ESP 7900 Profiling Problems

[Farmer]

Thanks for the info on this. Hopefully the update will also fix the profiling issues discussed in this thread.

I expect it will, but obviously it will need to be tested.

[Ryan Grayley]

I have now tried printing my test chart with the UK version 6.55 ESP 7900 driver on an Intel Mac with MacOSX 10.5 Leopard and this also gives an 'incorrect' result.

[Ryan Grayley]

I have now also tried printing my test chart with the UK version 6.55 ESP 7900 driver with MacOSX 10.6 Snow Leopard and CS4 and this also gives an 'incorrect' result.

Two Snow Leopard work-arounds seem to work as follows.

Workflow 1.
- Assign sRGB to the target.
- Select printer manages color in the Photoshop dialogue.
- Select 'No color management' in the print driver dialogue.

Workflow 2.
- Open the Colorsync Utility, click on the Devices tab and expand the entry for your 7900/9900.
- The default "Mode" profile should be sRGB if you are using the version 6.55 Epson driver.
- Change the "Current Profile" from sRGB to the profile for the media type you will be using to print the chart.
- Open the chart with CS4 but do not assign a profile.
- Choose "No Color Management" in the Photoshop dialogue.
- Choose "Color Settings: Off" in the print driver dialogue.
- Make sure that the correct media type is chosen so as to match the changes made in CU.

Photoshop CS1 can't see any printer profiles under Snow Leopard whether soft profiling or when printing.
However CS1 still gives a correct target print using the traditional method and Epson driver 6.55.
This is the method I will continue to use for now.

[abiggs]

This is a very informative thread, to say the least. I have many printers in my studio, from Epson, HP and Canon. And the only printer that I can get to correctly send an untagged, no color managed target for profiling is my Canon IPF8100, which uses a Photoshop plugin (bypasses ColorSync I assume). I have spent more hours than I care to know, and in the end I threw my arms in the air and bought a new Macbook Pro 13", and am now using my old Macbook Pro 15" with OSX 10.4 Tiger just to avoid all of the hassles.

Printers that don't work with CS4 / 10.5.7:

Epson 3800
Canon iPF5100 with regular driver
Canon iPF8100 with regular driver
HP Z3200
Canon Pro 9000II
Canon Pro 9500II

The issue is larger than just Epson, it seems, and even though I needed a new computer anyway, most people are not going to be in the same position as I. I have no confidence in any output from OSX Leopard on any of my machines, whether it is a target for the creation of a profile, a 'real' color print or Advanced Black and White prints.

The problem seems to be hit or miss, based on conversations with friends that are all on OSX 10.5 Leopard. All are using Photoshop CS4. Different printers from different manufacturers.

I am going to upgrade my production desktop machine to Snow Leopard this week, and I will do some more tests. If early results don't yield anything different than before, I am going to keep printing from an OSX 10.4 Tiger machine.

[Ryan Grayley]

At last, this bug appears to be fixed by the Apple MacOSX 10.6.3 update released on the 29th March 2010.
That is 15 months from first discovery. Nice one Apple.

However I strongly advise against taking my results as gospel.
I believe everyone should thoroughly test their own setup including Photoshop CS5 when it becomes available.