Product Reviews

The problem you have with your colour printer or proofer is that it hasn't been profiled, so you can't really trust its output to be all that accurate. What you need is a way to create a profile that can be used whenever you print, and ColorVision has just the product for you in PrintFix Pro 2.0. This creates precise ICC profiles for any 'RGB-driven' colour printer - which, put very simply, means that it is designed for desktop-style printers and proofers rather than for press calibration requirements.

Using it is simple, if unavoidably long-winded. The software walks you through the profiling process step by step, with useful hints and help links at every point. You define your printer, then send it a predefined colour swatch page. The simplest of these is the brief 150-patch Fast Target; then there's the 225-patch High-Quality Target, followed by the Expert Target with 729 different colour patches, on three sheets (one sheet if you have a large-format printer).

Once the printout is completely dry, you use the PrintFix Pro device to read back each sample. This is the long-winded part of the process, but the software helps you stay on track by beeping clearly when you get

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to the end of a line of colour patches. If you find you're out of sync with the on-screen sampling routine - something which can happen all too easily when using the expert target - you can see clearly on the screen where you are, and use the map-style grid reference to get back on track. When you've finished, you can tweak details such as paper whiteness (spectrocolorimiters can be fooled somewhat by whiteners typically added to paper stock, producing a reading slightly bluer than it should be). In practice, however, you're almost always better off leaving most of these post-sampling settings alone, other than the reference white and reference black controls.

If you're curious or simply confused at any point, click the Help button. This opens an HTML-based reference document with detailed information about each control and when you should consider adjusting it.

The final result is a detailed, accurate ICC printer profile, specifically for your printer on one specific media type. If you use different kinds of paper, for example plain stock for quick runouts, matte inkjet stock for photographic display, and so on, make profiles for those separately. From then on, any ColorSync-aware application should produce better, more accurate colour, whether your printer is a lowly budget device or a dedicated proofer.

We tested the PrintFix Pro Suite, a bundle of the PrintFix Pro 2.0 device and software plus the well-respected Spyder2Pro 2.2 device and software. This provides pro-level display/projector and printer/proofer profiling in one box. If you already have display profiling hardware you won't need the full suite, but otherwise this is a great way to make sure that what you see and what you print will never give you nasty shocks somewhere down the line.