Is a spectrophotometer really necessary? Or is it just a fanciful new feature being put into some new high-end printers? After all, when I need some heavy-duty profiling I call in a consultant to reprofile my large format printer.
If colour accuracy and consistency in printing is important to you, a spectrophotometer is vital. Spectrophotometers integrated into some large format printers is probably the most significant advance in printing technology in many years. They bring the power of accurate colour calibration technology into the hands of every user. Even someone without an advanced degree in colour theory can use the on-board spectrophotometer to create ICC profiles within three mouse clicks.
ICC Profile stands for International Color Consortium Profile, a de-facto standard specification used by colour management products. An ICC Profile is a file created (by the printer in this case) to translate the colour requests the computer sends to the printer.
But why doesn’t the printer know what red is? Fortunately, many advanced printers will understand specific colour requests like those represented on Pantone charts. But ink responds to each type of media differently. There are thousands of combinations of media types, materials, textures, shades and finishes that can impact the final result of a print, and what shade of red ultimately gets printed.
All printers come with factory calibrated settings for a few typical media types. These settings are the profiles for the printer. Naturally, these are standard papers and media types branded and tested by the printer manufacturer. Reputable manufacturers will have spent time testing the media with the printer to ensure high quality results both in performance through the printer, and in clarity and accuracy of colours in the final print.
Even with rigorous testing, the printout quality on the manufacturer’s own tested media may drift with time as a result of the printer aging, room temperature shifts, humidity changes, media changes with age, and even media characteristics changing if a new media vendor was chosen. A user may also want to use special paper or media untested by the manufacturer. How can the user be assured that the colours printed will be true to the colours he expects—without spending hours tweaking the colour printing variables?
All reputable printer manufacturers will ensure each printer is tested and calibrated. But while the printer might be fine to use when newly opened, all quality instruments need recalibration and retesting with time. Until now, professionals needing colour accuracy and quality have either learned to do this manual process themselves or relied on qualified colour management experts. From speaking to several such consultants, a typical calibration and media profiling could take between one to two hours, depending on the individual’s skill level. Incidentally, that is one to two hours for a profile creation for each media you use on your printer. With typical users needing four to eight media profiles, each at $150-$175 per hour, $1000 is not unreasonable for a proper recalibration and fresh set of ICC profiles.
Weighing the costs, you can quickly understand how a built-in spectrophotometer can save you time and money, since users can create media profiles themselves. It is also nice to know that you are easily able to recalibrate the printer and create media profiles. The process on HP’s Z-series printers, for example, takes a total of three mouse clicks and 20 minutes. The best part is that it is an automated process. The printer starts the calibration cycle, prints a test swath on the chosen media, lets the inks dry and stabilize, then reads the entire test print colour set and intelligently makes adjustments where needed. This process ensures the colours will print true to the user’s intent on that particular media.
As long as a media is properly coated to receive and retain pigmented thermal ink, an unsophisticated user can easily profile the media to ensure true colours. With such a powerful tool at your fingertips, it means that—even at 3:00 a.m. on a deadline—you can confidently print your project on non-standard media, knowing that you profiled it at 2:40 a.m.
As colour management tools become more and more automated, colour accuracy and consistency will become the norm. Today a built-in spectrophotometer puts you at the cutting edge of technology, placing your prints ahead of the rest. Is a built-in spectrophotometer a necessity? For anyone who really cares about their work, the answer is yes.
Charles Dimov, Business Marketing Manager, Graphic Arts,
HP Canada