ICC profiles for the InkThrift inks

InkjetMall Customer Support InkThrift Inks & Printing
1

i’m installing a complete set of InkThrift carts and inks today in a new 9900. Are there any ICC profiles, available for this ink set?, Or where should I start, as to basic settings? I will be building my own profiles with an i1 Pro, Is there a suggested starting point?

2

Dave,
The dye inks are a totally different color gamut than the pigment inks. We did not make an ICC profile library for them. You will definitely need to make ICC profiles for each of your media, if you want to control the color appearance of the final prints. The i1 Pro is excellent for doing this.

You should use as many patches possible.
Scrambling is generally preferred.
D50 is the standard basis for all ICC conversions.
We suggest Relative Colorimetric
Leave most of the settings on default.

3

Sadly I’m in the same boat as Dave.

I wrongly assumed you all had ICC profiles for the inks you sell like you do for the Cone inks. I feel a little duped to be honest (I read and re-read your site many times). I even bought 2 Cone inks initially thinking they were better but then I found the Inkthrift and decided to get those.

These Inkthrift inks are so dark and over saturated. I have a fully calibrated system but don’t have icc profiles for these inks. I have an Epson 3800. I was sent vivid magenta and light vivid magenta and my printer normally doesn’t have those colors? I sent in a request for help thinking you all had sent the wrong inks but alas those are the inks even though they are the wrong ones.

Here is a screen comparison versus 1. epson regular ink on left (please notice it’s calibrated almost dead on) 2. Inkthrift inks on the right

Here they are in better light just the prints.

These are SOOO different that I don’t understand how you can sell these inks WITHOUT a profile and expect people to be happy. I don’t have a calibration profiling rig and to be honest all the science I see on your site I felt pretty good not having one. But this is really disappointing.

How do you fix this?

[QUOTE=jon;760]Dave,
The dye inks are a totally different color gamut than the pigment inks. We did not make an ICC profile library for them. You will definitely need to make ICC profiles for each of your media, if you want to control the color appearance of the final prints. The i1 Pro is excellent for doing this.

You should use as many patches possible.
Scrambling is generally preferred.
D50 is the standard basis for all ICC conversions.
We suggest Relative Colorimetric
Leave most of the settings on default.[/QUOTE]

4

Hi Tim,

We think we are very clear about color compatibility on the website. The link to the ICC info directly on the InkThrift PRO product you purchased leads to the ICC info below:

This is our latest formulation. It’s a very strong light resistant dye molecule that is encapsulated. The encapsulation is what makes this dye stronger than most. Because dye inks have such different color gamuts than pigment inks, these inks will require ICC profiling. But, as an experiment we decided to see if a “generic” ICC profile could be used with a wide variety of papers. The results of using these “generic” ICCs works so well that we are making them available here: http://www.vermontphotoinkjet.com/icc
We have generics only for a few printers on that page and the 3800 is not listed. On the ConeColor products clicking on the ICC info directly on their product pages links to a large ICC profile library for those inks. IT PRO is about 10% the cost of OEM - and we would expect that if the customer wants to do ICC profiling they have saved enough money from buying the OEM that they can expense a set up like ColorMunki or Spyder. If you use one or two papers only - the cost of ICC profiling is not much and you can get customs made for you for about the cost of an OEM cartridge. However, if you use many papers then you need many ICCs and owning an ICC profiling system will benefit you (not only in printing) but also in display calibration. It is a worthwhile investment at about half the cost of an OEM set of inks.

IT PRO is not designed as a replacement ink set. It has a fraction of the light resistance of ConeColor and the EPSON inks. I just want to make sure that you are using the product correctly and have not made any assumptions about its durability in relation to your intended use of it. IT PRO is for short term graphics. If you are looking for a comparative product to your original inks - then that would be the ConeColor pigment inks you first started with. So please make certain that dye ink is for you and for your intended purpose for the ink. It fades extremely fast in comparison to pigment ink.