Should there be different profiles for Hahnemuhle 188gsm and 308gsm photo rag papers, or does the same profile work for both? (There appears to only be one on the H icc download site. I'm using an HP B9180.) I thought the profile would need to be different, as the one paper is much thicker than the other and the head elevation would need to alter accordingly... but might have this all wrong!

Thanks.

If the substrate under the paper is the exact same color as the paper, probably not. But the thinner paper will show whatever is under it to a greater degree, which may affect colors somewhat. But overall the difference is likely to be very small.

Welcome back to the forum, Jonathan. Been on holiday?

Moving...

Thanks for that. So - just so I know - do profiles contain information on head elevation, that changes when thicker or thinner paper is used? Or is that just wrong? It matters to me because someone suggested that a wrong profile was causing head strikes on my printer, and I'm not sure if that was the reason.

As far as I know profiles only contain color-related information. But if you change from a 188g/m2 to a 308g/m2 paper the head distance will change and that might affect color. But I don't think that will make a big difference. The white point counts a lot more!

Luis

Thanks Luis - but do you know how the head distance changes? Is the information to change in the profile? Or is there another mechanism to make this happen?

Cheers, Chris

Hi Chris.

I just opened a fresh ICC profile generated by a Z3100 printer and browsed all embedded tags. There's no indication that something inside the profile would change the printer head's behavior. There must be a mechanism on the paper feed that automatically adapts the head to the paper thickness.

Go to the ICC web site and download the profile inspector to check for yourself:

http://www.color.org/profileinspector.xalter

EDIT: I just remembered that you could take two profiles (208g/m2 and 308g/m2) and compare them to see if anything changes (other than white point, black point, color tables, etc). I'd focus on the 'targ' tag.

Hades