Still got a slight magenta colour bias to my pictures .. help please

[Rupert49]

Having calibrated my monitor with a Spyder 3 Pro and edited a load of wedding pictures to meet my own exacting standards of skin tones, colour balance etc., I am frustrated by the fact that my printer is still printing a little off colour with a bias towards the red, and also just slightly darker than my screen images.

My preferred print method is to use the Epson Easy Photo Print software (latest version 2.20.00 installed today) to select pictures to be printed from my hard drive. I have updated the printer driver (now version 7.5.7) and, following guidance from Epson technical support, I have disabled the printer colour management option. I've performed a nozzle test and all is well and, yes, there's plenty of ink in the tanks!

Short of recalibrating my screen and editing nearly 200 photographs all over again, I'm really at a loss as to what to do next. I'm quite new to home printing but, if it helps, I use PSE7 to edit my pictures, and an Epson P50 photo printer loaded with Epson Glossy photo paper and the recommended Epson Claria inks. I've tried printing straight from PSE7 but the results aren't at all good, so I'd like to stay with my current method in that regard.

I could really use some advice/guidance from experienced home printers .. can anybody help, please?

[Norman]

If you are going to switch off the printer driver colour management option I would have thought that the printing application needs to be properly colour managed and that you would need to specify what printer/paper/ink profile to apply when printing. I'm not familiar with Epson Easy Photo Print but would be surprised if it approached CS's colour management options.

The other benefit of using CS is that you can soft proof your images to simulate the output from the printer and view any out-of-gamut colours.

[Roy5051]

Put the pictures on disk and take it to Boots (sorry, I know that doesn't help, but there comes a time.....)

[RogerB]

Rupert,

As a very experienced printer, both for myself and (commercially) for others, I repeat what I said in response to your original post on this problem. If you have proved that your printer is at fault (by printing a standard test image) then the simplest solution to your colour cast is to get a custom profile for your printer and use it to print via PSE.

I know a lot of people will tell you that they get good prints simply using the printer defaults. If they do, they are lucky, but their experience doesn't help you.

I can truthfully say that with my colour-managed system - that is calibrated monitor and custom printer profiles - I hardly ever resort to test prints, even before I do a print on very expensive A2 paper. I know that if it looks right on the monitor then the print will be dead right.

If you want to solve your printer problems, do it the way the professionals do it and get a custom profile.


Roger

[Meredith]

I am frustrated by the fact that my printer is still printing a little off colour with a bias towards the red, and also just slightly darker than my screen images.

Reduce the brightness of your monitor to match your prints. Calibration does not set the monitor luminance value you need. That is a user choice and depends on the viewing conditions of the prints. Pick a value that works for your setup.

I don't use PS Elements but this is how I would print from full Photoshop. Maybe you can do the same thing in Elements.

In the print dialogue box select the option for Photoshop to handle colours and pick the colour profile for the paper you are printing on. Go to your printer settings and turn off all the colour management options (you don't want to do the conversions twice). Print the image and see how it looks.

[Monobod]

You need to be aware also that a screen is back lit and will always be dynamically brighter than your prints, which use reflected light. What is important is that the colour tones are correct. E.G. Is the blue sky the same blue on the print as on the screen, or is it a bit cyan. If so you have a colour management problem.

Are you working in natural light or do you have a strip light in your room. or even a tungsten bulb. The colours will not look right on your print if they are influenced by the colour of your viewing light source. Get a good daylight bulb or a 'Grafilite' lamp (Warehouse Express).

You also need to find out of the Epson Print software is colour managed, not all Windows software is and if not, you may be getting false images because of it. Load the same image into Epson and PSE7 and compare them side by side, are they exactly the same?

Critical colour management is arrived at from a combination of things, not just a calibrated monitor.