Epson Surecolor P600 color problems

[Rockskip]

I've had the P600 for over one month (replacing an R3000 that started spitting ink all over the page after less than 2 years), and have had a terrible problem getting accurate color rendition, especially in skin tones (everyone looks sunburned). I've gone through Epson's tech support (email and >1hour on the phone), and the best they can tell me is to try different paper profiles. I am printing from Photoshop CC, with Photoshop color management. I can print the same file on my Epson 7900 with no problem. I've reinstalled the drivers, updated the firmware with no effect. Any ideas?

[Mark D Segal]

What paper are you printing on, what profile are you using, what reference paper is set in your Media Type in the Epson P600 driver, what Media type was the profile created for, is the correct paper selected, is the correct Black ink selected?

[Rockskip]

I'm printing on a variety of papers with different profiles, but as an example -- using Epson Metallic Glossy, with the corresponding P600 profile, photo black etc. The Epson tech person viewed my workflow remotely and agreed that I'm setting everything up correctly. It's very vexing since I've been using Epson printers for many years, and this is the first time I've had a problem I couldn't figure out.

[MHMG]

I have had a P600 for a little over a month as well. I'm getting very accurate color from custom profiles, and very good to excellent color from generic profiles supplied by Epson and other third party vendors like Hahnemuhle as well. So, I doubt this is a printer problem. It's more likely a problem with your OS, media settings, the application you are using, etc. What platform (Mac or PC) OS version are you working with? FWIW, I've been printing direct from PSCC with "application manages" color on latest Mac OS Yosemite and using the "EPSON SC-P600 Series (IP) driver, not the airprint or "Bonjour" driver which may be where your issue is if you are on a Mac. Anyway, for me the P600 and the series (IP) wireless driver is all working as it is supposed to.

To sum it all up, my P600 is performing with very admirable reliability, consistency, and predictable color output.

Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[Rockskip]

Thanks, Mark, for your response. I'm jealous! I am on a MAC, Yosemite, and the same EPSON SC-P600 Series (IP) driver, which I just reinstalled one more time. I've tried different rendering intents too. Nozzle check is perfect. I'm going to try reinstalling the driver one more time. I'm also waiting for the next level of Epson support to get back to me.

Leslie

[Czornyj]

Do you have any access to X-Rite ColorMunki Photo, i1Pro, i1Pro2 or i1iSis spectrophotometer? In such case you could try to re-linearise the printer using Epson ColorBase2 software...

The sample I had for tests printed flawlessly under 10.10.3, and it's not easy to make something wrong in OS X printing workflow...

[howardm]

'reinstalling the driver' is usually a waste of time unless you actually delete the printer & driver from the system.

1. remove the printer from the printing system preference
2. open a Terminal or Finder window and trash the /Library/Printers/EPSON folder
3. reboot
4. reload the driver
5. re-instantiate the printer

[MHMG]

Thanks, Mark, for your response. I'm jealous! I am on a MAC, Yosemite, and the same EPSON SC-P600 Series (IP) driver, which I just reinstalled one more time. I've tried different rendering intents too. Nozzle check is perfect. I'm going to try reinstalling the driver one more time. I'm also waiting for the next level of Epson support to get back to me.

Leslie

It seems like you are using the identical setup as I am, i.e, Mac, Yosemite, P600 Series (IP) driver, and printing from PSCC as I am, so it is a strange problem indeed. That said, you may just want to double check in printer/scanners preferences that your Mac is truly calling the Series (IP) driver. Come to think of it, my very first print had totally whacked out color because after I followed the Epson installation procedure by the book the first time, it loaded three drivers (airprint, a direct USB connect, and the Wifi EPSON SC-P600 Series (IP) driver), but it set the system default to the AirPrint driver. I have no clue why it did that, and I believe Keith Cooper at Norhlight Images reported the same issue, but the fix was just to delete the airprint driver and manually load the EPSON SC-P600 Series (IP) driver.

Do you have access to the Xrite TC918 color target (it's a free download as part of the Profilemaker 5 package on the Xrite site).  What I like about this older profiling target is that it isn't a scrambled pattern. It has a very recognizable color array which one can learn to visually "read" by eye to determine if a "no color adjust" condition has been correctly achieved. If you print it with Adobe Color Printer Utility and post a picture of the result, i can pretty much tell you just by looking at the result whether the no color adjust pathway and your printer is working right.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[Pete Berry]

I've had the P600 for over one month (replacing an R3000 that started spitting ink all over the page after less than 2 years), and have had a terrible problem getting accurate color rendition, especially in skin tones (everyone looks sunburned). I've gone through Epson's tech support (email and >1hour on the phone), and the best they can tell me is to try different paper profiles. I am printing from Photoshop CC, with Photoshop color management. I can print the same file on my Epson 7900 with no problem. I've reinstalled the drivers, updated the firmware with no effect. Any ideas?

Have you tried printing a standard, unmodified printer test image, eg Outback's?

http://www.outbackphoto.com/printinginsights/pi048/essay.html

If this is still off using your profile, then print straight from the driver, with the same media type. If this is much more "normal", then the profile, or possible occult double profiling (which gives over-hyped images) is suspect.

Pete