Andrew;15589 wrote:Not being technically minded on printers beyond the basics, I still don't understand why you can't substitute like for like ink from the original instead of getting a specific profil as you have different ink set-ups.
It's because nothing is invested back into R&D. The ink you buy from Sawgrass is the same whether you're printing with a 10-year old Epson 1290, or a modern Epson B40W. The ink hasn't changed, but the printers have, therefore a profile is required.
If some of the profits went back into R&D, then there's no doubt that ink could be tweaked to more closely match a particular printer and you wouldn't need a profile.
This should be qualified however in that you are almost always using a profile, even if you don't know it. When you first install a new printer, paper-specific profiles are installed to match the printer and the OEM ink with the paper to produce the best results. A third party ink that doesn't have specific profiles will invariably be using the OEM-supplied profiles so, if the ink is close enough to the OEM, it appears as though you're not using a profile.
It should also be clarified that, when you're supplied with a profile, it's a generic profile to all intents and purposes. The only way to produce accurate results is to have a specific profile for the exact printer, the exact substrate, and the exact ink that you're using. Manufacturing tolerances in printers mean that a profile designed on one printer may be pretty inaccurate on a different version of that same model.
I've experienced this myself. I have an old Epson 1400 here that I used with the Artanium v1 profile. If I tried the newer v2.5 profile, I got horrendous results. That printer is a few years old. I have a second Epson 1400 that I use with the Artanium v2.5 profile. If I try the v1 profile, I get horrendous results. Same printer that can't use the same profile because the profile isn't accurate enough.
With both printers and either profile, I could not get a neutral greyscale and I'd always assumed it was an impossible goal. But when I created a printer-specific profile for each printer, I now print neutral greyscales.
Another example was with a B40W that I bought last year. Even using the Sawgrass profile, I got a horrendous green cast over everything. I couldn't work out what the issue was - until I created a specific profile myself and then produced superb results. In short, the supplied profile just wasn't good enough. Maybe my B40W was manufactured to the other end of the tolerances than the one that Sawgrass used to create the profile?
In summary, the profile you're supplied with is intended to be a "close enough is good enough" profile - how accurate it is depends on how lucky you are.
