Professional Photo Printers

[aajax]

I recently purchased a Canon Pixma Pro-100.  On my Windows 7 system the folder c:\windows\system32\spool\drivers\colors contains the the files shown in the screenshot that follows:

I suspect that these may be the ICC profiles that correspond to the various kinds of paper supported by the standard printer driver.  These files also show up on the selection lists used by digital image editing programs for the purpose of soft proofing.

Are these the printer profiles for various supported paper?

If so, how is one supposed to figure out the correspondence between the desired paper and appropriate profile to select?

If not, where are said profiles?

My reason for thinking these are said profiles, is that when I follow the Canon instructions for installing the optional profiles that Canon supplies for certain types of OEM paper they end up in this folder.  However, in that case the profiles have file names that conspicuously correspond to the related paper.

With respect to the Pro-100 software/drivers what is the difference between "Media Type" and "ICC Profile"?  I notice that when using Print Studio Pro I can specify each one, separately, but when using other software with the Canon Driver the only thing that can be specified is "Media Type".

[jrhoffman75]

Those are the cryptic names Canon uses for the profiles. But, in your software you should see the profile names that is embedded in the profile. What software are you trying to print from?

Media Type is the paper surface/Canon name, such a Photo Paper Pro Platinum etc. When using third party papers you would select the media type the vendor tells you to use along with the third party ICC profile.

You can select third party ICC profiles in the Canon driver, but it is better to select in the software.

[aajax]

It isn't only about the actual printing but also about editing something you want to print.  I think this might be called soft proofing.  From reading it somewhat appears that Canon has done something so that Adobe products (e.g., Photoshop, Lightroon, etc.) know how to convert these cryptic names into something meaningful but I'm using open source software such as Rawtherapee & GIMP.  They allow me to select only the cryptic (i.e., file) names.  My experiments have shown that doing so has significant affect on the image appearance (i.e., what I see on screen).

All I need to be able to use the meaningless file names is to build a conversion chart that I can reference when doing soft proofing.

Interestingly, I experimented with the profiles that Canon offers for download to use with OEM paper.  When installed those get placed in the same folder as the ones supplied with the Canon software and shown in my post.  However, they have file names that make it straightforward to know which profile corresponds with any specific paper.  What that means is that Canon is selling paper for my printer that is at best difficult for me to use but if I choose to buy any of the several supported OEM papers it works fine.  I don't see how that serves Canon's interests very well.

I've also been using Google Picasa as sort of my library previewer/finder of choice.  One of the things I like about Picasa is that it has a very nice interface/dialogue for printing that works great with the Canon driver.  What I get to choose there is only paper which I've assumed equates to an ICC profile.  The concept of media type andprofile being different things does not appear when doing that.

Print Studio Pro is something I have looked at but not used very much.  It has been a bit unnatural for me to have to launch DPP4 just for the purpose of printing but that is something I could consider.

You say the recognizable names for selecting these profiles are embedded in the profile.  I have viewed them using the ICC Profile Inspector and was unable to find anything that I could recognize as useful information.  Is there another way to do this?  If I could figure that out I could make the cross reference chart I mentioned above.

[aajax]

It looks like the answer is that EXIF Tool can be used to find the desired information. Thanks for advising that it is embedded. Not sure what that says about the usefulness of ICC Profile Inspector but this goes a long way to solving my problem. Thanks!!!

[aajax · Accepted solution]

Just in case somebody else cares about this here is a link to the cross reference mentioned herein.

[jrhoffman75]

Thanks for creating that. The first four characters identify the printer and the last four identify the specific media. 

[stringz]

Are there any media profiles for cardstock paper?  If so, how do I set up my printer for that media?  The Pro-100 is touted as one of the best printers for scrapbooking, especially for printing on cardstock.

[jrhoffman75]

There are no specific profiles provided by Canon for cardstock. Red River Paper provides some of their papers sized and scored for printing cards, but I'm not sure that would be considered cardstock.

The cardstock manufacturer may provide ICC profiles for their product along with a reconnedbed Canon media type (may may just recommend using a Canon media type and associated ICC profile).

Given that a number of folks have posted on this forum about the problems they are having printing on cardstock i think your best bet would be to go to the sites that are touting the printer as great for cardstock and see what they are recommending for settings.