Epson P20000 prints too dark on all media - why?

[narikin]

Hi - thought I'd ask what is happening with my P20000, which prints too dark on all media.

Reprinting old images that come out perfectly on my 11880 now needs a correction curve to lighten everything a good amount. I have to apply this to all images - new, old, large, small, darker, lighter.  It's very odd.

I'm a pretty experienced printer, and have worked with Epson/Canon's for years. This has me stumped though.
Am using OEM and custom profiles - no difference - both still need a compensation curve.

Any suggestions what's going on?

Thanks!

[deanwork]

That is plain bad and unacceptable if you have made good custom profiles and see your files looking normally as they always did on your display. Time for a service call before your warranty runs out. You know you can go into the printer driver and add brightness and contrast and apply that to everything printed,  but that is not an acceptable professional workflow especially for such an expensive printer.

Hi - thought I'd ask what is happening with my P20000, which prints too dark on all media.

Reprinting old images that come out perfectly on my 11880 now needs a correction curve to lighten everything a good amount. I have to apply this to all images - new, old, large, small, darker, lighter.  It's very odd.

I'm a pretty experienced printer, and have worked with Epson/Canon's for years. This has me stumped though.
Am using OEM and custom profiles - no difference - both still need a compensation curve.

Any suggestions what's going on?

Thanks!

[Farmer]

Firstly, do a nozzle check.  If that's showing blockages, then do cleans and that should fix it.

If that's all OK, then I'd say your profile is bad, or you have accidentally introduced an error into your workflow with the new machine.

It's highly unlikely to be the printer itself has a fault that induces dark prints other than for missing nozzles (maybe).

[Wayne Fox]

What OS?  How are you sending files to the printer?

seems very odd, and as Phil mentioned, I’ve never seen an Epson printer that just prints everything too dark.



(and I would think missing nozzles more likely would manifest as prints too light?)

[Royce Howland]

Definitely not an issue with the Epson P20000 in general terms. Running a P20000 and P10000 here, no colour workflow issues. There is an inkset difference -- the new inks have 3 greys instead of 2, and the blacks are much darker than the old 11880 blacks. But custom profiles should produce prints that are substantially similar to each other, just with the new prints having a darker black.

I'll echo the question of what OS, what printing software, what settings, etc.? Sounds like a colour pipeline issue to me at first blush. Though of course it could be something about your specific printer itself...

[narikin]

Well, like I said in the first post, I'm an experienced printer, which is why I'm stumped.
12+ years with multiple Epsons & Canons. ran a scanning and large format color darkroom before that.

which is all to say: I have of course done a Nozzle check (...) and made custom profiles (x-rite iSiS) and used Epson's canned profiles and other manufacturers profiles, all give same result: you need to apply a curve to lighten the image. Every. Single. Time.

I have an air gapped windows 10 workstation that is the main print server. Print through Photoshop CS6. I'm familiar with Epson's own software and can find nothing wrongly set there,

Like I say its reprinting old files that I know well, and have been spot on before, all suddenly needing a correction curve applying, that has thrown me. Yes I read the blacks are much better on the new P20000 but surely a custom profile would account for that? (eg if I had a bad head spraying too much black, then the custom profile would reflect & compensate for it, surely?)

my friend said he has a similar issue with his P20000, maybe less than me, but others here clearly do not.

A mystery...

[Farmer]

(and I would think missing nozzles more likely would manifest as prints too light?)

Usually, yeah, but I always start with nozzle checks when there's a potential colour issue, just in case.

[Farmer]

Well, like I said in the first post, I'm an experienced printer, which is why I'm stumped.
12+ years with multiple Epsons & Canons. ran a scanning and large format color darkroom before that.

which is all to say: I have of course done a Nozzle check (...) and made custom profiles (x-rite iSiS) and used Epson's canned profiles and other manufacturers profiles, all give same result: you need to apply a curve to lighten the image. Every. Single. Time.

I have an air gapped windows 10 workstation that is the main print server. Print through Photoshop CS6. I'm familiar with Epson's own software and can find nothing wrongly set there,

Like I say its reprinting old files that I know well, and have been spot on before, all suddenly needing a correction curve applying, that has thrown me. Yes I read the blacks are much better on the new P20000 but surely a custom profile would account for that? (eg if I had a bad head spraying too much black, then the custom profile would reflect & compensate for it, surely?)

my friend said he has a similar issue with his P20000, maybe less than me, but others here clearly do not.

A mystery...

I know some of the stuff mentioned seems basic and you are experienced, but in 14 years of using these things I've learned to always go back to the basics until they're confirmed, that's all :-)

Has it been like this from the very first print?

Have you asked someone else with a properly managed workflow to test one of the images?  Perhaps the profile on the 11880 was out and adjustments you made back then are now an issue?

