Colour Target Print - Pc - Adobe Colour Print Utility

Opening and Starting

When you run ACPU you will be greeted with a file explorer window asking you to 'Please select a TIFF file to print'. Locate and open the Image Science Profile Target that you previously downloaded.

You will now be greeted with the main ACPU window:

Click 'Print Setup' and choose A4 for size. Hit 'OK' to return to the main window.

Now move through to the printer driver by hitting 'Print'.

Select your printer from the 'Name' dropdown.

The next stage depends very much on your printer driver.

Driver Settings

Click the 'Properties' button to enter your printer driver settings

Below is a screenshot where we have chosen the correct settings:

Choose the appropriate 'Media Type' as per our paper type setting as per our guide for this - in the above example we are doing Hahnemuhle Photo Rag so 'Archival Matte' is the most appropriate option.

Set 'Color' to 'Color' because we're doing an RGB target.
 

Quality Settings

Under 'Print Quality' choose 'Quality Options' which will bring up another window where we can choose the appropriate quality settings.

We have chosen a quality level of 'SuperFine' in this case, but you can choose whichever suits you best. Most people just choose the highest setting.

Generally the highest or one step down from the highest quality level is appropriate. Note that generally your profile will work fine across quality settings, so if you change your mind once you’re printing with the profile, this should not cause issues.

For High Speed, in general we recommend leaving this unticked. It makes no functional difference in regard to profiling, but can affect print speed as it toggles between uni-directional and bi-directional print head movement (again choose the best compromise between speed and quality).

Edge smoothing should be unticked.

Finest detail you can choose ticked or unticked. Your printer is slower but sharper in finest detail mode. We recommend ticking it.

Click Okay to return to the driver settings window.

Under 'Mode' choose 'Custom' and from the dropdown choose 'Off (No Colour Adjustment)'.

Under paper settings confirm you're printing to an A4 Sheet.

Now check the summary panel to make sure all the settings you think you've set have indeed been set:

Save Settings and Print Target

Save your settings once you are sure you have them correct.

Remember that when you get your profile back you will need to use exactly the same driver settings to print with, so the easiest approach is to save these settings now and then recall them later when you’re actually using the resulting ICC profile.

You can now go ahead and print your target image.

The Next Steps

It is very important that you now proceed to the Evaluating Your Printed Target guide to assess your printed target for correctness before sending it.

Remember, you must supply on a separate sheet your name, email address, printer model and full paper details.