Printing without profile

[magica237]

I have bought a laser printer (OKI C650N) and I am very confused about setting up the colors for printing.

I paint watercolor and I need to print copies in similar colors as my original paints are. I understand, that make it 100% accurate is impossible as there is playing role scanner, screen, printer and paper.

I have calibrated monitor, I have watched some tutorials, but I am still not coming forward

I have bought paper from Hahnemühle, who is providing ICC profiles for papers, but only for several ink printers.

I have tried softproofing, but my printer is not listed and I have not been successful to find a profile for it online, nor create one.

My idea was to have a print next to monitor, compare colors, saturation etc., adjust the file in affinity and then make the same adjustments "negative". For example the print is more saturated than the file on the screen, so I was hoping, that if I adjust the saturation on screen +10 an it seems similar, for next print I will apply saturation -10.

But as there is more than just saturation, I would like to know which adjustments are the best to use (Levels, HSL, curves, saturation, Vibrance?) For many of them is probably not so easy make "negation"

Is my thinking correct?

How can I get the best color print if I don't have ICC profiles for paper and printer?

 

Thank you!

[thomaso]

Ink behaves differently on paper than toner, and with ink the absorbency of the paper has another relevance than with toner.

I would start testing with simple white paper and first try any colour option available in the printer driver, for example chose printing with the printer's colour management versus the computer's colour management (on Mac: ColourSync). This should help or be enough to achieve quite similar colours in the printed result.

Also RGB versus CMYK might matter, possibly OKI has related information… and/or even offers general colour profiles for their printer. For instance here they offer for a "C650dn" a driver software + a "Color Correct Utility" + an "ICC Profile": https://www.oki.com/de/printing/support/drivers-and-utilities/colour/09006144/

Another workflow would calibrate the printer with an according hard/software to create a colour profile for the specific printer.