Why do I need a custom printer profile?

1. Printers are not created equal. They are (increasingly) complex electro-mechanical devices. Due to manufacturing tolerances, two nominally identical printers (even from the same production line) will produce different output. These differences, although slight, can be enough to prevent you from getting the best quality prints that your printer can produce.
   
   
2. The manufacturer supplied profiles for your printer are designed for a generic printer that is based on a number of manufacturing samples. If you are very lucky then your printer will closely match this generic printer and you'll get good results out of the box. The majority of you will find that your printer does not match the manufacturer's ideal printer so results will not be the best that you can get.
   
   These manufacturer's profiles are generally quite conservative in that they do not normally cover the entire shadow and highlight range that your printer is capable of printing.
   
   
3. You may be using a modern printer that can perform some calibration, for example the HP9180. However calibration is not the same as profiling. The printer will set itself to a known starting point and all printers of the same model should set themselves up identically. This means that the manufacturer is able to provide better quality profiles. The problem comes when you want to use a third-party paper. The profiles for these may not be available or may not be to the same quality as the manufacturer's. We recommend that you profile for any third-party papers that you may want to use.
4. Different papers absorb ink and reflect light differently. This can cause shifts from the expected colours. Profiling will help control these colour shifts.