Once you've got yourself a profile for your printer, you need to install it to the right location (see below). Once that's done, how do you go about using it? Well, you need to use some printing software that is ICC profile aware - this means it will be able to find and use that profile when it prints an image. The majority of the more well known photo editors out there support profiles, but not all do, so please check first before you order a profile! (please note that Paint Shop Pro has recently introduced profiles, but it's not that easy to use. It will always load images into an sRGB colour space which you don't want to do with the profile charts).

The software ranges in price from the very expensive Photoshop - the industry leader - to the relatively cheap Photoshop Elements which is a cut down version of Photoshop that retains almost all the standard features that you might want. We would also recommend Qimage as a cheap printing program - whilst there are some image editing features, it's really all about creating drag and drop page layouts for one or more images, and getting the very best quality print out of your printer (it's also very good for resizing an image to print larger than it should do).

Installing your profile

When you receive your profile, it will be as a file attachement on your email. Unfortunately you cannot click it just to install it, but instead you must save it onto your hard drive first. Your email should have a menu option (usually under 'File') to allow you to save attachements. Use this to save the profile to somewhere safe on your hard drive. Once saved, you can bring up the folder that contains the new profile, and then you can either copy it into the relevant location as shown below, or you can use the Windows method to install the profile :

• XP, Vista and Windows 7 : copy the profile to \Windows\system32\spool\drivers\color
  There is an easy way to install a profile with XP and Vista. First of all you must save the emailed profile onto your hard drive (it doesn't matter where). Next, go to the folder where you have saved the profile, put the mouse cursor over the profile and press the right mouse button. A menu should now appear, and the top option will be to 'install profile'. Click on this, and the profile will be installed (you do not get a confirmation to tell you that it has been done, but you should now see it in your profile list in your image editing software). Please note though that this will not work if you are updating a profile with another profile of the same name. In this case you will have to manually overwrite the old profile with the new one at the location shown above.

• Windows NT/2000 : copy the profile to \Winnt\system32\spool\drivers\color
  Windows 2000 also allows automatic installation as described for XP.

• Windows 98/ME : copy the profile to \Windows\System\Color

• Mac OS X : copy the profile to /Library/ColorSync/Profiles
  This directory makes the profile visibile to all users. Otherwise copy the profile to
  /Users/your username/Library/ColorSync/Profiles
  This directory makes the profile visible only to the current user.

• Mac OS 9.x : copy the profile to System Folder:ColorSync Profiles

Using your profile

Our latest PDF guides for creating and using profiles now contain a section on how to use a profile. The basic theory is to set the profile up within the printing options of the software that you're using (e.g. Photoshop), and then keep the printer driver set to the same options as when the original profiling charts were printed. Our PDF guides can be found here