Strugling to use profiles with Epson P800 and Mac OS X El Capitan

[JoaoM]

Hello Forum,

First things first, please apologize if this question has already been answered elsewhere but I did search without finding it.

I'm trying to use an Epson P800 with Epson Hot Press Natural paper on OS X El Capitan and LR CC 2015. After viewing the videos "Camera to Print & Screen" I would like to try the "Epson Advanced B&W" mode and therefore leave the LR profile as "Managed by Printer" and choose the paper via the print setup dialogue.

My problem is that in doing so the profile doesn't appear under "Media Type" on the "Print Settings" print dialog ... (also tried with Canson Baryta Photographique, just to try another profile, but same result). All the papers available seem to be those installed by default during the printer driver installation.

I've downloaded the .icc profiles and copied them to "/Users/"My User Name"/Library/ColorSync/Profiles" and rebooted and also tried "/Library/ColorSync/Profiles" (as it seems it was the correct destination path before El Capitan) both unsuccessfully.

Also, these two profiles are available to choose from LR but just don't seem to be "seen" by the printer in the print dialogue.

Any ideas on how to fix this or what am I doing wrong ?

Many thanks in advance for all suggestions or help,

Joao

[Mark D Segal]

The user does not select profiles when Printer Manages Color (or ABW). Only select the media type from those offered or its closest simile to the non-Epson paper you may use.

[JoaoM]

Mark,

Thanks for the quick reply!

Sorry but I realize I was not very clear in my first post: I do not try to select a "profile" but indeed a media type and was expecting to be given the choice "Hot Press Natural " as per attached screen shot from the video "C2PS-38 - Image Processing_ Epson Advanced B&W" (hope its ok to share this):



Instead I have "only" the standard paper choices and nowhere the one I'm looking for:



Thanks again !

[Mark D Segal]

Did you click on the arrow beside "Fine Art Paper"? It should open the dialog for all the papers in that category.

[JoaoM]

Yes, but only "default" papers are available - greyed out in my printscreen but become available if I load the printer with paper from the front feeder (but again, only the default three papers are displayed and not the particular one I'm looking for):

[howardm]

Off the top of my head, I think 1 or 2 things are happening.

First, make *sure* that the driver you installed is NOT!!!!!! the 'Airprint' driver.  That is a very common installation error.  You want the CUPS or IP driver, not the Airprint one.  Open the SysPrefs -> Printers and see what 'Type' (or is it 'Kind' ?) you have for the P800

Second, as you seem to have noticed, the 'Fine Art' papers *need* to go through the front tray, not the top (when you select the 'Feed'). 

So check those two things.

[Mark D Segal]

Hi Howard,

Yes, I thought of that Airprint business, but I think he is still getting more choices than the Airprint provides so wasn't clear to me that's the problem; but yes, worth checking for sure - Airprint is a major PITA.

[JoaoM]

Hi Howard,

Yes, I saw different threads mentioning the Airprint issues when googling before posting and indeed the print is NOT setup using Airprint.

And from my findings the greyed out paper options "Fine Art" submenu () become available as soon as I specify a paper format to be loaded from the front feeder but I can't figure out how to specify additional papers like Hot Press Natural...

Not sure if there is anything else to do (or another method) after copying the .icc files to the correct folder and reboot ?

[RHPS]

The Epson ABW mode does not use ICC profiles at all so installing profiles for a particular paper doesn't help. You should just choose the paper that is closest in surface and colour (paper white) to the one that you want to use. I suspect that any of the Fine Art media settings will give you acceptable results. I do a lot of ABW on Harman Gloss Baryta and the Epson Premium Glossy setting gives very good results. A very different situation for colour prints where the profiles are quite different.

[Mark D Segal]

I've just turned on my P-800 and tested all this with both Photoshop and Lightroom. Regardless of which, once you select Printer Manages Color in either application, the rest happens in the printer driver and I can get all the Epson papers to show, including the one of interest to you. But you need to make sure you have all the necessary settings correctly specified. I should say I am still on Mavericks (OSX 10.9.5) but it should be no different on El Capitan (in principle). First go to Color Matching and Select Epson Color Controls. Then go to Printer Settings and for Paper Size select your size and make sure it says Front Fine Art beside the size. Then go to Media Type, click on Fine Art Paper and you should see what you want available for selection. In Print Mode select Advanced B&W Photo. I've attached some screen grabs. If you do all this you should be good to go for making ABW prints on all those Fine Art Matte papers - and they do come out looking nice if you've done your tonal editing well before sending to print. Normal recommendation if you want a neutral print with a good tonal range is to use "Neutral" and "Dark" in the Advanced settings.

[howardm]

I had written and then removed that I didn't really think it was Airprint since, as Mark also observed that the choices you have are more than Airport normally gives so it was very likely Airprint was NOT the issue.

Double check that the P800 driver actually does have the profiles (and lets step away from the ABW rathole for a while).
Navigate up to (I think) /Library/Printers/EPSON/InkjetPrinter/ICCProfiles    If you use Finder, it'll probably appear to be a monolithic file but its really a package so right click and 'Show Package Contents'.  You should find all of the 'stock' profiles as provided by the driver.  If not, and you only see the limited # of them, that explains what is happening.

Edit:  I just downloaded the OSX10.10 driver for the P800 and while there is *a lot* of stuff in there and I'm not 100% sure of the organization of it all (although they appear to support OSX all the way back to 10.4 or something), I did find this little tidbit buried inside one of the packages which leads me to believe you have them (*somewhere*) or maybe need to get the latest driver package.

