Colour Management - Print Profiling Service

Background

One of the most complex areas of digital photography is trying to ensure that the colours you see when you take a picture are, as near as possible,  the same as those that are printed by your printer. Without some form of colour management system in place, printed colours will never be accurate. This is usually the biggest difference between someone taking snaps and printing them either at home or at a shop kiosk and someone taking photographs where total control over quality is essential.

By using a Colour Management System a photographer can be sure as possible that the colours he/she saw when taking a picture are those that are displayed on their computer monitor and similarly, are the same as those printed on their chosen printer/ink/paper combination.

In order to achive this, the:

• MONITOR must be calibrated and regularly re-calibrated.
• PRINTER must be calibrated for each combination of ink and paper used.
• SOFTWARE used to edit and enhance images must support colour management.

The CAMERA can be calibrated too but in most cases this work has already been done by the manufacturer and using their calibration settings should provide good enough results for most people.

Monitor Calibration

Monitors can be calibrated using special software and a colorimeter colour measuring device for light sources. Following a specific procedure a series of blacks, whites and colours are displayed on the monitor and measured by the colorimeter. Adjustments are either made automatically or manually to the monitor set up until eventually the monitor is displaying the colours correctly and the appropriate brightness and contrast settings are reached. Once these settings are identified, the software writes out a file called a Colour Profile for that particular monitor. The computer and any colour management enabled software can then make use of the profile to ensure that the colours you see are accurate to their original source.

Printer Calibration

Printers are calibrated in much the same way as monitors. By using special software and a spectrometer colour measuring device for reflected light, patches of colour are printed on the type of paper to be calibrated and then measured using the spectrometer. The software then creates a Colour Profile for the printer which the computer and any colour management enabled software can use. By using monitor and printer profiles with appropriate image handling software should make it easy to ensure that the colours seen on the monitor are, as far as possible, the same as those printed by the printer.

Printer Profile Creation Service - Just £15

Having invested in equipment to calibrate my own monitors and printers, I am able to offer a colour profile creation service for your printer paper. In short the steps of this process are:

• I send you a link to download a colour patch image file.
• You print the image, without any form of colour management switched on.
• You post the printed image to me, along with other details about the printer/paper/ink etc.
• I use my spectrometer to create a colour profile (ICC) file and e-mail it to you.
• You install the colour profile on your computer and set up your software to use it.

If you are interested in making use of this service, then please contact me for further detailed instructions. The charge for creating a colour profile will be £15 per paper type.

Please note: You should ideally already have your monitor calibrated and be able to find your way around your computer system and image software well enough to use colour profile management. I am unable to offer specific detailed support as part of this service, however there is a wealth of information available on the internet if you need help.