wrote:

I have owned an Epson Photo Stylus R800 for a little over a year. Prints are always much too dark. I called Epson and they talked me through a battery of printer tests and checked all print and driver settings which were correct but test prints were again much too dark. They then suggested that I try to print the same image via Windows Fax and Photo Viewer and Microsoft Photo Editor, both prints were perfect and matched the monitor display. I called Adobe Expert Support; they concurred all settings and profiles were correct, and suggested alternative settings but to no avail. They are unable to suggest a remedy for the problem. Can anyone?

I am a reasonably-experienced Photoshop user, I have recalibrated my monitor, tried a wide variety settings in Photoshop. Consulted and followed recommended settings in several good Photoshop books. I use WindowsXP and Photoshop CS2

Can anyone assist me, thanks,
BK

Your printer may be dying. Until last week I had a R800. Unlike most electronic equipment, it died slowly and a section at a time. First the CD position on the front tray wouldn't switch to CD mode. Then... Well, after a few other parts quit, but didn't kill the whole printer, The color started to go off.

I've been using my Spyder2 to calibrate my monitor for a long time. I only use papers that I could get good, proven profiles for. And I used all this for a long time with excellent results. I know color management and have written and trained people on it.

It's just that pictures I had printed in the past would no longer print correctly. They mostly shifted to be too red. It was never completely consistent; sometimes it would print fine and other times it wouldn't. Over time, the red shift got worse and more often.

As it got worse, I also noticed that it sometimes printed too dark at the same time. The red shift and darkness came to work more and more together. It finally got to the point that the printer was unusable. I either had to try for days to get a good print and used a ton of ink or I just couldn't get a good print.

So, I tore the printer apart for the fun of it and dumped the parts in the trash.

I know this isn't very logical. Digital electronics aren't suppose to gradually change, fade, or fail. They are suppose to fail suddenly and completely. So, I suspected the driver. However, Epson hasn't updated the driver in a long time and reinstalling that same one didn't make any difference. My profiles haven't changed either. Besides it did print correctly some of the time. A bad driver or profile shouldn't do that either.

So, it doesn't make any sense, but that's what happened. I no longer have the R800. Yours may be dying too.

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I was going to replace it with a HP B9180, but did some serious evaluation of my printing needs. I do some professional wedding and baby portrait photography, but I don't advertise and the amount I do has been getting less and less. I am a full time salesman working out of my home. (Sales pays better than most pro photography businesses.) I figured that I could get pro labs to print my rare pro photo needs. What I needed for sales was a much cheaper and higher volume printer.

I got a Konica Minolta magicolor 2450 color laser printer. The 9600 dpi mode is good enough for the wife's snapshots. It is actually a surprisingly good photo quality. It is also good enough as a proof printer for my photos. The gamut is very close to CMYK process printing, in fact they have a TOYO profile to match that process. That gamut isn't the same as that R800, but it's a much better proof printer for publishing. It's good enough of a proof printer for sending to a lab too.

It also uses just one printer profile for all papers; it's also spot every time. Those papers are a lot cheaper than any inkjet paper. The toner costs make it WAY cheaper to print than any inkjet. That is important for all the sales stuff I need to print in volume. Oh yeah, it never clogs the ink either.

You may ask what I print my personal photos on now. Alas, once you turn pro in photography or anything, it's no longer a hobby. To be successful in any business you have to focus on ONLY what will make the business successful. You get to the point of never wanting to take a picture unless it has a business purpose. i.e. There is no such thing as personal photography any more with me. <sigh>

Clyde

Basil_Katz_2

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Epson Stylus Photo R 800 dark prints