Color management problems with Epson R2880

[Helenium]

I've had an Epson R2880 for a few weeks and am at my wit's end with it.  I've spent hours on the phone with Epson and two long conversations with tech support at the company where I bought my monitor and calibrator, and posted to an Adobe Photoshop forum, where there were a number of suggestions, all of which I tried.  While I've ruled a lot of things out I still can't get anything remotely resembling "exhibition quality prints" as Epson advertises on the box.  Sure, the detail is fantastic, but the color is always off!

I'm using Epson ink, Epson paper, and ICC profiles for Photoshop downloaded from Epson's web site.  The nozzle check is always fine.  I am following Epson's instructions for selecting ICC profile, Printer Settings and Color Management every time I print.  None of my colors are out of gamut.  I've tried calibrating my monitor to 6500K (which the Photoshop forum users recommended) and 5000K (which the monitor/calibrator tech said is the "printing industry standard"), with white points variously set at 80, 90 and 100.  (But always using 2.2 gamma, which there seems to be consensus on from the people I got advice from.)  I've tried printing on Velvet Fine Art Paper, Presentation Paper Matte and Epson Photo Paper.  I'm using Photoshop CS3 on a Mac running OS 10.4.  I have an Eizo Color Edge CE210 monitor and an EyeOne calibrator.  All drivers and software I am using from the calibrator to the printer driver to Photoshop are up to date.   I use the correct black ink for the paper (there's a matte and a glossy black, you have to swap the cartridges depending).

The closest I get to a satisfactory result is if I use Presentation Paper Matte, lighten the print, then open the lightened version in the Mac Preview app and print it from there.  They're good enough for promotional handouts.  But I didn't buy this printer to make okay non-exhibition quality prints -- I've got a ten year-old Epson Stylus Photo EX that cost me about $150 at the time that can do that.

Soft proofing in Photoshop proves useless.  What I see on the screen never looks like the print.  The differences are not subtle.  I have tried turning on the soft proofing and making an adjustment layer so that the print resembles the screen.  For example, a hue/saturation/lightness adjustment of +9, -26, +4 made the monitor look like the print, so then I tried printing it with an adjustment that did the opposite: -9, +26, -4.  That doesn't work.  I've tried similar things with curves (the red and green seem to be particularly off).  And also, notice that saturation difference -- 26?  Doesn't that seem like a lot?  I had the saturation problem on the glossy paper, too -- the print was grayed out and muddy, lacking the saturation and contrast of the monitor version.

This is a replacement printer -- the first one kept printing everything aqua-green and when I determined I was having the same problem on a Mac and a PC, Epson replaced it.  This one is a little better, but I didn't pay over $750 for this kind of hassle and I haven't gotten one acceptable print yet.  I'm not expecting the prints to look exactly like the monitor, but I'm looking for basically the same colors.

If anyone has any suggestions aside from try like heck to return it and get my money back, I'd love to hear them!

--Helen

[PeterTinson]

With OSx 10.4 at one time there was a problem with colorsync interfering with the colors as the data was transfered from the application to the printer driver. There were a couple of work arounds discovered the easiest one is to set your printer as the default printer in the print center.
One other thing that you may like to try is there is some software calle ColorEyes available from intergrated-color web site, you can download an try for ten days befor having to purchase a licence. I find that it gives me a better calibration profile for monitors than other software. It works with a varity of calibrators.The settings I find best are D65 90cdm for an LCD screen.
I have just returned from Focus on Imaging Exhibition where with the screen set as above the match between the screen and prints from the SPR2880 matched to aproximatly 95%.
Peter

[AaronPhotog]

Helen,
Was your replacement printer a "refurbished" one?
If so, it was probably off spec when they got it back, and it still is.

I had the same problem with a new Epson 3800.  After two broken (refurbished) replacements went back, I figured out that my original printer (which I kept) was overinking, creating muddy results.
With profiles I created myself using inking offsets in the Epson driver (-10c, -5m, +10saturation) and letting printer manage color, I was finally able to overcome the problem.
I cannot use Photoshop soft proof either, or use manufacturer's or photoshop's canned profiles.  Mine work fine, though.  I use PrintfixPro to make them.  Now, my screen is my preview, and my print is the proof.  Just like in the darkroom.

Photoshop's printer driver is not very good.  It forgets settings at the drop of a hat.  There was a big hubbub about it when they elected to make all the drivers the same for each operating system.  Huge mistake.  They've only fixed part of the problem.  I never use Photoshop to print.

