Welcome to Printer Profiles Online, an ICC remote profiling service from one of the best known names in color management, Correct Color.

If you're in the business of reproducing digital color, and it matters to you to do it right, it's imperative that you have custom-made ICC profiles for all your devices.

Here, you can get state-of-the-art custom-made ICC profiles for any RGB printer. (Don't get too hung up on that term, either. Basically, if you run the printer from your operating system, instead of from a RIP, regardless of whatever inks it actually uses to print, it's probably an RGB printer.)

If you're not certain, feel free to give us a call before you start.

So why do you need state-of-the-art custom-made ICC profiles?

Well, think of the difference between a tailor-made suit and one you buy off the rack. The one you buy off the rack might be a fine suit--or not--and it might fit you reasonably well--or not. But regardless, it wasn't made specifically for you. It was made for everyone else out there in the world who's sort of like you.

In truth, when anyone makes an ICC profile, what they do is create a state of a particular device, then make a characterization of the device (the ICC profile) in that state. Whatever the parameters of the device were at the time the profile was made, those are the conditions and limitations of the ICC profile. Two name just two, those might include the ink limits and the atmospherics of the place where the ICC profile was made; and the point is that whatever those conditions and limitations are or were, they may or may not be the same as the conditions and limitations you desire based on where you are and what you're trying to achieve.

Not to mention that you've got your choice of two basic sources of stock ICC profiles. You've got the ones that came with your printer, or you've got ones that you can download from media vendors for a specific media for your printer.

And here's the honest truth: It's a pretty mixed bag. For the most part these days, the stock profiles that come with machines are really not bad at all. In fact, they probably suit the needs of most people that buy the machines just fine. Most of the manufacturers have some pretty good people using some pretty good software to come up with some pretty good profiles.

However, they are stock ICC profiles so they tend to be made with a "one size fits all" sort of mindset, and even the most aggressive manufacturers can't keep up with the flood of media out there or even all the iterations of resolutions and ink levels on their own machines. So if there isn't an ICC profile for the media on which you want to print that came with your printer, you're left with getting an ICC profile from the media manufacturer.

And, frankly, some of them are surprisingly bad. Now that isn't meant to be a blanket condemnation; some of them are pretty good. However, without knowing quite a bit about how to test them, how to read them internally and how to find out, there really isn't any way for you to know. And again, what all stock ICC profiles have in common is that none of them were made on your machine in your environment and to the settings precisely that you intend to use.

To get all your printer has to give; to get the spectacular results you've always wanted, you have to have ICC profiles that are made just for you.

So what makes ICC profiles from Printer Profiles Online so special?

Well, to start with, there's a myth out there that all spectrophotometers and all ICC profile-making software are created equal.

They are not.

Your profile from Printer Profiles Online will be made using an X-Rite DTP-70 spectrophotometer and Monaco Profiler Platinum software. The reasons being that the DTP-70 is one of the few spectrophotometers made that has a capability to be set to either include or exclude the presence of UV-brighteners. We'll test your media for presence of UV brighteners, then make your ICC profiles accordingly.

And while we have used in our time--and own copies of--all the major ICC profile-making software and many you probably never heard of, we, like many of the elite in the color-management field, still consider Profiler to make the best overall profiles.

We also use a full 1728 patch target set, assuring that your ICC profiles get you all the gamut and gradation and color reproducing capability your printer has to give.

Then after we make your ICC profiles, we do a three-stage quality, gamut, and color-fidelity check, before sending them to you.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, your ICC profiles from Printer Profiles Online have the profiling experience and expertise of the industry leader in on-site color workflow management, Correct Color, behind each and every one.