Epson 9890 - magenta tint

[Cornelius]

Hi guys

After about 2 weeks of without printing on my Epson 9890 I wanted to print some pictures today. So I did a nozzle check (cyan was partially missing) followed by a head clean.
So with my perfect nozzle check I started to print on Tecco PFR295 matte some color and b/w pictures. Unfortunately I found visible magenta tint in all prints. So I did again a nozzle check, which was still perfect.
Then I changed all "almost" empty ink cartridges with fresh ones, did another head clean and tried the same color and b/w image on some different papers (Tecco PM230, PD190, PFR295, PGG250) to check if I maybe just have a broken ICC.

Unfortunately all prints on the different papers look the same with the still visible magenta tint. The tint got a bit weaker but is still visible.

Would you have any idea what could be the problem? Two weeks ago I printed about 15 large prints without any problem.
Currently I'm printing with the official Tecco ICC profiles and never had problems within the last years. Could it be that the printer needs his own specific profiles or should I call an Epson technician?

I attached a sample b/w print on Tecco PD190. Left side Epson 9890 with the magenta tint and on the right, the same image printed on my Epson 3880 also on Tecco PD190.

Thanks for your help!

[Mark D Segal]

Regardless of what the nozzle check shows, try printing a whole page of Green and another of Cyan (you can download these printer workout pages from the website of Marrutt USA - they have them for the 4900 for sure, which are fine to use in your printer) to see whether these inks are printing full strength and smoothly. I suggest this because a Magenta cast would seem to suggest a weakness of Green and/or Cyan. Normally one does not need different profiles for different photos if they are being printed with the same paper, printer and driver settings for which the profile was generated.

[Cornelius]

Hi Mark

Thanks for your suggestions. I did a ink purge for cyan and green on PD190 (matte). On the first sight it looks good, at the very detail I can see a faint banding on both pages (green/cyan).
I tried another b/w print after the purge without any change (see example in my updated first post).

Cyan and light cyan are quite new cartridges. Yellow has about 20% left.
Nozzle check is again perfect, event under magnification I can't find a missing nozzle or a slight shift in the pattern.

Any other idea? I guess I need a Epson technician? :-(

PS: I meant "printer specific profile" and not "print specific". Sorry my mistake..

[Mark D Segal]

There shouldn't be visible banding as long as there are enough pixels in the test photos to yield a clean print. If you are pretty sure of the integrity of your profiles, I would recommend giving Epson ProGraphics a call to discuss other possibilities with them.

[Cornelius]

Seems that I have to call Epson.. :-(

I created the purge file myself quickly in Photoshop, A4 with 360dpi. This should not be the source of the banding. I can already see the technician telling me "you need a new head".. :-/ :-/ :-/

[Mark D Segal]

360 is more than enough. The technical people I converse with tell me the printheads on those machines are usually the last thing to go bad unless it's been terribly under-utilized or hugely busy for a long period of time.

[Cornelius]

Oh that makes hope. Until now, I only read about head issues on the 9890.
But yeah, maybe the dampers need to be replaced!? The machine is about 3-4 years old (I bought it second hand). The owner before had a photography shop and printed posters for clients on the plotter. So it was quite busy before it came to my office. I print every 1-2 weeks 2-3 meters off 24' roll paper.. so not to much.

[Wayne Fox]

If you have no banding or missing nozzles in a nozzle check there should be no need to replace a head or dampers. I'm not sure what the problem is, but it sounds like something in the workflow or driver.

[Cornelius]

Hi Wayne

No there is no banding/or missing nozzle in the nozzle check. The nozzle check is 100% perfect.

I'm printing with the Tecco default ICC profiles. Until now, this worked very well for all my prints on my 3880 and the 9890. Even when I printed the same picture for comparison on both machines on the same paper, the prints are about 95% similar. There are just slight differences in the blacks/contrast.

My workflow and driver settings did not change until my latest prints on the 9890 which did not have the magenta tint.
Do you think this could be the moment where I should start to measure my own ICC profiles? Instead of getting a service technician to my office?

