Epson P6000 vs Epson P600 colours and profiles

[HywelPhillips]

Hi Everyone,

I recently took delivery of an Epson SC-P6000 to supplement my SC-P600. I've got a few shows and gallery exhibitions coming up and I wanted to have some work with bigger impact than A3+. It's not going well.

Naively, since the two printers are by the same manufacturer, are recent, and are using the same inks and same paper (Epson own-brand premium lustre photo paper) I had rather hoped that I might have the same stress-free experience printing on the new beast as on the smaller P600.

This is not proving to be the case. The prints on the P6000 come out A LOT darker. Like a stop darker. Cooler, less vibrant colours and blocked-up shadows as well. The detail is still in there, but you need to shine a strong spotlight on look at it in full daylight to see it.

There are some differences in my workflow for the two. Obviously I'm going to go over this step by step with a fine toothed-comb and see if I can figure out what's causing the difference. But I thought I'd ask if anyone knew of a simple reason why this might be the case?

On the P600 I am printing direct from Capture One, from the edited RAW files. I use the Epson printer driver, and allow it to do colour management because this has always worked well for me in the past- it only takes a few minor tweaks to go from screen version to a nice glowing saturated print. I rarely have to do more than one iteration.

On the P6000 I am printing either from Capture One or from Aperture. I am not generally going direct from the edited RAW files as the printer is physically in a separate building from my usual work Mac, so I've exported to 16 bit Prophoto RGB Tiffs and am usually printing from that. (Obviously step one in my forthcoming test will be to try going from RAW files in C1 - is that likely to be the problem, do you think?) I generally prefer printing from Aperture as the print controls seem more comprehensive and it is a lot easier to get working with roll media.

I print using the Epson supplied driver. I have tried both leaving colour management to the driver, and the version with the ColourSync management based on the supplied profile for the correct paper type.

The results are not even faintly close to the output from the P600. Even applying a pretty drastic set of adjustments in Aperture (like +0.3 exposure, +1000 K colour temperature, 1.3 x saturation, bringing up the black point so the histogram blacks are about 0.1 of the way up the scale, and a tone curve with a significant mid-point and shadow boost) isn't enough to bring back the vibrancy or the shadow details of the prints from the P600.

I think these two printers are using the exact same ink sets on the exact same paper.

I'm therefore obviously doing something very wrong, some stupid newbie mistake. (I'm totally new to large format printing).

If anyone else has been through this and has any hints which could ease the pain of testing through this whole damn workflow to find out what's going on, I'd love to know!

Cheers, Hywel Phillips

[Mark D Segal]

Hywel, I don't have either printer, I don't use Capture One, I certainly don't use Aperture, so I can't begin to replicate your experience. But my generic advise is to use a standard ICC application-colour-managed workflow and you should be much happier. If you don't have the time or inclination to get custom profiles made for the Epson 6000, use the Epson provided profiles. They are generally pretty good. Softproof your photos (use an application that allows softproofing) and do the final edits under softproof using the ICC profile and the Media Type (set in the driver) that you will be printing with.

[JeanMichel]

Hi,
I have a P800 and a P6000. I use the Epson-provided profiles for each printer. The profiles for the same paper are different for each printer; I did not try to use a P800 profile for the P6000 or vice-versa, so I don't know how different they may be, I just use the correct profile. I soft-proof and print fromLightroom. I find the Epson profiles just fine and have not felt need for a custom profile for the haters I use (Canson Baryta; Epson Luster, and Epson canvas).

[HywelPhillips]

Hi,

I am softproofing in Aperture using the P6000 Epson Luster Paper ICC profile.

The result is pretty awful. Looks fine on screen but is coming out very dark on the printer, and very dark compared with a print made on P600 of the same image.

I have the feeling I might have something gross wrong in settings, but have no idea what it is. (I have been playing around with this on and off for a few weeks, and I don't *think* I've got anything set up stupidly. But the evidence of the output says otherwise).

It is great to know that others are finding good results from Epson profiles, thank you. That suggests it is my setup somehow rather than "oh yes, everyone knows the P6000 profiles are a stop darker than the P600 ones".

Will persevere. Next step actually might be to go the other way- see if swapping to Aperture and printing from ProphotoRGB Tiffs using the Epson profiles from Aperture with the P600 gives a similar result to the P6000 overly dark rendition.

Hywel

[Farmer]

100% guaranteed you have a workflow issue.  As Mark said, bring it back to a basic ICC colour workflow and it will match just fine.  Something, somewhere, in your workflow (for either or both printers) is different and wrong.  The mere fact you confirm you have variances in workflow pretty much confirms this, quite apart from the results.

[Wayne Fox]

I use the Epson printer driver, and allow it to do colour management because this has always worked well for me in the past- it only takes a few minor tweaks to go from screen version to a nice glowing saturated print.

I know using Epson manage colors can work, but where it almost always fails is when you print the same file on two different printers.

Using a standard color managed workflow with ICC profiles for the specific printer/paper combination can offer nearly identical results from many different devices.  That in fact is the reason it exists and exactly what it is designed to do.

[I.T. Supplies]

The other thing you need to make sure is that your monitor is calibrated properly even though both P800 and P6000 have the same colors.  This doesn't mean they will print the same without proper calibration upfront to match what you see on screen.  Soft proof is a good option to make sure it looks proper before doing an actual print.  Mac's will ALWAYS have a brighter monitor upfront which can cause the frustration to most (those who are already aware of this process), and you will need to adjust the brightness to work properly with the print quality.  Calibration on Mac systems is usually a very smart option and making sure that installing the drivers is done properly vs the AirPrint which will certainly create problems with color (if not using mobile devices).

If you're using the proper print settings, it shouldn't have issues otherwise after making sure brightness and calibration is done.  Profiles for both models would basically be the same though since the P6000 doesn't have the O&G like the P7000 and have slightly different profile colors.