PrintFactory uses a semi-proprietary file format for its color profiles called PMM. These contain a lot more information than just an ICC profile, such as spot-color info, printer calibration data, and device-link profile info.
In a typical workflow you will use a spectrophotometer to create a new profile when adding a new media type to PrintFactory. If, however, you don't want to bother with a custom profile (or you don't have a compatible spectrophotometer)and you have a generic ICC profile for the media handy, such as one from the paper manufacturer, you can import this profile into PrintFactory using these simple steps.
Note: these instructions are current as of PrintFactory version 6.6.11 and assumes using an RGB printer setup.
1. Launch Calibrator
We have a lot of Media types already configured at our shop, your Media list will look different (and may even be empty).
2. Create a new PMM
Click the Create PMM button in the toolbar
Select the printer you wish to import the ICC profile for and press the [New] button in the bottom right.
3. Print Settings
Select the Media you are importing the ICC profile for. Assuming you are importing an RGB profile from a paper manufacturer, a common use-case for importing an ICC profile, select one of the RGB quality options (Normal, Fine, or Draft) and set the other settings (ie cutting, print direction, etc. as desired. These will override the Media settings stored in the printer.)
If you don't see it listed and you are using a Canon imagePROGRAPH Pro series printer, check that you have imported or created the media type using Canon Media Configuration Tool. Note that you will need to restart PrintFactory RIP after adding new media types to Canon imagePROGRAPH Pro series printers in order for them to register in PrintFactory.
Here, we will be importing the manufacturers profile for Breathing Color 17M Satin Canvas.
4. Profile Name
Name the PMM whatever you like, but if you keep multiple PMM's around for each media like we do, its better to be descriptive here. In our particular case, there is no reason to change the Media type, print a grey border, or provide extra info, so we will press the [Next >] button on the bottom-left.
5. Profile Type
Here, we will change the type to 3rd Party Module. Since, in this case, we are importing an existing ICC profile from the paper manufacturer we can ignore the [Choose] button and simply click the [Next >] button. Note: If, instead of importing an existing ICC profile, we were using a 3rd party color management tool such as Argyll CMS to generate and scan our color charts, we could choose our generated charts here to have PrintFactory print them to help ensure they are printed using the same settings you have for the PMM.
6. Choose the ICC profile
New simply click [Choose...] and select the ICC profile file provided by your paper manufacturer (or output from your 3rd party color management software). This file does not need to be in any particular folder on your system, once imported, the data from the ICC profile will be copied into your PrintFactory account's media database.
7. Evaluation
When just importing a manufacturer's profile there isn't much reason to do anything in this step, other than just clicking [Finish].
You can optionally print a standard evaluation image. Note that if you are using a roll printer, you may want to click Page Setup and set the Media Size to something smaller (ie A3+ roll) or it will print the evaluation image quite large. Analyzing this, and the gamut chart, will mostly be interesting if using a 3rd party tool to create ICC profiles, to help ensure there were no major errors in the profile creation.
8. Done!
Now you will have your media ready for printing in PrintFactory using the imported ICC profile.
Optional: by default, you don't have all rendering intents available for imported ICC profiles - only the ones embedded in the ICC profile (typically Perceptual, (Relative) Colorimetric, and Proofing (Absolute Colorimetric). To take advantage of EcoSave and VisualMatch variants you will need to right click and choose Convert to VISU. This will create the new variants using PrintFactory's built in VISU color-management engine. And from here you can create device-link profiles and so on, as you would with a self-created PMM.
