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Author Topic: how do you print black and white now on Epson with mac mountain lion?  (Read 4337 times)

Nora_nor

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Sorry for asking questions that have been asked and answered 1000 times here before
I am sure there are some threads here on the forum on printing on epson with mountain lion, if there is one that answers my questions, can you please link to one of them that has the answers?

I do not print all the time, but I print periodically. So I have not been here reading every day or every week.

Epson 4900, recently upgraded to mountain lion and yesterday to 10.8.3

Do I give up and run windows 7 instead, in boot camp or on pc  (then I can buy mirage to print from, what do you think?) or maybe Mirage?

My PS and LR are on macs

I tried printing some random black and white files I had used before, and the mid-tones are a bit dark (please do not throw rocks at me) (I have read about macs turning everything into sRGB nowadays)
so will mirage on mac help at all? I have not tried downloading a trial yet. It costs 387 US$

Or quimage for windows for 90$?

I would prefer to just use Lightroom..

I also print these files on a HP z2100 other times. Mirage is not for HP.

I have not tried to uninstall Epson driver + download a fresh one from Epson, should that help?

Nora
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Sal Baker

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Re: how do you print black and white now on Epson with mac mountain lion?
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2013, 12:29:23 pm »

Not sure what you mean about Macs turning everything to sRGB.  I use a ProPhoto RGB workflow on my Mac Pro. 

Are you using a calibrated monitor?  Are you printing with ABW or desaturated RGB and an appropriate paper profile?  I print via LR4 and Photoshop CS6 with OS 10.8 and all is well.  B&W prints are stunning.

Sal
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Wayne Fox

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Re: how do you print black and white now on Epson with mac mountain lion?
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2013, 02:34:28 pm »

Not sure what your issues are.  The mac does not turn everything into sRGB, and printing quality from windows will be no different than mac.  We print to an 11880 with both and see no differences from LR and PS.

You didn't say what version you had before you updated to mountain lion.  Correctly installed and running systems under Lion should see no changes when moving to Mountain Lion, nothing really changed in the OS.  If you were updating from earlier versions you may need to do a complete uninstall and clean your printing system out before reinstalling. 

But if your midtones are too dark, what are you comparing them to?  Were they not too dark before the  change?  Or are they just too dark.  Lots of vague information, hard to really offer much specific advice.
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: how do you print black and white now on Epson with mac mountain lion?
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2013, 03:44:08 pm »

The only thing you cannot do on a MacOS is use ABW profiles since this is no longer permitted.  This means you cannot soft proof images IF you are using the Epson ABW driver.  You can still print B/W images using this driver.  Your alternative (if soft proofing is important) is to not use the ABW driver and use an ICC profile that has enough B/W patches in it to make sure that your printer has a good response.  As Wayne noted, I don't understand what your issue is.
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Sal Baker

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Re: how do you print black and white now on Epson with mac mountain lion?
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2013, 08:20:28 pm »

You can use ABW with MacOS, you just can't use a profile and ABW.  I did a few test prints and linearized the ABW output with a curve adjustment layer that is as easy to apply as a last step as selecting a paper profile.  I've also printed with desaturated RGB images with good profiles but like the ABW results slightly better (to my eye, no I haven't bothered to measure).

Sal
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Nora_nor

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Re: how do you print black and white now on Epson with mac mountain lion?
« Reply #5 on: March 16, 2013, 05:36:45 am »

Thank you for suggestions, maybe I go get the color munki and make own paper profile.

Lat time I printed lots of BW was with the HP and the black and white dialogue in the driver, and often rag paper. Prints were just fine. Macbook air and Lion, snow leopard before that, and also MBP that came originally with leopard, and since updated to snow leopard and Lion etc

I now see I should have saved the entire sheets in Lightroom back then (as I am planning to print these again now, and they do not show up in Lightroom any more now)

Epson 4900 : Now I remember I liked Hahnemuhle rag paper  and not PLP, I will try that.  

I used MBA from 2011 that came with snow leopard , updated to Lion and now mountain lion

I am going to try again using the calibrated screen and do some adjustments to the files.


Again, the reason I asked was that the ABW is gone in the Epson driver, and I wondered what you others do now.

Let me  do some testing using LR and calibrated screen

Sal: Now I remember some people posting the adjustment layer trick.
(but the ABW part is gone from Epson Driver now. I printed with HP and the black and white dialogue last time)

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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: how do you print black and white now on Epson with mac mountain lion?
« Reply #6 on: March 16, 2013, 07:02:17 am »

Again, the reason I asked was that the ABW is gone in the Epson driver, and I wondered what you others do now.

...

(but the ABW part is gone from Epson Driver now. I printed with HP and the black and white dialogue last time)

Really? It's not gone from mine, although admittedly I'm using a 3800 rather than a 4900. What version of the driver do you have? Try a visit to Epson's European site to see if you can get a more up-to-date version: I've found in the past that it sometimes has more recent drivers than the US site.

Jeremy
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Nora_nor

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Re: how do you print black and white now on Epson with mac mountain lion?
« Reply #7 on: March 16, 2013, 12:25:44 pm »

yes they have 9.04 and I have 8.66...

I also checked HP and there is a new driver 23.0 dated feb 2013

Updated: used epson uninstall, rebooted, removed all printers, installed epson driver 9.04 (and Hp new driver) but forgot to go and look for and delete all epson folders.

Yes, ABW is there. Maybe I did not look under printer manages colours, meaning a blonde moment...

Tried a colour print which came straight from camera and it turned out dark, hooked up the calibrated screen and lightened up in LR and it was okay-ish after printing.
PLP paper

Time to throw rocks at me, I have the why-are-my -prints-too-dark problem.

I can of course lighten them up in LR before printing.

the first Epson 4900 printer I printed from (I was the first one to use it) printed just perfect, it was an entire exhibition and I printed the photos for a photo club who just bought it. They had tried one print which was dark and then I came and printed it all just fine with MBA.
Then I bought my own and the prints were darkish from the first print with this one. Not much, but a bit dark. Midtones darkish.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2013, 02:09:58 pm by Nora_nor »
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Sal Baker

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Re: how do you print black and white now on Epson with mac mountain lion?
« Reply #8 on: March 16, 2013, 02:07:43 pm »

Be sure you have installed the actual Epson version of the driver, not the Apple generic driver.

If you are using the Epson driver, is ABW not there at all or is it grayed-out?  If it's grayed out go to the print driver(Print), select "Printer Manages Colors", then select "Color Matching" from the drop down menu and change the selection from "ColorSync" to "Epson Color Controls."

See if this helps.

Sal
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Nora_nor

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Re: how do you print black and white now on Epson with mac mountain lion?
« Reply #9 on: March 16, 2013, 02:11:19 pm »

yes, ABW was there when I chose printer manages colours. I just updated my post and you posted in the meanwhile, sorry

Updated:

installed LR 4 and that has a function to adjust brightness and contrast to the printing down to the right.

I had entirely forgotten about that. I tried a file taken in the night and it looked more like what the screen shows. I still need to lighten the darks in LR, though.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2013, 02:17:57 pm by Nora_nor »
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