Hi everyone
I have an Epson R2400 and am finding that all the prints are nothing like those I see on screen. The screen is calibrated and I have profiled the printer. I use CS3 and have variously tried letting PS and the Epson driver determine the colours using the correct profiles for paper, colour space, different rendering intents, etc. I wondered if anyone could offer and guidelines from their experience as to how to get better colours?
Nobody will be able to help you until you provide a complete and accurate description of exactly how things don't match
Doug
'Tis best to leave everything in default mode to begin and then address individual issues as they arise. Attempting to set everything up from the get go is nye on impossible.
Hells pensioner - born to be mild
JustMono
OK I went through all this malarky last year and have managed with folks help to get things working more less right. I've found, as Monobod told me, prints don't look right straight off the printer. If they're about right leave to dry overnight - they do lighten up. If the print is obviously wrong look at the image on screen again, you might have to tweak a projected version for printing ie the white bits or the dark areas may loose all detail in the print. Also, they are never going to look exactly like they do on the monitor and you may have to compromise a bit. Here's how mine is set up but be prepared for other folks to tell you completely different...
Epson R2400, Epson ink, Epson paper, all equipment ie camera, CS3 (in edit, colour settings), printer set to Adobe RGB. Also, set up colour management warning messages (tick boxes) in CS3 colour settings ie when you open an image if it's not already in Adobe RGB, CS3 will ask you if you want to change the colour management policies.
In print window - colour handling set to 'printer manages colour', rendering intent set to 'relative colourmetric'.
On print window, in page setup...
Advanced settings window...
Paper/quality options - pick specific type of Epson paper and 'best photo'. Do not use 'fine' as I've just discovered that's what's causing banding on my prints.
Print options - don't have high speed ticked (David says high speed produces less accurate prints), do have print preview ticked
Colour management - have 'colour controls' picked and gamma at 1.8.
Colour mode - Adobe RGB
Colour handling - here's where I do some tweaking that other folks may say not to do. I have brightness and contrast at +10. other settings on 0 unless I think there's going to be a problem.
When you have these setting sorted save as custom settings ie jan08PMCglossy = date, printer manages colour, glossy paper. Then as you go along you can save the settings for different papers and have them ready to use again. Custom settings can always be tweaked.
Hope all this helps and I'm not telling you stuff you already know. I know how frustrating it is when prints come out too dark etc. Try sticking to Epson consumables until you have it sorted out and know what works, then you can try other sorts of paper etc.
Lisa.
" the beginning and end of imagination, all at the same time "
........ Flickr ........ greenglassphotos
Sorry DSF, I should have given more details. The images on the screen have a luminosity that is lacking in the prints, particularly things like rim light on a portrait "glows" and looks almost 3D on the screen but loses all depth on the print and looks more like just a bit of white. It's a bit hard to describe and is more than just colour matching or contrast correction. All I can say is it's a "depth" thing :-)
Thanks lisadb; thanks for taking the time to write a very concise description of what to do, I'll try it and let you know how I get on.
Jonathan
Been a while since last post so don't know how you're getting on.
I had problems on a Mac with R2400 which sounds similar. I found a forum somewhere which pointed to the print driver. The Mac had installed it's own rather than the Epson drivers. Had to remove the Mac drivers, and install the Epson drivers downloaded from the Epson site. Made a huge difference.
Dunno if you're on Mac or Windows and whether similar issues exist on Windows regards MS vs Epson drivers.
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