[Mark D Segal]

I had written and then removed that I didn't really think it was Airprint since, as Mark also observed that the choices you have are more than Airport normally gives so it was very likely Airprint was NOT the issue.

Double check that the P800 driver actually does have the profiles (and lets step away from the ABW rathole for a while).
Navigate up to (I think) /Library/Printers/EPSON/InkjetPrinter/ICCProfiles    If you use Finder, it'll probably appear to be a monolithic file but its really a package so right click and 'Show Package Contents'.  You should find all of the 'stock' profiles as provided by the driver.  If not, and you only see the limited # of them, that explains what is happening.

Edit:  I just downloaded the OSX10.10 driver for the P800 and while there is *a lot* of stuff in there and I'm not 100% sure of the organization of it all (although they appear to support OSX all the way back to 10.4 or something), I did find this little tidbit buried inside one of the packages which leads me to believe you have them (*somewhere*) or maybe need to get the latest driver package.

The ABW setting isn't a rathole and should have nothing to do with this problem. I strongly suspect it is a settings issue. If he downloaded the most recent driver from the Epson website, all those papers should be there, but I agree with you he should verify.

[Mark D Segal]

Furthermore, I just checked the Epson website and see the same driver version from which I applied my screen grabs above applies for Mavericks and El Capitan.

[JoaoM]

Thank you all for your help, much appreciated!

So, embarrassing as it is, I found out the installed driver version was not the latest one (I've first installed from the original CD) - upon downloading the latest version and after deleting and reinstalling everything, I can now access the paper I want to use, "Hot Press Natural" (all other Epson papers are also showing up btw).

I still have to understand how to get the other non-Epson paper profiles (like Canson Baryta which I'm also trying to use) to display under "Media Type" selection ...

A short info for other users, it seems El Capitan changed a bit the printer driver dialog/behavior and you must now select the paper size under "Paper Handling" submenu before selecting "Printer Settings" otherwise the "Fine Art Paper" sub-options are greyed out (and not possible to chose the paper size anywhere else unlike previous OS X versions ...)

@Mark: may I ask if you have other paper profiles installed for the P800 ? from what I can see in your print screens only Epson papers seem to show on "Media Type" drop-down menu.

Many thanks again for your help!

[howardm]

It's good to see that Epson did add the words 'Front Fine Art' to the Page/Tray Setup in the driver.  Hopefully that will eliminate most of the 'All my FA papers are greyed out!' questions.

[Mark D Segal]

Thank you all for your help, much appreciated!

So, embarrassing as it is, I found out the installed driver version was not the latest one (I've first installed from the original CD) - upon downloading the latest version and after deleting and reinstalling everything, I can now access the paper I want to use, "Hot Press Natural" (all other Epson papers are also showing up btw).

I still have to understand how to get the other non-Epson paper profiles (like Canson Baryta which I'm also trying to use) to display under "Media Type" selection ...

A short info for other users, it seems El Capitan changed a bit the printer driver dialog/behavior and you must now select the paper size under "Paper Handling" submenu before selecting "Printer Settings" otherwise the "Fine Art Paper" sub-options are greyed out (and not possible to chose the paper size anywhere else unlike previous OS X versions ...)

@Mark: may I ask if you have other paper profiles installed for the P800 ? from what I can see in your print screens only Epson papers seem to show on "Media Type" drop-down menu.

Many thanks again for your help!

Glad you got it sorted out. I think you may have had a faulty driver install, because all those papers were available from the earliest incarnation of this printer.

Let us make a clear distinction between Media Type and Profiles. They are different. For Media Type, you will only get the range of Epson papers provided in the driver. When you or anyone else profiles a 3rd party paper for use in that printer, the profile is "keyed" to the closest EPSON media that the said paper resembles. The profiles for 3rd party papers get stored in Library>Colorsync>Profiles, are not part of the driver software and do not show in Media Type. The instruction for the third party profiles is that in the printer driver you select the same Media Type to which they were keyed, and you select the correct profile for this third party paper from your printing application (LR, PS, etc). So, for example, let us say you are using Canson Baryta Photographique. It is a luster paper and the creation of that profile for the Epson P800 is keyed to Epson Premium Luster or whatever they call it these days. So in the printer driver you will select Epson Premium Luster (or as renamed) as the Media Type, and then for the profile you will select the profile for Canson BP in your printing application where colour management is specified. Then you will have the PROFILE keyed to the correct MEDIA. Get it? PROFILES do not enter the picture for Printer Manages Color, but Media Type does.

[howardm]

When you download most 3rd party paper profiles, somewhere there is almost always be some additional information somewhere that tells you what the correct 'media setting' (ie. the Epson paper the profile is keyed to) is too use.  You should have almost no reason to guess (other than maybe some Costco, Staples or other inexpensive paper where you just choose the closest similar glossy, lustre, etc etc)

[Mark D Segal]

When you download most 3rd party paper profiles, somewhere there is almost always be some additional information somewhere that tells you what the correct 'media setting' (ie. the Epson paper the profile is keyed to) is too use.  You should have almost no reason to guess (other than maybe some Costco, Staples or other inexpensive paper where you just choose the closest similar glossy, lustre, etc etc)

Yes of course - the professional media come with instructions. I wasn't thinking of this in terms of guesswork.

[JoaoM]

Thank you for for the time taken to help me and your detailed explanation Mark, well understood!

And a big thank you also to all others who helped and replied, much appreciated !

Joao

[howardm]

I was merely pointing out to the OP that some mfgr's make it harder to find than others.  Some lead you to a separate webpage, others make you download a separate (obscurely named) PDF or force you to bundle up a zip file w/ the info & the profile(s).