My prints are lacking richness in oranges and reds, and none of the debugging I've done has found the problem. Any suggestions in what I might have missed, what might be wrong, or other debugging I should do?
Attached are two files; "should be" which is saved from PS and how it appears on the display in LR with softproofing on, and "prints as" which is the print scanned back in, then I reduced vibrance by 19 so the display of that image in PS is as close as possible to the print itself. The print is actually slightly brigher, but this also makes the distant rocks more pale. The distant rocks lack oranges and reds, and some brightness. Same problem in the rocks in the foreground.
If I print the Outback test image, the strawberries look bright and freshly washed on the display but dull on the print, and the sandstone arch is dull, as another example.
The system is:
Windows 11.
Printing from both Lightroom Classic and Photoshop (problem is identical).
Monitor is an Asus ProArt, calibrated.
Printer is an Epson P800. Nozzle and alignment check pass.
Latest driver, 6.75 Nov 2021.
ICC profiles from withing the driver installation package.
Paper is Epson Premium Photo Glossy while I'm debugging this.
The printer is set for no color mgmt and the right paper.
LR or PS are set with that paper's Epson profile, Relative intent, no BPC, no brightness or contrast print adjustment.
Inks are new, old ink was purged, and the old/new ink prints look exactly the same.
This thread was extremely interesting to read through and pick out some ideas
https://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=134108.0An idea in that thread was convert the image to the destination (paper) profile in PS, save as tif with the icc profile deselected, then print that file with ACPU, and with color mgmnt on the printer set to None. Still a dull print.
Tried again but with the P800 driver set to AdobeRGB instead of None for color mgmt. Now it looks much closer to what I see on the display, though the oranges and greens are slightly exaggerated. Note however that the readme file with ACPU says to have color mgmt on the print set to "none".
The useful result is that the printer can print the colours I'm trying to get for the image, using somewhat inappropriate ICC profiles and printer settings, so the problem must be in the overall image and colour pipeline between LR or PS, and the printer.
If I try two other "wrong" icc profiles in PS (with the printer driver set to None), the print using icc Metallic Photo Glossy looks almost identical, while a print using icc "Epson sRGB" prints darker in the foreground trees and rocks, and loses some of the orange on the peaks of the distant rocks. So, at least this shows the icc profile is affecting the print and not being ignored or bypassed somehow.
Thanks
Andy
Update - making a custom paper profile, to see if that changes the problem. scanner has been calibrated, waiting for the calibration print to dry 24 hours...
Another update - the print looks better after making a custom profile, but the volume of the profile is smaller so although the print looks good I might now be missing potential colours... that topic posted over in Color Management.