[Mark D Segal]

One more thing you can try, if you have not done so already, is to reprint one of those photos with "Printer Color Management" instead of the usual ICC profile route. This will help to isolate where the problem may be. If the tint goes away, you can be more assured it is a profiling issue; if the tint does not go away it would suggest a printer issue.

[Cornelius]

@Mark
Good idea! I haven't tried this yet.
So I just printed with printer color management and the recommended driver settings from Tecco for the PD190 paper. Aaaand (drum roll), the tint is gone! :-o
The print looks now neutral, although I did not use "black and white" mode in the driver.

Seem definitely now a CM issue on my printer. Funny enough, 2 weeks ago with the same ICC profiles, papers, driver settings etc.. everything was great.
How could this be??

Allright, I will order now as soon as possible an x-rite iOne Pro sensor to professionally create my own ICC profiles.
And in the meantime I will try to create a new ICC profile with my ColorMunki and see if the prints will be without the tint.

Thanks for your help guys!!

[Mark D Segal]

Super - that takes you a long way forward. But the CM issue is not necessary with the printer. CM is done largely with profiles working in the Color Management Module of your computer operating system. Has anything there (hardware, software) changed over the past few weeks? An iPro set-up is great and really nice to have, but it costs quite a chunk of money and has a "more trouble than necessary" learning curve because of X-Rite's terrible documentation, so you want to be sure you really need it/can make enough use of it.

[Garnick]

One more possibility Cornelius.  Although this is very rare, it's possible that the profile has somehow become corrupted.  I would suggest that if you still have that profile on file, trash the one you've been using and reinstall the one on file.  If you don't have it on file you can probably download it again from the paper manufacturer's website.  This experiment would only take a few minutes, including testing, and it can't hurt to try.  If it works it could save you a lot of time trying to track this issue down.  I had this happen on my 9900 a few years ago, so I followed this procedure and the reinstalled profile worked exactly as expected.  Hope this helps.

Gary 

[Mark D Segal]

Yes - that is possible - definitely worth trying.

[Cornelius]

Thanks guys, appreciate your help!

@Garnick & Mark
I had this idea already (as I had corrupted ICC profiles before). So I already replaced the ICC profiles for my four different papers from Tecco without any change.

@ Mark
The principle of CM is clear, but what I don't understand, if it is a software issue on my Mac, you only the Epson 9890 shows the tint and not also the 3880 on which I print with the same papers and generic ICC profiles from Tecco?
So here is a list of everything that changed since my latest correct print on the Epson 9890:
- Lightroom/Photoshop Update (I already tried printing with Lightroom and Photoshop. Same tint from both apps at the 9890)
- I build in a LED strip to my 9890. Actually this is just for fun and as I don't have a spectra viewer the LED strip should not influence the printer. To be sure, I also printed a test with the LED light unplugged from electricity to ensure that there is no fancy influence to the print head or electronic. (see attached some pictures of the LED)

Here is my system configuration:
MacPro late 2014 with OSX 10.11.4 (did not update to the latest version yet)
Latest versions of Lightroom and Photoshop
My whole printing workflow is based on Lightroom using presets for all kind of paper sizes from the rollpaper.
My test file I printed was a b/w converted RAW file (not JPEG or tif) right out of Lightroom.

Tomorrow I will try to create a custom ICC with my ColorMunki. I know the ColorMunki isn't that advanced than the i1 Pro, but definitely better then nothing. I'm also gonna try printing from my MacBookAir to ensure it is not an issue of my MacPro.

[Mark D Segal]

When you speak of "generic profiles", I'm not clear on what you mean. These are different printers with a different inkset so for each TECCO paper I assume you know you should have a different profile for each of those two printers for each paper. Nothing else here looks to me out of the ordinary.

[Cornelius]

By generic I mean the printer specific ICC profile from Tecco, which are not individually created for my personal printer.
Ah and by the way, the 3880 and 9890 are using exactly the same inkset from Epson. They just have different cartridge sizes. That was the reason why I bought the second hand 9890 instead of the brand new SureColor 7xxx which uses the new HD inks. My hope was to get extrem similar prints from both printers when printing the same picture on different sizes (10/15cm up to roll paper).

