Printing help

Brik

Hi all,

I am hoping someone can help with a printing problem. I have an Epson A4 printer, fairly standard thing, but with 4 inks, so in theory this should be better than my 9-year old HP which only had 2 inks.

My monitor is calibrated, so what I am seeing should be what is printed. However, the colours are far too dark (and not fixed by making the photo very bright on screen) and any of the dark colours (in one example green grass) just turn into dark blobs.

I know it is possible to calibrate a printer, but I do not know how to do this. I am using the right ICC profile for the printer and paper (Epson Premium Semigloss), so I am stumped. I never had this problem with my old HP!!!

Any help would be appreciated,
Brik

sineadw

What software are you using to print? It's possible that you're setting the ICC profile in PS or whatever, but then allowing the printer to control colour management. Make sure colour management is turned on in Photoshop (assuming you're using that) and then OFF in your printer dialogue box.

oshead

You could try and update the printer drivers.

Have you converted the image to the correct ICC profile. Ie, Adobe RGB would probably most resemble the colour gamut of your printer. If indoubt you can use sRGB instead.

What program are you printing from? Does it give you the option to specify who manages colours? The program or the printer. If it does and you choose the program, did you turn off colour management in the print settings dialog?

Edit.... Dang Sinead. you beat me too it....

Brik

Thanks for the replies.

I will check the ICC profiles are up to date and that it is Adobe RGB (though if I rememeber correctly it is).

With regards the colour management, I have printed from PS Elements and Epsons own printing program, with no luck. Also in PSE, I set it that PSE manages the colour rather than the printer - but I will check that I have it turned off in the printer as well.

THanks

sineadw

Hope it works for you! Let us know.

Brik

Hi there,
Thanks for the advice, but unfortunately it did not work! I set everything to Adobe RGB, PSE handled the colour and turned off the printer colour management and the colours and brightness are still all over the place.

Can feel my determination to print photos again slipping away. Should have got my old HP fixed instead of buying a new printer

Brik

Has anyone any other suggestions? Epson have not been able to help me either :mad:

sineadw

Can you describe in detail your print workflow? I'm specifically wondering at what point you're specifying your icc profile.

sineadw

Brik whereabouts are you based also?