Color reliability when printing to Epson Stylus R320

[dchrismiller]

I am having significant and expensive [wasted paper and ink] problems transferring the image on the screen shown in the Photo module to the Epson printer. Almost always the tint is a bit more yellow, the image exposure somewhat darker, etc. Epson has a download for their profile and I've chosen the one I've downloaded, the rendering intent is "perceptual."

The printer driver software is engaged and has three control: Color Control, PhotoEnhance and ICU. Color Control is selected and all defaulted controls are "'", and the Color Mode is EPSON Vivid. Don't ask me what this all means.

The result, nevertheless, is too warm shots, especially with flash.

Any insight and help would be most appreciated.

Chris

 

[Gene McCullagh]

Hi Chris! Welcome to the forums!

My first reaction is to ask if your monitor is calibrated. If that hasn't been done via a physical calibration device (spyder, eye-one, color munki, etc.) then it's a hit and miss operation to get your prints to look like your screen.

Are you using an ICC profile for that printer/paper/ink combination or relying on Epson's drivers? If the profile you mentioned downloading is an ICC profile then double check that it is the correct one for the paper you are printing to.

 

[dchrismiller]

Gene, did you receive my reply to your initial reply [Posted on: July 29, 2''9, '1:'2:17 PM] to my initial message?
Chris

 

[Gene McCullagh]

Sorry, Chris, I didn't. Can you resend/repost? Thanks!

 

[dchrismiller]

Gene, I hope you get this as I have had to resubmit. The system says that the attchment was too large, so I went back and changed it. When I returned to the message I had wanted to send, changed the attachment to < 256K, and sent, the system said I had sent it! Whatever, let me have another go at it.

I know nothing of monitor calibration. Mine is supposedly quite good but I am willing to learn. Tell me more about the concept and "spyder, eye-one, color munki, etc."

I am attaching a print screen of the printer window as I see it. The profile in LR that I use is the one that came with the driver download, not the "managed by printer" option.

If I should give up on printing from LR and instead use PS CS3 with one of its profiles let me know. I cannot keep using a hit or miss, expensive method used thus far.

Many thanks.

Chris Miller

 

[Andrew Hayton]

looking at your screen shot it appears that you are double profiling. You need to set the colour controls in the drive to no colour management, this might be in the ICM selection. I don't have that particular printer so can't say exactly what you need to select, plus I use a Mac.

 

[Gene McCullagh]

Hi Chris!

Andrew is correct. It does look like double profiling.

On the topic of calibration: Each device in your workflow has its own recipe for a color. Your monitor may show a red (using a combination of RGB values). To print that same red (or as close to it as you can) your printer needs to know what CMYK values to use. The problem that arises in an uncalibrated system is that you adjust the image on screen to be the way you like it. Then that information is sent to the printer and the translation could be off since the colors you are looking at are using your particular monitor's recipe or formula.

When you use a hardware device (a colorimeter) to measure the colors against the formula you can set up the correct translation. The colorimeter software will send and RGB value to the screen. If it sends 255,',' and the colorimeter reads 25',',5 then it knows how to translate that. It builds a profile for your monitor. Now when you look at your image you are starting from a state of known quantities.

That's an outrageously simple explanation of calibration. :-[

I'll refer you to http://spyder.datacolor.com/pdfs/pscs3vqp_excerpt.pdf which is an 11 page pdf that covers this in more detail.