Profiling requirements

1. You should have profiled your monitor. This is so that you are always starting from a known point when producing a print.
   
   At a minumum you should use a software tools such as Adobe Gamma (installed with Photoshop) to set your monitor's output by eye. This still has some problems as it relies on your judgement to get the best from the monitor and you may just be having an off day when you set up your monitor.
   
   Better is to hardware profile your monitor. This removes any objectivity from the process as the hardware device is actually measuring the monitor output. Recommended devices are the Pantone Huey, Spyder 2, Spyder 3 or Eye-One.
   
   
2. Your printer should be an RGB device. This means almost all inkjets and many laser printers. If you are not sure then please ask us to check. We can produce CMYK profiles if requested but this is not part of our standard service and is an additional charge. If you have a need for regular CMYK profiles then we would suggest that you probably need to get your own profiling equipment to be cost effective.
   
   
3. Use inks from the printer manufacturer or from reputable 3rd parties such as Pantone, Lyson or Permajet. These inks will have good batch-to-batch quality control. Some cheap 3rd party inks can vary wildly in colour or density between batches. Those ink sets that you see on eBay with prices that are too good to be true probably are too good to be true.
   
   
4. Use paper from the printer manufacturer or from reputable 3rd parties. Again this is because of quality control issues. Recommended 3rd party brands (in no particular order) are Ilford, Harman, Lyson, Permajet, Kodak, Kentmere, Tetenal and Hahnemühle.
   
   
5. Before printing out profile targets ensure that you run a nozzle check. If you notice any gaps in output then you need to run a cleaning cycle.