ICC Profile Newbie Basics

[MrSalumi]

I have an interesting issue. My Roland printer is running bulk Bordeaux Ink that is made for a Mimaki. (SJ540 with prms33 to be exact)

When looking or creating ICC's should I be trying to find ICC's for the media, printer, or ink type?

I'm just getting into the color management side of this business and looking forward to your help!

 

[J Hill Designs]

find ICC's for the media, printer, AND ink type?

 

[SightLine]

Well you are not going to "find" any since no company is going to bother making profiles for a printer using ink intended for some other machine. Best you could hope for are profiles for a Roland using ink intended for a Roland.

The best option is creating your own profiles. Takes the right tools and software to do this. Of course a profile is for a specific ink, machine, resolution and passes, media, and RIP color settings (input profile like Adobe RGB, Web Coated SWOP CMYK, and the rendering intent - perceptual, etc.).

 

[MrSalumi]

Well that makes sense. Why would they waste the time? Sounds like I get to start learning to create profiles!

Thank you for the input.

 

[eye4clr]

Third party inks and custom profiles go hand in hand like Lady Ga Ga and big bong hits.

 

[Bly]

Third party inks and custom profiles go hand in hand like Lady Ga Ga and big bong hits.

And there you have it in a nutshell. You can take that to the bank.

 

[trimitbyrich]

Or they go together as well as Conrad Murray at a Michael Jackson concert

 

[phototec]

Third party inks and custom profiles go hand in hand like Lady Ga Ga and big bong hits.

Talking about Lady Ga Ga, she will make her acting debut in the role of Lady Chameleon in the upcoming sequel to 2010's "Spy Kids" spin-off, "Machete," stars Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Alexa Vega, Zoe Saldana, Mel Gibson, Vanessa Hudgens, Charlie Sheen, Sofia Vergara and more.

Director, Robert Rodriguez released the photo below as he tweeted, "I just finished working with @LadyGaga on @MacheteKills, she kicked SO MUCH A$$! Holy Smokes. Blown away!", as they were filming the sequel in Austin last summer.

 

[Jesse_gvi]

We've always had trouble with black-to-white gradients looking either purple or green (I use canned profiles for a JV3 in Flexi). I can turn off color correction and get a perfect transition, but of course any other color in the print is unusable. Can I assume a custom profile would fix this, as the printer is obviously able to achieve the desired result? I know it would help color matching, what about printing a correct gradient?

 

[MikePro]

ink limits are a great start, as it doesn't require a spectrophotometer. At least then, if you can't fully profile your ink/media sets, you can still get decent results.
Talk with your ink supplier, and they will most likely have some basic profile options for you. I've run bordeaux for years and got my initial profiles directly from their website.