How do they look on screen, on a calibrated monitor in appropriate viewing conditions?

Could you post one of the images (or a link) here (just a portion, thereof, so it's not commercially viable)?  Have you tried printing something like the Bill Atkins test image?

Can you post up screen shots of your workflow and confirm OS, driver, and application versions?

[NAwlins_Contrarian]

Have you tried printing to a different printed using the same computer, software, and workflow that you're using with the P20000? Obviously another Epson P-series printer would be best, but even a little inkjet all-in-one might tell you something about where the problem is likely to be.

Also, having used a variety of personal computers and printers for over thirty-five years, I've had enough personal 'learned the hard way' experience that sometimes when I'm having a problem with something, even something I've done many times over many years, going back and checking all the fundamentals in sequence often finds a basic problem. Being experienced and knowing how to do it the right way is no guaranty that we don't forget basic things--or forget that we changed some setting or configuration somewhere for some specific purpose, which we then forgot to change back, and later that changed setting pops up and causes a problem until we go back and find and fix it.

[kbolin]

We've all run into technical challenges like this occasionally.  It drives me nuts when it happens.

Have you tried creating a new user on your computer? (I've had occasions where this solved the problem)
Have you uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers?
Have you tried a different computer with current drivers?

[deanwork]

He's not crazy. I've seen this happen with a Canon 6300 printer that consistently printed dark with different profiles custom and canned, differient media, differient computers , differient operating systems , differient Print heads and inks, differient everything , and it printed 15% darker than the calibrated display . It can happen. It sounds software related.

It is critical to try a differient media with a totally differient icc profile. And of course the correct media setting used determines how much ink is laid down. If you haven't tried a differient media setting related to the type of media it is of course do that. I don't know how you calibrate the linearization for the new Epsons but it's very important to do that correctly on the type of paper they recommend. With the Canon I use it's gloss paper they recommend.

We've all run into technical challenges like this occasionally.  It drives me nuts when it happens.

Have you tried creating a new user on your computer? (I've had occasions where this solved the problem)
Have you uninstalled and reinstalled the drivers?
Have you tried a different computer with current drivers?

[nirpat89]

He's not crazy. I've seen this happen with a Canon 6300 printer that consistently printed dark with different profiles custom and canned, differient media, differient computers , differient operating systems , differient Print heads and inks, differient everything , and it printed 15% darker than the calibrated display . It can happen. It sounds software related.

It is critical to try a differient media with a totally differient icc profile. And of course the correct media setting used determines how much ink is laid down. If you haven't tried a differient media setting related to the type of media it is of course do that. I don't know how you calibrate the linearization for the new Epsons but it's very important to do that correctly on the type of paper they recommend. With the Canon I use it's gloss paper they recommend.

I had exactly the opposite problem - all my prints started printing lighter after switching to an Win10 machine compared to exact same images under identical conditions on my Win7 as well as Win8 machines.  I thought I was going crazy.  Did a big investigation with help here to no avail.

http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=117371.0

Finally the problem resolved itself, when my B9180 kicked the bucket.

:Niranjan.

[Royce Howland]

[...]
which is all to say: I have of course done a Nozzle check (...) and made custom profiles (x-rite iSiS) and used Epson's canned profiles and other manufacturers profiles, all give same result: you need to apply a curve to lighten the image. Every. Single. Time.

I have an air gapped windows 10 workstation that is the main print server. Print through Photoshop CS6. I'm familiar with Epson's own software and can find nothing wrongly set there,

On the face of it, that doesn't sound like proper behaviour of the printer. It might not be the printer itself, but something else that's in the printing pipeline. This is a new printer with a new printer driver running on a new (ish) operating system, but an old version of Photoshop. The opportunity for subtle software compatibility issues comes to mind. Have you tried printing through a current version of Photoshop or some other software? Just to rule out a Photoshop issue, as one specific example.

[...] Yes I read the blacks are much better on the new P20000 but surely a custom profile would account for that? (eg if I had a bad head spraying too much black, then the custom profile would reflect & compensate for it, surely?)

Well, not really. If you print RGB 0,0,0 on the 11880 and also on the P20000, you will not get the same darkness of full black because the P20K inkset has a much darker black. Custom profiling will not equalize this; you will get the maximum black of an 11880 in that custom profile, and the darker maximum black of the P20K on that profile. So if you're observing an issue that can be attributed to the difference in the K inks, that might be the entire issue right there. Without seeing files, profiles and prints we're not necessarily visualizing exactly what you're experiencing...

[digitaldog]

Hi - thought I'd ask what is happening with my P20000, which prints too dark on all media.

Test with a color reference image and do not alter it whatsoever other than make a print (ideally using color management and Application Manages Color):
http://www.digitaldog.net/files/2014PrinterTestFileFlat.tif.zip
Still dark?