Printer settings

[Andrea]

Since there has been a thread on scanner settings, I thought I would ask here about printer settings. I have a EpsonR1800 but recently i seem to have gone awry. Can't seem to get the colours right at all.
When printing, i use the included paper profiles but when it comes to colour management, I'm lost. Been trying all sorts of things to get what i want to no avail.
Would welcome some pointers

[P C Headland]

If your colours have gone haywire, and you've not been anywhere near the mushrooms (!) it may be that you have "duelling" profiles.

I'd get rid of all profiles to start with, and work from there, adding them in one at a time until it goes haywire again.  Then you'll know which one is causing you problems.

Personally I don't bother with profiles, and what I get out my printer matches what I see on the screen.  If I were sending stuff out to be printed, I'd probably put the effort into a proper colour managed setup, but for (non professional) home printing it seems like you're more likely to end up biting yourself.

[Aaron D.]

I agree-best not to use the profiles at all unless you're going to commercial press. I just got an R2400 and what is on the screen looks exactly like the print. Macs do this automatically, I think.

[jake]

If you are using alternative papers (i.e. not Epson papers - but often even then) and printing through Photoshop, you typically use Photoshop to assign the color profiles (I am speaking of the ICC profiles you load into your computer for each type of paper and ink) to the image and then turn off the color profiles in the printer dialogue. Use "Print with Preview" in Photoshop.

But I could type all day and still couldn't explain it thoroughly. Fortunately, there is an excellent site that explains all very well called Computer Darkroom.

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/

The Photoshop "Print with Preview" step:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps9_print/ps9_print_1.htm


And the Epson printer driver settings step, first for Apple:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps9_print/ps9_print_2.htm

and then for Windows:

http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps9_print/ps9_print_3.htm

Apple is indeed much better at this. But they are not trouble free. Profile management reveals its weaknesses most obviously when trying to print a monochrome image. But once you get a method down for keeping profiles from interfering with each other, then things work pretty well. I am not unconvinced that different ink and paper lots have minor variations. There have been times when I have changed a cartridge in my 2200 and suddenly all my black & white prints have a strange green cast to them. Nothing changes until the cartridge leaves the building - usually through a window.

Good luck!

[cenelson]

I've configured my monitor and Photoshop to Adobe RGB as I prefer to work with the wider gamut. That said, I've been considering MPIX for print output and will have to rethink my set-up as they print sRGB. I don't know how goofy it would come out... my B&W is either true B&W film scanned greyscale, else color work shot in the D70s or film that is converted via channel mixer and left RGB output, though in the Adobe space. I think the greyscale work would be fine, but worried my RGB channel-mixed versions might come back with color casts. I guess I just need to wing a few shots to them and see what comes back.

I've given up on printing here as I can't handle the outlay for ink and a decent Epson plus stock. I think, for the limited printing I would like to do, MPIX or similar would be the route to go.

Am also interested in printing proper via enlarger, but I need to convince Bruce to train me on his gear.

C.