Print Prism
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How Print Prism Works

High-quality printer profiles using nothing more than a supported flatbed scanner.

No reference target required

Watch the detailed instructional video (creating a printer profile from start to finish).

The problem with traditional scanner profiling

Older scanner-based profiling tools depend on an IT8 or similar reference target. Those charts have to be purchased, shipped, stored carefully, and eventually replaced as they fade. If the target is lost or damaged, you’re stuck until you can get a new one.

Print Prism removes that entire Achilles’ heel. There is no separate reference target to buy, no serial-numbered chart that has to match a specific file, and nothing that has to be shipped to your door. Once you have a supported scanner, Print Prism is ready to go out of the box.

Instead of relying on a special IT8 target, Print Prism characterizes the scanner itself, turning it into a stable measurement device that can read profiling targets you print on your own printer.

A scanner that behaves like a spectrophotometer

Under the hood, Print Prism includes proprietary calibration data for each supported scanner model. Using in-house tools, the spectral response of those scanners has already been measured and modeled, and that characterization is built directly into the software.

When you select your scanner in Print Prism, it uses the pre-characterized spectral response for that model to treat your scanner as a makeshift "spectrophotometer" for reading color patches.

That calibration allows Print Prism to convert raw scanner RGB values into meaningful colorimetric data that can be used to build ICC printer profiles—without needing a physical, factory-printed reference chart.

  • No IT8 or reference target to buy, track, or replace.
  • No matching of chart IDs to specific data files.
  • Consistent, repeatable readings from a device you already own.

In testing, profiles created with Print Prism have matched or exceeded the quality of profiles made with traditional handheld spectrophotometers—while being much easier and faster to produce.

Why this is easier than handheld devices

Handheld spectrophotometers can be accurate, but they’re tedious in practice: you have to carefully align the device, slide across rows of patches, avoid lifting or drifting, and redo strips if anything goes wrong.

Print Prism flips that experience:

  • Print a dense target once.
  • Drop it on the scanner glass and click Scan.
  • Mark or auto-detect the corners in Print Prism and let it read 9,261 color patches in a single pass.

The current printer-target-41 chart contains 9,261 patches—far more than typical strip-reading profiling tools use. Because a scanner can capture the entire sheet at once, there’s no practical penalty for using that many patches, and the extra sampling density gives the profiling engine more information to work with.

There’s no manual strip reading, no “did I skip that row?” anxiety, and no juggling a handheld device over a stack of prints. The scanner handles the mechanics; Print Prism handles the color.

Simple three-step workflow

1. Print the target

Print Prism includes a high-density target file named printer-target-41.tif, installed in your Windows Pictures folder. You can use Qimage, Photoshop, Lightroom, or other photo software to print it, as long as:

  • All color management in the application is turned off.
  • All color management in the printer driver is turned off.

You can profile any inkjet printer and paper combination—Canon, Epson, HP, OEM or third-party papers and inks—as long as the target is printed correctly.

2. Scan the target

After trimming the printed chart along the dotted line, place it face-down near the center of the scanner glass. Print Prism drives the scanner through its TWAIN driver (Epson Scan 2 or Canon ScanGear) using calibrated settings (Color mode, 300 dpi, and all color management / image adjustments disabled).

Once the scan is complete, Print Prism:

  • Rotates and normalizes the target orientation.
  • Locates the borders and patch grid.
  • Samples each patch from a clean, central area to avoid edges and noise.

3. Create the profile

With patch data in hand, Print Prism analyzes the target and reports key statistics:

  • Overall exposure and tonal range.
  • The number of clipped patches.
  • Lab gamut coverage for the printer / paper / ink combination.

When you’re satisfied with the scan quality, Print Prism builds an ICC printer profile ready to use in Qimage or any color-managed application. From that point on, just select your new profile when printing with the same printer, paper, and driver settings you used to print the target.