I'm not using a Mac, but Windows.  I now always print from Qimage.  Even if you have a Mac, I'd invest in the necessary means to run Windows programs and get Qimage.
It has a more useful preview than Photoshop, and it saves ALL my settings with a job.  It never forgets any part of it.  It sets up your pages the way you want them.  It has better sharpening than Photoshop as well.  I use a combination of slight "source" sharpening in Photoshop and I let Qimage do the rest.

Good luck, and Aloha,
Aaron

[Helenium]

Following Peter's suggestion, I set the printer as the default and downloaded ColorEyes and did their calibration.  Then I tested with two images, one a proofing jpeg that has gray scale, color chart, four portraits and other stuff, the other a photo of mine of clouds with a deep blue sky and wispy clouds.  

For the proofing jpeg, the printing with Premium Presentation Matte matches the Photoshop soft proof very well (though not with black ink or simulate paper checked).  I'm not sure whether it was the printer-as-default or ColorEyes to credit with this, or if it's a combo of both, but very interesting!  The Velvet Fine Art paper version is better than what it was before I made these two changes, but still yellowish.

For the sky photo, with both papers I get prints noticeably darker than the soft proof on the screen and with a yellowish cast that is more noticeable on the Velvet Fine Art than the Presentation Matte.

So I'm closer but not quite there.  Someone at the store where I bought the printer said to bring the files and prints down there and he'd see if he can help.  At his suggestion I tried Rendering Intent: Saturation as opposed to Relative Colorimetric, but that doesn't make any difference.  I'll show him the prints and see if he has any other ideas.

Aaron: Qimage is an interesting suggestion as well, not something I knew about.  I can't run it on my Power PC Mac but I do have a Windows PC here.  It's older and slower than my Mac and it would mean I'd have to copy stuff back and forth between the two computers to print, but if the guy at the store doesn't have any other ideas, it sounds like it might be worth a try.

Thanks to both of you for responding!

--Helen

[Wayne Fox]

What is your viewing station light?  What white point and luminance did you end up with for your last profile?  Why would you try saturation as your rendering intent? ( i hope you meant perceptual).

Often a yellow cast is due to a white point that just doesn't match the viewing light source ... if the white point is too blue then you tend to over compensate when balancing your image, just like a monitor that is too bright usually yields prints that are too dark.  If your viewing setup has good lights, this often isn't a problem, but most don't have that good of a viewing station.  You may find a slightly warmer white point will yield a better match.  5000 is most likely way too warm, but something like 6100k often helps things appear a bit more neutral to the eye. Only way to figure this out is experimenting.

Some are better at softproofing than others, especially on matt paper (I'm one of those that struggle with it).   Your expectation of this function may be more than it can deliver ... it does take some time and experience.

This doesn't sound like a printer problem, more of a learning curve for you in color management.  I suppose you may also have a problem with the monitor or video card.  Printer problems are usually pretty obvious (color cast that doesn't change no matter what you do, streaks/lines, etc.)

[Mussi_Spectraflow]

It's hard to say what's going on here. I wouldn't be surprised if if there was nothing inherently wrong with the printer, but possibly a number of compounding problems. Mediocre profile + pretty good monitor calibration + nonstandard viewing conditions = unsatisfied photographer.

One thing that might help in separating/isolating issues to the printer is to make a test print that can be compared against a known reference. If you have a color checker chart laying around you can put together an image with RGB values that correspond to the colors on the chart. http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?C...CheckerRGB.html Make sure you use the RGB values that correspond to your working space.  Print using relative colorimetric and make sure that color management is disabled in the printer. If you don't have a color checker chart, there are a number of other RGB test images that are full of gray scale ramps and memory colors. Print these without any adjustments. Just do a google images search for RGB test images.

1. If the prints look good but don't match your monitor you may need to revisit you monitor calibration, and soft proofing setup.
2. If the prints look okay, it could be a mediocre profile. If they look really off this usually indicates a settings issue, or possibly a hardware issue.(the color ramps in the test images should help diagnose this)

Once you know how the printer/profile combination is performing you can direct your attention to one are at a time. Setting your expectation is also important. Soft proofing is hard to do right. Having a viewing booth helps. It usually involves a bit of experimentation to get you in the ball park range. Even then, and especially with matte paper, a "match" is going to be tough.

[PeterAit]

You are not double-managing color by any chance? Color management should be on in Photoshop and off in the printer driver.

Peter

[Helenium]

Just to rule out the obvious, yes I know that when I print from Photoshop I'm supposed to turn on "Photoshop manages color" and turn off printer color management.  That has not been the issue.  The light in the room is not the issue I don't think -- I've tried Philips fluorescent bulbs that are supposedly balanced at 5000K for best color matching as well as 6500K that are also supposed to be good for color matching.  I didn't see any difference with what I'm doing here.  Also, the way the color seems "off" in the print doesn't vary noticeably when I take the prints into different light.  The ICC profiles are downloaded right from Epson's web site for use with their paper and printers.

