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Printer Setup Problem – Going demented

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Printer Setup Problem – Going demented

  • Ballyman
    Participant

    I have a printing problem that’s driving me demented.

    I’m using an Epson r1800 printer and I print using CS3. My monitor is calibrated. I’ve think the problem is down to whatever way I am setting up CS3 to print as the colours I am getting are all severely washed out on my prints. Here is a brief of what I do currently:
    I am using Epson ink and Ilford Satin paper.
    I open the file in CS3 to print it.
    Select file from the menu and then select Print. The print screen pops up.
    I select “page setup” and this opens the R1800 printer properties screen.
    Here the options selected are
    Sheet
    Premium Semigloss Photo Paper
    Best Photo
    A4
    Landscape
    Gloss is ticked
    High Speed is clicked
    Print Preview is clicked.
    ICM is selected and Off (No color adjustment) is clicked.
    I now click OK and am taken back to the print screen.
    Here I tick center image
    I tick Scale to fit media
    Match Print Colors is ticked
    Show bounding box is ticked.
    On the right hand side, Color Management is selected from the drop down box.
    Document is selected
    Photoshop Manages Colors
    Printer Profile is Ilford Photo Satin
    Rendering is Perceptual and Black Point compensation is ticked.
    I now click Print.
    Up pops the select printer screen and I select Epson r1800 and press Print
    Now up pops print preview screen. Here I can see that the colours are now waaaay out of kilter and look severely washed out and I press cancel for the millionth time. If I press print then the resultant print looks ridiculous.

    Can someone, for the love of god, please help me. What am I doing wrong??

    Can someone please give me a step by step guide on what I need to do to print properly or point out what I am doing wrong!!

    PS. I have tried to leave ICM on and sometimes I do manage to get something resembling what was on screen but I want to be able to do it properly and consistently through CS3.

    Please help me jebus.

    jb7
    Participant

    I don’t have CS3…

    That printer profile-
    would that be for your proof setup, in the view menu?

    For printing, maybe you should be using the document profile, which should be Adobe RGB-

    Everything else seems ok, I think…

    Ballyman
    Participant

    My proof setup is also set to Ilford Satin and it looks perfect on the screen.

    Ballyman
    Participant

    I have three things I don’t understand. I probably have lots more but these three for the moment.

    I am using Ilford Satin Paper and have the appropriate profiles installed onto the computer. I am using Windows Vista and obviously CS3. My monitor is calibrated:

    OK, so I open a xxxxxx.tif which has been exported from Lightroom as Adobe RGB (1998)

    Under Edit, Assign Profile – What should I have selected here?
    Under View, Proof Setup – What should I have selected here?
    And in the printing page, Under Color Handling, Printer Profile – What should I have selected here?

    What does soft proofing mean? I’ve googled it but as I don’t know anything about colour spaces it makes no sense to me. Can someone explain it to me?

    Any help is greatly appreciated.

    sean1098
    Member

    jb7 wrote:

    I don’t have CS3…

    That printer profile-
    would that be for your proof setup, in the view menu?

    For printing, maybe you should be using the document profile, which should be Adobe RGB-

    Everything else seems ok, I think…

    Joseph is right, you should be using document pro and not proof. try this it should be fine then i think. thats my set up with cs3 and its fine. i get a slightly darker print but nout to worry about.

    Sean.

    Mark
    Keymaster

    I had several days of grief trying to work out what I needed to do also, so you’re not alone :)
    Am printing b+w just fine now.

    I’d imagine that soft proofing might be the print preview ? Just a guess…

    randomway
    Member

    You can try in Photoshop:

    Edit>Convert to Profile>select the profile you want to use (paper profile)
    View>Proof Setup>Custom>select the same profile

    then

    File>Print>select Proof

    This should work in theory.

    Or just use Document in the Print menu and use the Adobe sRGB or whatever profile the image had when shot… that’s the same you see by default in Photoshop, and that’s what you go by when editing the picture… If you use sRGB for editing and Epson Archival Matte paper profile for printing, you are asking for touble. That’s my experience anyways.

    Ballyman
    Participant

    Cheers for the answers. I think I’ve managed to get some kind of success. What I’ve ended up doing is

    Edit>Convert> and selecting Adobe RGB (1998)
    View>Proof> and selecting the paper profile here. I also have Gamut Warning ticked and now there are shaded parts on the dark parts of the photo. What does this mean?????
    File>Print>Document and selecting the paper profile where it asks for printer profile.

    This actually gave me a result very close to what I was looking at on the screen!! I presume if I was to get an individual paper profile I would get even closer to whats on screen? What do the shaded parts of the phot with the gamut warning mean and how can I fix it??

    AedanC
    Participant

    The shaded parts are bits where there are colours in your photo that the printer cannot print. Depending on what options you select it’ll try and get the closest match when printing them. If they are extreme dark or bright areas try gentle dodging and burning to bring them back into the range of colours your ptinter can print, ie into the printer gamut.

    Aedan

    AedanC
    Participant

    Also, I had a recollection that Vista has some problems with colour management so I Googled it and came across this little gem.. Could your screen profile be getting turned off by Vista?

    http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=23073026

    That was in May 2007, perhaps it’s been fixed by now…..

    Aedan

    scas
    Member

    r1800 is well documented for print problems, uninstall software for it then reinstall, from website not cd, update firmware, reset cs3. this used to work for me many years ago. but when you get bored with epsons, buy a hp or canon-so much easier

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