Supported scanners & system requirements

Print Prism is currently available for Windows only, supporting:

  • Windows Vista
  • Windows 7
  • Windows 8 / 8.1
  • Windows 10
  • Windows 11

The printer you are profiling can be any inkjet printer, but the scanner used to read the target must be one of the supported models below.

Supported scanner models

  • Canon G600 Series (G610–G695)
  • Canon LIDE 300
  • Epson ET-8500
  • Epson ET-8550
  • Epson L8160
  • Epson L8180
  • Epson V39 II

As support for additional scanners is added, new models will be listed here and included in Print Prism’s scanner selection.

Q&A for some of the most frequently asked questions

Q: What if I want to create great profiles with Print Prism for all my printers and media but I don't have one of the supported scanners?
A: We recently added the Canon LIDE 300 as a supported scanner. The LIDE 300 sells for about $75 U.S. so after buying a LIDE 300 scanner and Print Prism software, you are at $110 U.S. all-in and you'll be ready to profile any printer, paper, and ink!
Q: How can this work with no reference target to scan with your printed target?
A: You don't need a reference target like an IT8 because we scan with the scanner's color management turned off and we've already measured the color response of your supported scanner model – using better reference targets that we measure ourselves. But the secret sauce is the extra spectral layer inside Print Prism that matches printed color to your human eyes. In contrast, old school IT8-based scanner/printer profiling matched color to what the scanner sees – with its skewed light source and sensor.
Q: Doesn't each unit of a particular model scanner have to be tested for color and spectral response individually?
A: Not at all. The included data for your supported scanner will work with your individual unit. In testing multiple units of the same model, we've found tolerance to be tight with respect to the light source and sensor; thus, with color management turned off when scanning, each unit produces essentially the same results. As an added bonus, modern scanners use LED light strips which don't tend to shift or fade over time, making recalibration unnecessary.
Q: Won't the scanner's color shift over time, making Print Prism's built-in spectral data inaccurate?
A: In practice, no. Nothing is perfectly stable forever. IT8 charts fade, spectro white tiles can yellow, and even spectrophotometer lamps drift but like a spectro, modern CIS scanners are very consistent. In our tests, new units and years-old units of the same model match within normal profiling noise, and the LEDs are only on during the brief scan, not for hours a day like room lighting. Print Prism also tests for color shift and can compensate should any units vary slightly or change over time.
Q: Since various papers have different white points and inks vary between printers, wouldn't the scanner have to be calibrated to each paper and ink separately?
A: Remember that we are using the scanner as a measuring device by scanning with color management turned off in the scanning software. With Print Prism's built in scanner spectral data known, it calculates all those things for you! They may be difficult to spot mixed with other colors but your printed target contains a 21 step grayscale that Print Prism uses to calculate full tone curves from the black point to the white point along with the full range of reproducible colors.
Q: How accurate are the profiles that Print Prism creates?
A: Print Prism profiles are far more accurate than older IT8 based scanner profiling tools and compare nicely to results from a handheld spectrophotometer, even beating those in some cases due to Print Prism being essentially unlimited on the number of patches it can use to develop the profiles. We are confident you will be pleased with the results!
Q: My scanner is not on the supported list but it is very similar (or in the same model line). Will it work with Print Prism?
A: It's possible but to be honest, there's no way to be sure. Over time we will add more scanners as we get more in-house to test, but we do have to test each model in-house and can't really make assumptions about scanners that are not on the currently-supported list. The internal spectral layer that Print Prism uses requires specialized equipment and specialized software to derive (reference targets like an IT8 won't do the job and are not used in this process).
Q: I see there is no free demo to try. What if I buy Print Prism and can't get it to work?
A: We don't have a demo at this time but we are known for our stellar support and want your purchase to be as risk-free as possible. If you run into a problem within 2 weeks of purchase that our support can't solve, we will refund the full purchase price. We use email for all support, we are very responsive, and being a small company means you get responses directly from the program author.