Printer Profiling & ICC CalibrationCMP provides professional color targets for creating custom ICC profiles and achieving accurate, consistent and predictable color reproduction with photographic printers, inks and papers.
Inkjet printers are highly capable, but they are generally far from perfect when comparing a printed image with its on-screen appearance. Differences in rendering are common, and manually correcting each image to optimize the match between screen and print can be extremely difficult.
In many cases, this results in wasted time, paper, and ink. Calibrating your printer allows you to optimize the rendering of your prints and achieve a better match between your screen and your printed output.
Custom calibration can also be extremely useful when using paper from a manufacturer other than your printer’s brand. With the large number of inkjet paper manufacturers and products available, it can often be difficult to find the right ICC profile for your specific combination of printer and paper. The available profile may not always provide the required level of quality, resulting in numerous test prints and adjustments.
Custom calibration removes this uncertainty, providing you with the right ICC profile for your specific printer and paper combination, with the highest possible level of quality.
The procedure for creating an ICC profile is relatively simple: you download and print a color target using a specific print configuration (ink, paper, and resolution). You then send the printed targets to us by mail. They are measured and analyzed using a spectrophotometer, allowing us to generate a series of ICC profiles that characterize the behavior of your equipment.
Your customized ICC profiles are then ready to download and use. They characterize the color behavior of your printer and compensate for its colorimetric deviations, allowing you to achieve more accurate and consistent prints
Measurement equipment
The automated X-Rite i1 iO target-reading system, combined with the latest-generation i1Pro 3 spectrophotometer, makes it possible to significantly increase the number of color patches included on our targets.
The new CMP targets feature no fewer than 2,418 patches for EXPERT series ICC profiles, and no fewer than 6,696 patches for the PREMIUM series.
Thanks to their exceptionally high number of color patches, the EXPERT and PREMIUM targets provide highly detailed color mapping and characterization. This significantly improves the accuracy and performance of the color management engine, resulting in more precise and consistent ICC profiles.
Michael Reichmann from Luminous Landscape tried CMP profiles, here's what he says:
" Good profiles are a virtual necessity for high quality inkjet printing. It costs
a lot of money and some effort to purchase the equipment to make these yourself,
and most people don't bother. But the profiles that come with most printers or
papers are rarely first rate. The alternative then is to have someone with the
proper gear and skills make a custom profile for your printer, your inks, and
your preferred paper.
There are a number of people on the net who provide such
service, but one that I recently had the opportunity to try myself was www.cmp-color.fr, and I was very impressed with the results.
Recommended. Michael Reichmann."
The Benefits of Custom Calibration for Your PrinterFirst of all, it is important to understand that an ICC profile is created for a specific PRINTER / INK / PAPER combination. If you change the ink brand or type of paper, a new profile will be required.
Although changing the print resolution theoretically results in a change in colorimetric behavior, in practice it is not essential to have a separate profile for every print resolution. It is up to each user to determine what is appropriate according to their equipment and requirements.
A printing ICC profile describes the colorimetric behavior of your equipment on the paper being used. This information is then used by the color management engine to determine the corrections that need to be applied before the file is sent to the printer.
The benefits of a custom profile are significant. When calculating the ICC profiles, the 2,418 colors in the EXPERT targets or the 6,696 colors in the PREMIUM targets are analyzed and compared with the target's reference data.
This detailed analysis of your printer's behavior makes it possible not only to correct an overall color cast across the entire image, but also to ensure that each individual color is reproduced with the correct hue and luminance.
The patches located around the neutral axis are particularly important because they characterize a highly sensitive range of tones: the grayscale.
Your printer can therefore be used to its full potential: all printable colors within its gamut are identified and measured. Tonal gradients become much smoother and free from abrupt transitions or banding, which are particularly common in shadow areas.
Another major advantage of custom profiles is their ability to produce high-quality black-and-white prints from a color printer. Because color drift is not linear, it is virtually impossible to apply manual corrections to obtain a truly neutral print across the entire tonal range.
