Our new media profiling service came about as the result of a call for help we received from one of our clients based in Essex. They were using a Mutoh 1624 with Caldera RIP software and had noticed that when they printed on self-adhesive vinyl, the quality seemed to drift. They found that they could either get a blurry print with good colour quality but, if they improved the quality of the image, the colours would not be so accurate. We concluded that they needed to create a profile specifically for when they were printing self-adhesive vinyl and we went in and helped them to do that, after which the problem disappeared.

It was a timely reminder to us just how important it is to set up a specific profile for your printer depending on what media you are using. Colour management is critical to achieving the highest quality print. Profiles describe the colour attributes of a printer by comparing the source or target colours with the standard colour profile required – in other words, by defining the right profile on your printer, you can be confident that what you print out will exactly match the colours of your source material.

In practical terms, to create a media profile we use an X-Rite spectrophotometer. This measures reflected or transmitted light across the visible spectrum and creates a visual curve to describe each colour. This can then be used to ensure that colour consistency is maintained throughout the production process. Mike Vincent, our head of technical services, and Luke Walford, our director of consumables, are both qualified to profile media in Caldera, so we’re now able to offer a profiling service to our clients who use Epson and Mutoh machinery.

From now on, we can create media profiles for new printers before installation and we’re also happy to provide profiles for existing clients on media that we stock. For an additional charge, we can also profile your machine for alternative media. For us, this means we’re able to provide a more complete service, while for our customers it means they can feel confident that they’ll be able to print colours with absolute accuracy.

For more information on SEDO’s media profiling services, call Mike Vincent on 01268 724570.