I know there is a thread going on about Epson Legacy Platine about the appropriate media setting, but my question is more general as I would like to understand what exactly do the media settings do, apart from setting the Color, Quality, Mode (whether or nor color management is used in the driver or the application and various adjustments if the latter.)
Specifically what I want to know is if one is using Photoshop managed color, i.e. Mode is OFF (no color management,) the only thing as far as colors are concerned is for the Media Type to tell the printer which black ink to use (PK or MK) not the amount (which presumably is inherent in the paper profile itself.) At least that is how I believe was the case in my HP B9180 where one could actually define new media simply as Photo Paper for PK or Rag Paper for MK. I don't see such a generic capability in my Epson P400 driver. I suspect the higher models are no different in this regard. So if I have to make my own profile, I must pick one of the myriad of EPSON defined media. Is that correct? If that is so, when and why should I choose "Ultra Premium" as opposed to just the regular "Premium." (Who knew they were going to better the Premium?)
To understand this better on my part, I did do a small experiment where I printed a (0,0,0) block on a glossy paper with the same paper profile from Photoshop: Epson Ultra Premium Photo Paper Glossy, but varied the Media Settings - one Ultra Premium Photo Paper Gloss and the other Ultra Premium Photo Paper Luster. I measured the printed blocks then on the ColorMunki Photo in the spot mode, averaging three readings. From what I could tell based on these limited LAB measurements, the two patches seemed close:
Glossy - (5.2, 0.1, 1.5) and Luster - (5.1, 0.2, 1.2)
Obviously this is not a fully statistical/scientific dE measurements (I don't have means either.)
It would be good to know how EPSON driver functions in this regards. (If EPSON people want to chime in, they are welcome.)
:Niranjan.