One thing that might help in separating/isolating issues to the printer is to make a test print that can be compared against a known reference. If you have a color checker chart laying around you can put together an image with RGB values that correspond to the colors on the chart. http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?C...CheckerRGB.html Make sure you use the RGB values that correspond to your working space.  Print using relative colorimetric and make sure that color management is disabled in the printer.

I downloaded the Gretag Macbeth Color Checker Color Rendition Chart referenced above.  I printed it with Premium Presentation Matte and Velvet Fine Art.  With the 6500 K and 5000 K profiles generated by the Color Edge software that I've been using (from my monitor manufacturer) the soft proof did not look very close in Photoshop.  When I profiled the monitor at 6500K using the Color Eyes software recommended by Peter Tinson it did not either.  But when I profiled it at 5000K using Color Eyes the soft proof looked very much like the print that came out of the Epson.

Then I tried one of my own photos, which is of a blue sky with white clouds.  The image that came out of the Epson was definitely yellower than the soft proof version in Photoshop. I suppose if I was happy with this monitor-printer setup I could play around with the degree of yellowness, but I'm not happy.  Here's why:

In the soft proofs AND the actual prints of both the Color Chart and my photo, they ALL look like very dull versions of what I see on the monitor, as if someone put an overlay of a light gray film over them and drained a good deal of the saturation.  The sky photo actually looks like a black-and-white photo in both the soft proof and the print.  They're so far away from what they look like with soft proof turned off, that I am at a loss as to where to begin to create adjustment layers that would bring them back to the nice vivid colors I want to see when I print.

Meanwhile, when I tried printing the same chart from the Preview app on the Mac, letting the printer manage the color, the result was something I could definitely live with.  What I see on my monitor is what I want on the print.  The colors of the print on the whole are all a bit darker than the monitor.  A couple of the greens and blues look a little more saturated on the print.  That being said, I'd be very happy if my prints from Photoshop were as close as this -- I'd be able to lighten the image and probably get a good approximation of my monitor calibrated at 5000K.  So I guess this suggests the printer isn't the problem, right?

So is there any way to get Photoshop to behave more like Preview? (on a Mac that is -- I don't think that Qimage is a realistic option given my setup)  Also, the company that sold me the monitor and calibrator said they can make me custom ICC profiles for $35 apiece.  They send me a file, I print it out  on the paper I want the profile for, and send it back, and they make an ICC profile.  Given that the Epson ICC profiles seem to be generating this dull, unacceptable soft proof and similar dull, unacceptable print, would that be the answer?  Or is there a different printing profile already there in the list on Photoshop that I should try?

--Helen

[Richard S]

Hi Helen,

I have blown through a lot of paper and ink trying to get an Epson R1800 to match a calibrated monitor using ColorEyes.  It wasn't until I purchased my own printer profiling package that everything came together.  The Epson profiles aren't even close and on top of that, Epson's (at least below a 4880) are notorious for printing darker than a calibrated monitor.  I had to dial ColorEyes down to 80 cdm and use a gamma of 2.6 to makeup for the difference in the Epson's darker print but the profiling software was what really made the icc profiles create a beautiful monitor to print match.

It takes some time clicking on a multitude of color samples to make your own profile but it was the only thing that solved the problem.  One of the biggest reasons that I ended up with a Z3100 was because of the profiling built in.  I find the same thing using the Z3100.  The HP downloaded profiles are in the ballpark but don't touch the printer generated profiles for accuracy.

[Mussi_Spectraflow]

The Epson profiles have not always been the best, although the new round of them are generally quite good, although I would not usually say that they produce dull prints. If anything they tend to produce  contrasty saturated prints. A custom profile might give you slightly more accurate prints with better linearity/gray balance but this should be a subtle difference. It's interesting that the print and softproof seem to be a close match now.  Do you have a color checker chart to compare the print too? If those are close then the problem is most likely trying to find an acceptable softproofing configuration.

When you check the "gamut warning dialogue" does any part of the image go gray? Also do you have show paper white selected in your soft proof settings? If your printing on glossy paper that color checker file should be mostly in gamut, and thus should not change much when the softproof is selected. Checking paper white however will change the softproof quite a bit, especially if your using a working space that has a D65 white point.Try turning off show paper white/black ink, if the the softproof on glossy paper changes a lot with these settings something is wrong with the profile.