The whole situation is really wired for me. Why does one of two printers gets a color tint while nozzle checks and purge prints looks perfect. ??
I try my MacBookAir tomorrow for a test print the exclude an computer specific issue. But afterwards I guess I will just have to profile my 9890 with personal ICC profiles for my papers and hopefully this resolves the tint.

One hint I got from a german colleague. He thinks it could be an aging/wear effect of the head. He told me that the nozzles can widen over time/due to usage and this results in a shift of the amount of ink spit out of the head. This would result in a color shift/tint and could be corrected by personal ICC profiles instead of a costly head replacement from an Epson technician.

Could this be my "issue"?

[Mark D Segal]

One hint I got from a german colleague. He thinks it could be an aging/wear effect of the head. He told me that the nozzles can widen over time/due to usage and this results in a shift of the amount of ink spit out of the head. This would result in a color shift/tint and could be corrected by personal ICC profiles instead of a costly head replacement from an Epson technician.

Could this be my "issue"?

If he doesn't have specific inside engineering knowledge and experience on these print heads I would tend to dismiss this as yet another urban myth of which we see so many about how these printers work or don't work. Even if this were possible, it sounds counter-intuitive that it would happen to only one or two channels producing one opposing colour tint. From what the technical people inform me, the usual, most common signs of a worn print-head are ink laydown defects that occur gradually in all channels. But best discuss with Epson ProGraphics Tech Support.

And yes, correct - this inkset does not have Green, so if the cause is insufficient laydown of the opposing colour, then it would be Cyan or Light Cyan; but if the cause is too much laydown of the offending colour it would be Vivid Magenta or Vivid Light Magenta. But that doesn't indicate whether the cause of the laydown issue is profile or mechanical. The test you did with success from Printer Color Management indicates it is more than likely an ICC-profiling issue.

[Cornelius]

You're right.. is should have thought about my test with the Printer CM which was a success.
I just tried another test from my MacBookAir which uses the same software version of OS and Lightroom/Photoshop and the same ICC profiles from Tecco. The magenta tint is also visible on this test print.

What I actually forgot, since my last correct print I updated also the printer firmware on the Epson 9890. Could this cause any issues with the existing ICC profiles from Tecco?

To summarize
- Magenta color cast visible in color and b/w prints in the greys
- Last prints I did about 2 weeks ago did not have the magenta cast
- The magenta cast is independent from the computer and software used to print (used three different Macs with 10.10.5, 10.11.4 and 10.11.5, Photoshop CS5 and latest versions of Lightroom, Photoshop and Mirage3.0)
- The same magenta cast is visible on several papers from Tecco and Epson (matte, glossy)
- The magenta cast is not visible on my Epson 3880 using same software/computer workflow for printing and also the corresponding Tecco ICC profiles
- The magenta cast is not visible when using Color Management by the printer



Any clou?

[Cornelius]

Okay, now I'm totally confused.

I just created a custom ICC profile for my 9890 using my ColorMunki. But the printing result is absolutely the same. I still have the magenta tint on my prints...

Update:
I just found this link:
http://www.redrivercatalog.com/profiles/diagnose-osx-related-color-management-troubles.html

Seems to make sense that this could be the issue on my 9890.
I the meantime I updated my MacPro to the latest OSX version. The magenta cast is still visible.
The same magenta cast is also visible when printing from my MacBook Air with the latest OSX version and freshly installed printer driver.

Could it be, that the issue only appears in combination with the 9890 and not with the 3880?

Update 2:
I just updated the firmware to the version from June 14th 2016 without any change. Magenta cast is still there.
Now I don't have any other option to test, as I don't have Windows Computer around to check wether it is an OSX issue.

Update 3:
Just tested from the 3rd Mac at my office, running with OSX 10.10.5 (so one big release older) and Photoshop CS5 with the same magenta cast. :-(