The term profiling refers to the creation of an ICC (international color consortium) color printer file that is calibrated to your ink, paper, printer and RIP (raster imaging process) software.

To obtain consistent accurate colors from any dye sublimation ink, paper, printer and software, some form of color correction must be used. Basically, this ICC profile is a custom designed file that is created and loaded into your computer and used by major graphics programs like Corel and Photoshop during the printing of your image. It tells the printer how much ink lay down and in what amounts of CMYK ink in necessary to achieve the desired print quality.

Profiling is a major part of the entire process of printing what you see on your monitor to your substrate. Every time you change one component, ink, paper, printer or software, you will need to create a new ICC profile. It is not easy to profile and some combinations of paper, ink, printer and software can be rather difficult. For example, profiling water-based inks is much more difficult (tighter printing window) than solvent/oil based inks. Some companies providing you the sublimation paper or inks may have a basic ICC profile available for use but you still will need to make corrections for paper, printer and software. On a positive note, there are specific profiling companies that can help you if you are not sure about how to do this. Make no mistake about it, the creation of this ICC profile will make or break the printed image. Good rule of thumb is if the image is printed poorly and you think it is the paper, ink, printer or software, focus your initial troubleshooting on the ICC profile first and go from there.