Message
Re: [colorvision_group] Color profiles in printer driver - why not?
2006-04-12 by CDTobie@aol.com
In a message dated 4/11/06 2:58:14 PM, martin@... writes:
It seems necessary to disable the ICM profile in the printer driver
and use it in the graphics program instead. But why? Wouldn't it be
more logical and convenient to assign a profile to the printer and not
to all applications using the printer?
At one time drivers allowed the use of third party profiles, but these days they do not, so you have no choice but to assign custom profiles elsewhere. If you asked the printer manufacturers why, they would come up with reasons like it being to confusing to the end user to have to choose among profiles, or that they could not be responsible for corruption and errors caused by third party profiles. But one could point out that it also gives the manufacturers the upper hand in getting users to use their own media and inks, since those are automatically supported.
Either way, this is a choice made by the manufacturers, and complaints are unlikely to change it, so you'll have to live with it. One related complaint is that it means that you can't print via profiles from non-color managed apps, but you really can't do that very effectively anyways, as such apps don't assign source profiles, and one ends up with a default guess as to what conversion to perform, since there is no "from" to use with the "to" of the printer profile. Rendering intent ends up being a default as well.
C. David Tobie
Product Technology Manager
ColorVision Business Unit
Datacolor Inc.
CDTobie@...
www.colorvision.com