You would like to have similar color results (harmonize) across several printers or use one device as a proofer.
Even if you profile your printer, the results might be not identical between your printers. This due to many factors including the printer mechanics itself, the inks or just your profile. Indeed, a profile has limitations that Caldera can't anticipate or fix.
You can use a simulation profile for all your printers to have better results in an effort to achieve identical color characterization. The goal is that you'll be able to print some part of a same big job on several printers, and reach some (more or less… according to the printer limits) identical results.
Steps
1) Step one: identify all the printers you would like to harmonize. Try to find some similar profiles for those printers because your simulation profile is based on a existing profile you've chosen. Try to have as maximum as possible the same compensation for resolution, qualities, passes, and ink mode to reach better results.
2) The second step is to compare gamuts and identify the smallest output space. There are two ways to make this comparison. In both cases go to EasyMedia and choose a profile for one of the devices to be targeted. Then go to the 'Profiling' tab and choose "Edit / Check current profile".
The first method is to go to the "Color Analysis" tab and pick percentage values. The profile having the smallest values for all the lines will be your reference profile (take note you are attempting to target the printer and profile with the smallest gamut as your simulation profile).
If you have any doubts regarding your choice, the "FOGRA39L" which is very similar to "GRACoL2013 CRPC6, will represent many standard output spaces which makes a good reference.
The second method is to go to the 'Gamut Viewer' tab and select 'Another profile'. In this example the achieved gamut is compared against a standard GRACoL2013 CRPC6 icc, use the profile browser to select the appropriate ICC for the profile you want to compare against.
3) If there is more than one Caldera server, it will be necessary transfer the profile or .icc to all the Caldera stations driving the printers. On V11 or newer, use Sync & Deploy to distribute the profile. Or if your version is older than V11, use the following method; Click on "status" and at the "ICC Profile" line, click on the disk icon to save a copy of this .icc profile.
Transfer this .icc profile to other Caldera station in "/opt/caldera/lib/ICC_PROFILES" folder.
If you have all the targeted printers in the same Caldera station, disregard this step.
4) To simulate: go to your printer window of one of the printers where you will be simulating another device or profile, choose your output profile and click on the 5th icon (colors pallet). In the "Color Management" tab, activate the "Simulation profile" function and choose the .icc that is installed or you've synchronized or copied. Either choose in the list "More…" and click in "Files" tab to find your profile is in the list.
If you have all the targeted printers in the same Caldera station (or you've used Sync & Deploy), you can go directly on the "Explorer" tab and search your reference printer/profile to select your profile.
5) Set your rendering intents. For the output device select an appropriate rendering intent for your application, such as 'Perceptual' or 'Colorimetric' as an example. Then for your Simulation Profile, select either 'Colorimetric+BPC' if you are attempting to harmonize devices or 'Absolute' if the intent is to use the device as a proofer.
When using absolute and the objective is to simulate the white point, then set the rendering of the input profile to absolute and change under advanced, special the white point to "Convert" (for both images and vectors). This is also to be set when using a simulation profile set to absolute once set the input profile rendering intent can be changed back.
6) Submit the job and/or save the print configuration as a QuickPrint.
7) When using spot colors you will have the option to map these colors into the simulation space or the original output space.