Help with i9900 profile and Mediastreet ink

[yhpyhp]

I am a novice to printing. I am getting my feet wet and spending hours pouring over this excellent site.

My set up: i9900, Kirkland photo paper (purchased today) and Mediastreet ink refills, photoshop.

I am clear on setting up the printer preferences as described in the sticky on this forum. But when I go to look for a profile for my type of ink, i don't see it listed. So then I thought i could use another one and randomly picked a few. The link set up by Grandad35 for the icc gives me another link which is basically blank. What am I doing wrong? any of the listed links close to Mediastreet type?

Thanks in advance.
yhpyhp

 

[Grandad35]

yhpyhp,

I don't know of any published profiles for Media Street Inks. Unless Media Street buys their ink from the same place as another supplier for which you can find a profile, there is almost zero chance of finding a profile that will give a decent match.

Your best bet is to have a custom profile made for your printer/ink/paper combination. In the US, many people have good success with Cathy's profiles ($40/profile) (http://cathysprofiles.com/). If you do much printing, it doesn't take long to pay for a profile with your ink savings.

Since you are new to printing, read (http://cathysprofiles.com/) and (http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/color_management.htm) to get an overview of color management. Also remember that to get a good match between what you see on your minitor and what you print, your monitor needs to be calibrated with a hardware calibration device. Have you ever noticed that when you look at a bank of TVs showing the same video feed in a store that the colors are often very different on the various TVs? The same thing happend with computer monitors. Greatly oversimplifying the process, a hardware calibration device makes your monitor appear display approximately the same colors as other calibrated monitors.

 

[yhpyhp]

thanks for the quick response grandad35.

I do have access to hardware/software for my moniter, which i will do match up in the next few days.

I plan on utilizing cathy's profile services if i stick with mediastreet in the long run.

What is your preferred choice of third party inks, if I may ask? I see several mentioned on this forum. I have no particular love for mediastreet. just used them out of ignorance of other options.

love this forum!
yhpyhp

 

[Grandad35]

yhpyhp,

I use Formulabs bulk inks (from Alotofthings), but others use Image Specialists(http://www.image-specialists.com/) inks with similar good results. In Europe, OCP is a known quality ink formulator. There are many on this forum who successfully use Hobbicolor bulk inks (source unknown).

I can't say how the Formulabs inks compare to the others, but it has worked well for me (no clogging problems, consistent color).

 

[cjm]

I use Profile Prism, www.ddisoftware.com/prism. With it you can create your own profiles for any paper and/or ink you choose. HTH, John

 

[yhpyhp]

grandad35,

I will probably convert to another ink after my current batch runs out. I still cannot open the links you have listed for the various profiles you have on this forum on the other pages. When I download the file, it states that Windows cannot open the file. Do I have to download a program from somewhere to open the file?

yhpyhp

 

[Grandad35]

yhpyhp,

You don't open these files, you install them in:
CWINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SPOOL\DRIVERS\COLOR

Any program that uses profiles (e.g. the printer driver, Photoshop, Qimage, etc.) looks for them there. All that you have to do is to tell the appropriate program which profile you want to use.

 

[yhpyhp]

got it. a bit of a computer goofball i am.
thanks,
yp