Profiles
Textile ICC
Textile ICC for South African wide-format work needs fabric-specific settings, not a straight copy from banner or vinyl media. Knitted polyester, coated flag and display textile can shift colour, bleed differently and dry at different rates on FastJET, Stormjet and Skywalker machines.
Fabric behaviour before profiling
Textile ICC work needs more care than simply swapping one profile for another. Fabric behaviour, ink laydown and machine settings all influence colour on large-format textile jobs.
Start with the actual textile, not only the ink set and RIP preset. Stretch in the weave, optical brighteners, pretreatment and take-up tension all change how a target reads. Johannesburg dust can mark pale fabric edges, while Durban humidity often changes drying between the morning and late afternoon runs.
Keep the first test strip, heater values and pass count together with a clear photo of the loaded fabric. That record helps when banding, cockling or dull blacks appear after a media roll change. A pinned note near the printer is often more useful than a long file buried on a shared drive.
What the textile notes cover
Textile ICC also points to the checks that matter before reading a target, including nozzle condition, head height and whether the textile is advancing square on the platen. Consistent settings matter more than swapping between multiple near-matching profiles.
Match Textile ICC with the relevant press notes and a fresh swatch check before moving to a full production run. Confirm one more nozzle test before a Bellville parcel leaves, especially on dark polyester where missing channels show quickly. ICC work starts from a test print on your usual roll, together with the RIP version you run.
- Ink limits for coated textile
- Test strip saved with heater settings
- Machine-specific textile setup notes
Conditions that shift fabric colour
Textile output changes with room temperature, airborne dust and how long the roll has been acclimatising before print. Shops near OR Tambo, Crown Mines or busy courier routes often need tighter handling notes for packed jobs that cannot leave while still damp. Older production machines may also need different pass counts from the default RIP suggestion.
Coastal moisture can slow curing and soften detail on heavily inked areas. Inland static and dust can pull lint onto the surface, which affects both nozzle health and spectro readings. During power cuts, keep a written note of the last stable settings so a restarted run is compared against the right sample.
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Job details worth sending
Send the fabric name, print width, ink set and the fault you are trying to correct. Photos of mottling, strike-through, oversaturation or weak reds help more than a short description on its own.
Store the calibration sheet with the target print, RIP settings and the final accepted sample. When a repeat order comes in, that pack gives the operator a working reference for colour, heaters and feed without guessing from memory.
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