When you consider the savings in paper, ink, time, as well as the improvement in print quality, these custom profiles can very quickly pay for themselves.
Why Use a Dedicated Black-and-White Profile?
Not all papers have the same white. Some are warm, some are cool, and some are very bright. This matters when printing black-and-white images because the paper itself becomes part of the final tone.
In the lightest areas of a print, very little or no ink is used, so you are essentially seeing the natural white of the paper. In darker areas, much more ink is applied, and the tone is mainly determined by the printer and the ICC profile.
With a standard color ICC profile, these two elements do not always work perfectly together. The result can be a subtle change in tone across the image, making the black-and-white print less consistent.
A dedicated black-and-white profile is designed differently. It takes the paper white into account and uses it as the starting point for the entire range of gray tones. The result is a more consistent and natural black-and-white print, from the highlights all the way through to the deepest shadows.
This is why I offer a BLACK-AND-WHITE PACK, with a choice of different tonal profiles ranging from cool to warm. These profiles can be used with both monochrome and RGB files, allowing you to achieve a consistent and reproducible tone across your images.
The quality of the profile also depends on the calibration target. To accurately control black-and-white tones, the target needs to contain a large number of patches around the gray axis, including neutral, warm, and cool grays. This gives the profiling process enough information to accurately reproduce subtle tonal differences throughout the entire grayscale range.
CMP TARGETS SPECIFICALLY DEVELOPED FOR PHOTO PRINTINGCMP targets were created using proprietary tools and developed specifically for color profiling, while also being optimized for high-quality black-and-white printing.The large number of patches positioned around the gray axis provides the color management engine with detailed information about this particularly sensitive area. This allows it to better predict and control tonal rendering, which is essential for achieving high-quality black-and-white prints.EXPERT profiles are based on measurements of 2,418 colors, including 650 patches specifically dedicated to black-and-white reproduction.PREMIUM profiles are based on measurements of 6,696 colors, including 1,736 patches specifically dedicated to black-and-white reproduction.
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The ICC printer profiles
Made with the 6696 color patches targets ( 8 A4 pages to print ), you'll receive 7 profiles: 2 color profiles: ( standard shadows, V-1 with light shadows ) and 5 Black and White profiles: one
neutral, two cold and two warm profiles, specialy made for black and white prints.
Made with the 2418 color patches targets ( 3 A4 pages to print ), you'll receive 7 profiles: 2 color profiles ( V-2: standard shadows and V-1 with light shadows ) and 5 Black and White profiles: one neutral, two cold and two warm profiles, specialy made for black and white prints.
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DOWNLOAD |
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To
Print the targets
To print the target properly without any color management, the only safe way is to use Adobe color printer utility ( from Adobe ), you can download a mac or Windows version:
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Just open the targets files in adobe color printer utility, clic on print set up to configure your paper size, then clic on print to access to your driver. Don't forget to configure your printer driver for each page to bypass the color management, choose the right media type and resolution in the driver. Save your printer driver configuration for this paper to be sure you'll print with the same driver configuration when you'll print with your profiles on this paper. To be sure there is no nozzle clog on your targets
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After printing the targets, let it dry for at least 12 hours before packaging to send, do not write on the back or cut the sheet, I need the white area around the patches. Look very carefully at your prints, they have to be perfect to make good profiles: no nozzle clogs, no scraches on the prints !
Send the prints
to :
Christophe Metairie
81, avenue Francis Plante
40100
DAX
FRANCE
+33 6 22 59 46 60
ORDERS - PRICINGOnce we received your targets, we need two days to make your profiles, I will send you your ICC printer profiles with wetransfer.com.
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printer calibration service PREMIUM targets - 6696 patches |
EXPERT PACK - COLOR + BW |
48.50 € |
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PREMIUM PACK - COLOR + BW |
69.50 € |
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