Testimonials - Read here what my clients had to say about my profiling service!
A Custom Profile is a little bit of science in your printing workflow. A quality Custom Profile will provide color accuracy, predictability and repeatability.
Just what science is all about..!
It will also reveal the full range of colors your particular printer or scanner can produce.
Paper/Printer Profiles:
The major advantage of a Custom Paper/Printer Profile is that you will not have to spend countless hours trying to get the colors you want through Photoshop corrections. Custom profiles take the "trial and error" method out of your printing procedure and prevent the need to reprint photographs because the color was not just right.
Creating accurate custom profiles requires special attention to the details. I always listen to the specific requirements of my clients and I tailor the solutions to their actual needs, rather than using a "one size fits all" approach. For this reason I do not use a standard, downloadable Testchart. In fact, the number and chromaticity of the color patches in a Testchart should be carefully chosen because it can significantly affect the behavior of the profile. Therefore, when creating profiles for you, I collect information about your needs and expectations before beginning any work. I need to know your printer type, photography type, the paper you use, and any other details relevant to your specific needs. After receiving and analyzing this information I will:
1 - Prepare and send you the Custom Testchart(s)
Then you'll need to:
2 - Print it/them on your stock paper using your usual printing application and workflow
3 - Mail the printed Testchart(s) to me
Once I receive your printed Testchart(s), I will create and email your custom profiles to you.
When building a custom profile Advanced Options can be added to suit your particular needs. Sometimes sacrificing a little accuracy can increase color smoothness and prevent rainbows in color blends.
Custom Light Sources can be embedded in paper profiles to allow for specific display conditions. This is especially important if you are printing for a gallery since a Custom Profile for the unique gallery light source will eliminate metamerism, tone stability concerns and last minute surprises!
Depending on the paper you use, a certain amount of Optical Brightener might be present in the paper. Traditionally the Optical Brightener has been quite difficult to deal with, because the measuring instruments react to the fluorescence in the paper quite differently compared to the human eye. This often results in a yellow cast in the highlights. With my profiles, the Optical Brightener will be detected and corrected to the extent required, giving you perfectly neutral highlights.
Scanner Profiles:
Scanner profiling is arguably the most underestimated link in the chain of a color managed workflow. And the one capable of creating the largest amount of confusion and frustration. Having thousands of dollars invested in a top quality monitor, a monitor calibrator, a printer with its custom profiles without starting with a quality Scanner Profile, is like building a castle on loose sand...
The role of the Scanner Profile is to ensure that all the colors on the film will be passed onto your editing sofwtare and interpreted correctly, without having to play with the scanner settings on a image-by-image base. A quality Scanner Profile will also save you an enormous amount of time and will produce results much more accurate than what you can possibly obtain with your own tuning of the driver settings.
Quality Scanner Profiles are very difficult to obtain and almost impossible to sell in large volumes. This is why they are not widely publicized. As far as I know, there are no Scanner Profiling services available on the WEB. The reason is that Scanner Profiling requires a lot of communication between the end-user and the Profile provider, in order to understand what the end-user really needs and expects. Scanner Profiles can be tuned and optimized in numerous ways, and providing the "right" Profile to the client can require hours and hours of hard work. Last but not least, end-users must be willing to send the scanner to the Profiling Center or buy their own scanner targets (which is a significant investment for a quality scanner target). Finally, the Profiles must be delivered with proper training on how to use and get the most out of them. For all these reasons,
Scanner profiling does not fit any viable large scale business model, and is left to highly motivated individuals willing to establish a close relationship with individual clients.
Contact me and we will start working on your unique Custom Scanner Profile!
Profiling Tools:
I use the highest quality instruments and software available to build top quality custom profiles.
Measuring Instrument: GretagMabeth Eye-One Pro, 36 bands, 10nm interval spectrophotometer
Software: GretagMacbeth ProfileMaker Pro Suite and/or Monaco Profiler Pro
Printer Testcharts: Custom made, tailored around your unique needs.
Scanner Targets:
- Individually measured Fuji Velvia , 6x7cm HCT target from Don Hutcheson
- Batch measured Fuji Velvia , 35mm HCT target from Don Hutcheson
- Individually measured Fuji Velvia , 35mm, IT8 target from Wolf Faust
- Stock Kodachrome , 35mm, IT8 Target from Kodak
Prices:
Paper/Printer Profile |
Paper Printer Profile Post Linearization |
Scanner Profile |
$ 85 |
$ 30 |
$ 199 |