 I think in general your going to find that trying to accurately proof the paper white is going to be a challenge. You might try converting to a Pro Photo working space(although with a 1.8 gamma) which has a D50 white point, which will be closer to your paper white, and might help to reduce some of the softproofing issues you've encountered. Do you have, or can you borrow a spectrophotometer? If so I can have you print an measure a few patches off a print that can be used to confirm the accuracy of your printing system.

[Helenium]

Do you have a color checker chart to compare the print too?

No.  I just have the TIFF file.

When you check the "gamut warning dialogue" does any part of the image go gray? Also do you have show paper white selected in your soft proof settings? If your printing on glossy paper that color checker file should be mostly in gamut, and thus should not change much when the softproof is selected. Checking paper white however will change the softproof quite a bit, especially if your using a working space that has a D65 white point.Try turning off show paper white/black ink, if the the softproof on glossy paper changes a lot with these settings something is wrong with the profile.

There is no gamut warning dialogue on the images I'm trying to print.  The papers I have been printing on are both matte papers.  However, I did the soft proofing experiment you suggested above, and there is no big change in the soft proof for say, Epson Photo Paper Glossy with simulate paper checked or unchecked.  (Understand that I did not make a print on glossy paper, I just tested the checked vs. unchecked version in soft proof mode.)

I think in general your going to find that trying to accurately proof the paper white is going to be a challenge. You might try converting to a Pro Photo working space(although with a 1.8 gamma) which has a D50 white point, which will be closer to your paper white, and might help to reduce some of the softproofing issues you've encountered. Do you have, or can you borrow a spectrophotometer? If so I can have you print an measure a few patches off a print that can be used to confirm the accuracy of your printing system.

The camera shop where I purchased the printer says I can bring in a print and they'll take readings with their spectrophotometer.  However, the guy there said he has never used it to measure color patches, only to profile papers, so he needs to know what the readings should look like -- what numbers you want -- and how to go about it.  He says their spectrophotometer is an EyeOne.  So sure, let's try this!

Also, 2.2 gamma on the monitor looks better than 1.8 in terms of matching what's coming out of the printer.  

Here's something else I noticed: If I check "preserve RGB numbers" in the soft proof dialogue box, the monitor looks very much like the dull, drab prints that came out of the Epson using "Photoshop manages color."  Does that imply that somewhere in the process when Photoshop manages color it is "preserving RGB numbers" (whatever that means), but shouldn't be?  I do always have "relative colorimetric" checked when I'm printing, which is what Epson techs told me to do.

Thanks for staying with this discussion and offering to help me with the spectrophotometer.  I really appreciate it.

--Helen

[Helenium]

Just wanted to report that I finally got this issue straightened out with the help of Jim at ColorHQ.com!  ColorHQ is where I bought my monitor and calibrator and one of the reasons I chose them at the time was that the price was competitive and while it wasn't the absolute cheapest, I could see that they were oriented toward serving the needs of graphics arts professionals and offer FREE phone tech support with people who are right there in Illinois.  So I told Jim about this:

Here's something else I noticed: If I check "preserve RGB numbers" in the soft proof dialogue box, the monitor looks very much like the dull, drab prints that came out of the Epson using "Photoshop manages color."  Does that imply that somewhere in the process when Photoshop manages color it is "preserving RGB numbers" (whatever that means), but shouldn't be?

Jim thought that suggested that there was interference coming from ColorSync on the Mac -- somehow the profile was not getting to the printer from Photoshop.  This was suggested by Peter Tinson in an earlier response to this discussion:

With OSx 10.4 at one time there was a problem with colorsync interfering with the colors as the data was transfered from the application to the printer driver. There were a couple of work arounds discovered the easiest one is to set your printer as the default printer in the print center.

Changing the default printer didn't solve the problem, but Jim suggested that I go to Edit: Convert to paper profile and choose the paper profile for the paper I'm using.  Then in the first Print dialog box select Color Handling: No Color Management.  All the other settings in the next dialog box are the same as I'd already been using (Print Settings: Mode: Advanced and Color Management: Off).  NOW when I did a soft proof with "Preserve RGB" turned off, when I printed the GretagMacbeth Color Rendition Chart, what came out of the printer was extremely close to the soft proof.  When I printed the cloud images, that have a lot of blues, they were close, too, except the printer version had a touch less red.  So I created an adjustment layer that pulled the red curve down slightly that I can use to see what the print will look like on Velvet Fine Art.

You have no idea how thrilled I am.  So if you are running Mac OS 10.4, and using Photoshop CS3, calibrate your monitor to 5000K and give this a try.  And also, buy your next monitor at Color HQ!  It's all about customer service :-).

--Helen