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How To Use Inkjet Printer Profiles: Adobe Illustrator / Windows

As a rule, we avoid printing from Illustrator.  For whatever reason, Adobe did not endow it with a high quality print engine.  On many occasions we've seen customers unable to get good quality prints when printing from Illustrator with and without a profile.  

If you have Illustrator, you have Photoshop, which is the best option for printing to an inkjet printer.  

Our recommendation is to export your Illustrator file to a PDF - in the RGB color space - and print it from Photoshop.

Since you're still reading...here is the process for printing with a color profile in Adobe Illustrator and Windows.  It covers Canon and Epson printers.

NOTE YOUR FILE MUST BE IN THE RGB COLOR SPACE - Printing files in the CMYK color space yield poor results.

Illustrator Setup

1 - Select your printer

2 - Click the Color Management option

3 - Set the Color Management dialog

Color Handling: Let Illustrator determine colors

Printer Profile: Choose the profile for your paper and printer

Rendering Intent: Your options for inkjet printing are Relative Colorimetric and Perceptual.  Most choose Relative. Hover your mouse over the words
"Rendering Intent" for a brief description of the setting.

Preserve RGB Numbers:  As a rule you'll leave this unchecked

4 - Click the Setup button to access your printer preferences, also called the driver dialog.

Epson Printer Setup

1 - Media Type: Set according to the recommendation in the profile instructions PDF that comes with each Red River Paper profile download. 

You will NOT see Red River Paper product names here **

2 - Level: Choose the print quality you desire

3 - Mode: Off (No Color Adjustment)

4 - Paper Settings: Choose the source and paper size for your job

** Users of Epson Media Files with select SureColor printers will see RRP product names in the Media Type dropdown.

Click OK then click Print.

Canon Printer Setup

1 - Media Type: Set according to the recommendation in the profile instructions PDF that comes with each Red River Paper profile download

2 - Paper Source: Set it based on where you feed paper into the printer

3 - Print Quality: We recommend High for all print jobs

4 - Color Intensity: Select Manual

5 - Color Intensity: Click the Set button

On the Manual Color Adjustment dialog

Click the Matching tab

Color Correction: None

Click OK and then click Print

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Last updated: February 18, 2023

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