We’ve just rolled out an update to our template database—and it’s one we’re especially happy with and came about directly from a conversation with a client of the legacy tool. From today, all Drop Print (and legacy tool) templates now embed the correct colour profile automatically. That is Adobe RGB 1998.
This small but important change helps ensure that your artworks are printed exactly as you intend. Whether you’re sending us a delicate watercolour or a bold digital illustration, your colours will now be interpreted consistently through the giclée print process.
Colour profiling is a cornerstone of professional printing. Without it, the same image can look wildly different across screens and in print. This update reduces that uncertainty, giving you greater confidence in how your final print will look.
A major influence on our approach to colour management is Uwe Steinmueller’s Fine Art Printing for Photographers. He captures the challenge perfectly:
“Your challenge is to have a monitor display the correct impression of how a certain photo would print on a colour printer… Without proper colour management, colour printing largely remains trial and error… The solution is to determine the colour characteristics of a device, and to incorporate them when reading colours from an input device or when sending colour to an output device.”
That understanding has shaped much of how we’ve built Drop Print from day one. With this update, we’re bringing that precision to every print, helping you get the results you imagined—first time, every time.
What’s Actually Happening Behind the Scenes?
When we talk about embedding a colour profile, what we’re doing is attaching a little bit of information to your artwork file that tells our system exactly how to interpret its colours. This isn’t just a technical add-on—it’s a crucial step in making sure that the blue you see on your screen is the same blue that appears on your final print.
As Steinmueller explains:
“The ICC colour profile describes a device’s colour characteristics—e.g., the colours the device can record or reproduce, the values recorded for a perceived colour (input device), or the values you must send to an output device to produce a certain colour… A device’s colour profile also describes the gamut of the device.”
In plain terms, this profile acts like a translator between your screen and our printer, helping ensure your colours are interpreted as accurately as possible across very different machines.
Most people rely on their monitors for softproofing, so getting your monitor profiled correctly is the first step to consistent results. Without a colour profile, an RGB value (like 240, 125, 90) is just a guess—it has no fixed meaning until you define how it’s meant to appear through a specific device.
By embedding these profiles in our templates, we’re removing that ambiguity and making sure that your prints are true to your vision.
Let me know if you’d like to pair this with a how-to on softproofing, or a walkthrough for artists wanting to profile their own monitors.