Real deep black text on Epson 3880

[eisbaer]

Hi,

since a while I have an Epson 3880 and photo printing works very well.

But I have on unsolved problem which happens when I want to print my business cards with it. The text on my business cards is black and my logo which contains black are both not printed real black but more grayish.
 
I tried this with profiles (Matte Black Papers - Professional Inkjet Paper, Archival Matte, Enhanced Matte, Normal Paper) as I would print pictures and without Profiles (with sRGB and Adobe RGB) and all results of text and logo are grey. I was and am getting much much deeper real blacks on my old Canon S9000 and on my Laserprinter.

Has anyone figured out how to get real black deep text out of the  Epson 3880 and with which settings?

Thanks a lot.

Frank

[Ernst Dinkla]

Graphic designs with text not made in Photoshop or not printed from Photoshop suffer quite often from a bad conversion in CMYK colors at some stage in the processing, many ways possible that it can go wrong; with profiling etc. If you have the design rasterised in Photoshop and check the font color in RGB values (1 pixel measurement) and it is RGB 000 then it will print a maximum black through your normal print route.

--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2012, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.

[eisbaer]

Thanks a lot for your reply. But sadly I am printing from Photoshop and the Text is RGB 000000

I tried from PS, Word, Indesign, even from the Text Editor. I can't get a real deep black.

[AFairley]

Thanks a lot for your reply. But sadly I am printing from Photoshop and the Text is RGB 000000

I tried from PS, Word, Indesign, even from the Text Editor. I can't get a real deep black.

Since you are having the same problem with your logo, it sounds like this is more an ink/paper/profile problem rather than a text problem per se, just to refocus the thread a bit.  (BTW, I believe you can rasterize a text layer in Photoshop, but I don't think that would solve your problem.)

[Ernst Dinkla]

Thanks a lot for your reply. But sadly I am printing from Photoshop and the Text is RGB 000000

I tried from PS, Word, Indesign, even from the Text Editor. I can't get a real deep black.

Keep the testing within boundaries, so printing from Photoshop only. An RGB text + logo, both RGB 000, as an image file Jpeg, Tiff, printed through the same pipeline (same; image color space assigned, driver mode, media preset, print resolution, profile rendering, paper, paper side) gives another black than a photo as Jpeg, Tiff and with RGB 000 black?  Some logic missing there. Other papers, other media presets, other print resolutions, other profile renderings may give another black Dmax, the first being the most important factor.


--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2012, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.

[RHPS]

You haven't actually said what type of media you are using for your business cards and whether you are using PK or MK. If you are printing on uncoated media with PK ink you will get a very poor black. As AFairly said, this does sound like a paper/ink issue.