to calibrate or not to calibrate, that is ...

[jinky]

You can get a brand new Spyder3  Express at Warehouse Express for £63.99 - gets good reviews

[ABERS]

......... it should be remembered that you need to calibrate a printer profile for every different paper in addition to every batch of ink you purchase.

That's news to me. Do you mean every different batch of ink you purchase. E.G. manufacturer.

[Sarasocke]

You can get a brand new Spyder3  Express at Warehouse Express for £63.99 - gets good reviews

Unfortunately with at least £20 postage according to their website

[Forseti]

......... it should be remembered that you need to calibrate a printer profile for every different paper in addition to every batch of ink you purchase.

That's news to me. Do you mean every different batch of ink you purchase. E.G. manufacturer.

Absolutely - profiles can only be supplied by printer manufacturers or third parties (or installed by default) when certain criteria are known in advance and met. As you use profiles provided by PermaJet Alan I have copied this directly from their site:

'In order to realise the full potential of our Inks and Paper we recommend that you use our specially created ICC Colour Profiles'.

Or reading it another way - when using ICC Colour Profiles provided by PermaJet themselves then the assumption is that you are also using their inks as well as paper. This makes sense of course as in order to provide a profile then this profile has to be generated in the first instance from known non-variables i.e. the ink and paper combination.

[ABERS]

Two things here Alan,
1. The profiles that I use have been especially generated by Permajet for the two papers that I use, Fibre Base Royal 325 and Fibre Base Warmtone 325 using the procedure of printing their colour charts, posting them off to them and they then generate the profile for my use. That is using Epson inks. So I have those profiles are specific to my printer/paper set up. There is no suggestion that every time I change ink cartridges that I need to have new profiles generated.

2. You will have seen on their site at their profiling section they have a series of what I suppose could be called 'generic' profiles for each of their papers on whatever printer using either Epson or their own ink brand. On the rare occasion that I have used one of their other papers I have downloaded the appropriate profile, and as far as I can see they work perfectly.

Great service, great paper!

P.S. And they have supplied me with a special code to get what I order postage free

[Forseti]

Perhaps my interpretation of 'e.g. manufacturers' was not what you meant.  

Without doubt the method you have opted for is the correct one and is really consistent with the general points that I was attempting (maybe badly) to make. Instead of using a generic profile provided by PermaJet when using their own Inks and Paper you have gone the other route in so much as that you have provided PermaJet with one of your prints using Paper X and Ink Y and they in turn have provided you with a specific and personal profile. Of course this profile would no longer be valid were you to now start using Ink Z (no name brand say) which is essentially the point that I was attempting to make.