I’m having a terrible time trying to make color managed prints on my R2400, with any paper and with any profile.
Recently, I made the switch to a Mac Pro, and tried to make a print, and it comes out WAY too bright. Like not even close. I’ve got a calibrated (to gamma 2.2) monitor so I don’t think it’s a problem with my monitor. As well, when I hit "preview" in the 2400 print dialog to bring up a preview of the print, it too is way too bright. In fact, a perfect match for the final too-bright physical print.
So I think I’m doing something wrong during the printing flow. The document is in 16-bit Adobe RBG, and I’m using print with preview, let PS determine colors, HFA2400PhotoRagMK profile, perceptual, black point off. In the Epson dialog, I’ve got Velvet paper, best photo, and no color adjustment. And, with that, I get a way-too-bright print.
I’ve seen complaints like this from a few places as long ago as April of this year, but I haven’t seen any resolution.
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Thanks for the reply. I had seen that one last night, and used it as a sanity check to confirm that I was, indeed, doing all the right things. I have used this same flow with my old XP machine, and things always worked great.
I realize the monitor profile has nothing to do with how the file prints, but wanted to point out that my monitor is, indeed calibrated and profiled to preempt any "get your monitor calibrated" responses.
Thanks again for the response. It’s not the printer, as I can print the exact same PSD file from my old XP machine (using the exact same profile file) just fine.
I’ve reset the printing system, and reinstalled the Epson driver (latest from Epson site) from scratch. Still, same results.
I’m really starting to think that this is some kind of problem with the driver itself. The driver has not changed since February of this year. I can’t think of anything else.
When you say "look in print w/preview" you’re referring to the little picture in the upper left of the actual "print with preview" box in PS, right?
I can’t comment on the target (though I’ll try it tonight), but for all my experiments to date, they look more or less OK. I understand that it’s not color managed, but it looks OK.
As I mentioned, the ONLY place things go wrong is in the actual print, or when I press "Preview" in the Epson printer dialog, and the OS X "Preview" app comes up with an approximation of what my print will look like. In both cases, it’s way, way too bright.
The little picture in the upper left of the actual "print with preview" box in PS is there for placement purposes only. Depending on your color spaces, it should look anywhere from bad to awful. Ironically, if it’s looking "more or less OK", then that would be a sign of a broken color management.
Could you post a link to screen shots of your Color Settings (Edit menu > Color Settings), the Print with Preview box and the printer driver’s Color Adjustment dialog box?
Ramón, thanks for the reply. I’ve put together a quick page showing the various windows. Check out <http://www.welcher.net/colorProblem> to get a look.
Everything looks fine to me, so I’m stumped. Just got done uninstalling all my printers, deleting every EPSON reference in /Library/Printers, deleting the Epson preference in ~/Library/Preferences, and resetting the print system, before reinstalling the downloaded driver from Epson. Same darn result.
After reviewing your settings, the only thing I’d recommend that you try is changing your rendering intent to Relative Colorimetric (generally the better one for photo output), and turn ON Black Point Compensation (and leave it on – no reason to ever turn it off except in a few very esoteric situations.)
Thanks for the input. I’ve tried everything there, as well. The only reason I used those setting is because that’s what Hahnemuhle recommends for that particular profile.
I agree with Rick re turning Black Point Compensation ON.
Your paper profile is, of course, the big unknown. If you are using it for Soft Proofing, it should look the same on screen and in print. If it doesn’t, your monitor profile is most likely hosed.
Soft Proofing:
View menu > Proof Setup > select your paper profile here.
I did notice that you have different profiles listed for Media.
In the Print with Preview dialog you seem to have a Custom "HFA2400PhotoRagMK"; and in your Print Settings dialog you have "Media Type = Velvet Fine Art Paper".
Where did the "HFA2400PhotoRagMK" Profile come from? Perhaps it is faulty?
Well, I just did a complete reinstall of the OS and PS on a new hard drive. Installed the latest driver, and the exact same profile, and…..
everything works great now! I don’t know what was wrong before, because it obviously wasn’t the profile. I guess my unfamiliarity with OS X (just switched last month) caused me to break something in the early going.
Thanks for everyone’s help. Sorry it turned out to be nothing too interesting!
I wonder if there was something done to the print queue with Apple’s ColorSync Utility in the Devices tab. An ICC printer profile can be assigned to a print queue that way, and could easily be forgotten about. "Set to Factory" under the "Current Profile" disclosure triangle may have done the trick.
Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.
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