my new Formulabs inks in my Canon have a strong magenta cast so
all I really need to do is knock of some magenta in all prints. While I can
do this in Photoshop it not really practical with all the photos I have to
print.
Click to expand...

You would not have to do this if you used the ink recommended by the
printer mfg that you use.
Is it possible without spending a lot of money on colour profiling
equipment. I am happy to just eyeball the results with a bit of trial
and error. I thought perhaps starting with the sRGB profile would be an
option and modify from there.
Click to expand...

If it is that far off via the eyeballs then the ink you are using is crap.
 
There is no shame in having a lapse of memory, or not being aware of
something. The problem is when people are too stubborn or proud to ask
for assistance, and never reach their intended goals.

I'm pleased to have been able to assist you.

Art


If you are interested in issues surrounding e-waste,
I invite you to enter the discussion at my blog:

http://e-trashtalk.spaces.live.com/
 
measekite said:
You would not have to do this if you used the ink recommended by the
printer mfg that you use.
Click to expand...

Wow, what a bright spark you are.
If it is that far off via the eyeballs then the ink you are using is crap.
Click to expand...

Given its only on Canon's cheap arse photo paper it looks like crap (I've
subsequently found printing on decent papers and CDs needs no adjustments)
and on their quality papers it doesn't need any adjustments then I'd say its
your stupid comments that are crap. Get a life.
 
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