ICC PROFILING
What is an ICC Profile? According to the International Color Consortium website, the ICC committee was founded by 8 graphics industry vendors for the purpose of creating, promoting, and encouraging the standardization and evolution of an open, vendor-neutral, cross-platform color management system and components. Simply put, an ICC Profile is used for color communication between the devices in the workflow.
An ICC Profile is a precision color look-up table describing a specific device and configuration. ICC Profiles can be created for input, previewing, and output devices. Input devices can be scanners and digital cameras. Viewing devices can be monitors and projectors. Output devices are printers, printing presses, and other types of output devices. Output devices can be 3 color, such as RGB or CMY, 4 color such as CMYK, and more. In order to create an ICC Profile, a target file is captured, previewed, or printed, then compared to a reference file which is a description of the target file.
At one point, there were over 15 companies who created commercially-available products for the creation of ICC Profiles. Today, there are far fewer companies creating software, but the products that are available are proven and offer excellent options at a wide variety of price points. However, many locations do not want to create their own ICC Profiles. There can be a variety of reasons for this, including the price point of the software and the measurement device called a spectrophotometer. For any situation, novice to expert, New Vision offers three types of ICC color profile services.
- Remote Profiles
- Onsite profiles
- Customized onsite training
In order to create remote profiles, you will be required to optimize the device or devices first using a known process of calibration. In the case of a scanner which is an input profile, you will be required to optimize and save the settings used within the scanner interface. This optimization includes, but is not limited to, setting the white point, the black point, the mid point and ensuring color balance. As a scanner has a fixed light source and focal distance, this is a fairly straightforward process. A digital camera is more difficult as lighting and focal point can vary, often requiring separate profiles. In the case of printers, which are an output profile, the printer and media needs to be optimized prior to printing the profile target.
If you are printing through a RIP, or Raster Image Processor, all of the settings need to be saved prior to printing the target so you can ensure that the setting and the supplied profile are used together. If you are printing using the Printer Driver, which is a lower level printer controller supplied with the printer, you will be required to select the options or settings that create the most optimal output, then save this setting as a Page Setup within the Printer Driver dialog. As with the RIP, the ICC Profile for the Printer Driver will then be used in conjunction with the saved Page Setup. New Vision provides you with the necessary targets in order to create these profiles and emails the profile and instructions to you upon completion.
Onsite profiles are created by one of our technicians at your location. The technician will optimize or calibrate the device or devices, then create and install the ICC Profile. Once the process has been completed, you will be trained on how to use the newly-created configurations in the workflow.
Customized onsite training is for the advanced location that wants to learn how to optimize and create their own ICC Profiles for all of the devices in the workflow. As with the onsite profiles, a technician visits your location and provides training on how to optimize the input, display, and/or output devices, then provides training on the ICC Profile creation software. In this scenario, you may already own the hardware and software, or you may have us assist you in determining the optimal hardware and software for your needs.
For more information, download our brochure on ICC Profiling that discusses Basic ICC Printer Profiles, Enhanced ICC Press Profiles, and Output/Paper Profile with Linearization, or call New Vision today at 1.864.770.0587.
