There is something strangely inconsistent that started to happen a few days ago when printing to the 3880 that I purchased a few weeks ago. It was not happening earlier, by the way, and I was getting excellent and consistent results before. Although I'm no expert on colour management, I've been using it in some form or another for over a decade, have read extensively on the matter and had an outside expert to custom build ICC profiles for my printer/paper/ink combination. Until this problem began, the results could be reliably stunning, excellent even with canned profiles.
For the past few days, every once in a while I get these highly de-saturated outputs that don't in any way match my monitor or my intentions on my colour managed set-up, or even the most degraded soft-proofing view with a mismatched profile. Sometimes outputs perfectly match my intentions as soft-proofed. Sometimes I can get highly desaturated outputs. Identical image files, printed back to back, with absolutely no adjustment in between in Photoshop can output radically differently from one another: one perfect, the next dreadful. It shouldn't be happening, but is ironically most often when I put those $10 sheets of museum rag baryta in the printer for the final performance. I've been trying to figure out a pattern, and I need to find out how to correct it.
Meanwhile I had hair—all gone now—and money and time are hemorrhaging.
Here's my set-up:
Mac G5 Quad Core 2.5, OSX 10.4.11, weekly calibrated 300 series Lacie monitor, Photoshop CS3, Epson 3880. I can supply screen shots of my setup and the inconsistent results if necessary.
A. PS Colour Settings
RGB ProPhotoRGB
CM Policies ... all preserve and ask
Engine Adobe (ACE)
Intent RC + BP + Dither
Advance controls unchecked
B. Softproof setup
Device to simulate my custom built ICC profile
Preserve Colour Numbers is unchecked
Rendering Intent: Perceptual
Black Point Compensation is unchecked
Display Options (On screen) Both Simulate Paper Color and Simulate Black In are selected.
C. PS Printer Dialogue
Colour Management
Radio Button Document (not Proof)
Colour Handling; Photoshop Manages Colours
Printer profile: my custom built one
Rendering: Intent Perceptual, no BP
Proof setup... grayed out, (but defaulted to my custom profile with Simulate Black Ink box checked)
D. Epson Printer Dialogue
Print Settings: Media Premium Luster Photo Paper (Photo Black ink); Color: Color; Mode: Advanced 2880, Finest detail
Printer Color Management: Off
Here is what I've figured out.
As I say, the identical file can print quite differently from one minute to the next. However, if I happen to have been actively soft-proofing, i.e. viewing the image with "Proof Colors" activated in the main Photoshop menu (as I try to devise a corrective curve to match the real output to my intention) at the time I press Print in the Photshop menu, or if the the "Match Print Colors" box is checked at the time I press Print in the Printer dialogue, I can get highly desaturated outputs. Perfect, dreadful, perfectly dreadful. Spin the bottle.
Neither of those switches, "Proof Colors" or "Match Print Colors" should affect the file that is printed, only respectively what is viewable on the monitor within Photoshop or the Preview window within the printer dialogue, yet they appear to be having a serious effect... this despite the "Proof" radio button being deactivated in printer dialogue. The file as it is at the moment it is printed should be the file that is printed, not the softproofed version or any other version. Yet if both "Proof Colors" or "Match Print Colors" happen to be activated at the time of printing the desaturation seems to be compounded and the negative impacts the most exaggerated.
I notice also (and I don' recall this being the case before, though I'm new enough to this I just may not have noticed before) that the "Match Print Colors" in the printer dialogue seems to have become "sticky" i.e. default in the activated position, even when I've just deactivated it, increasing the probability of my accidentally printing a dud.
Has CMM somehow become corrupted. Are there prefs to trash, and if so which ones (Epson, Adobe, PS, Apple?.. all of them?)? If possible, I would prefer not to have to trash everything and go through the process all over again of re-customizing my entire setup.
How can I fix this problem, and start once again to experience reliable results?
