Needing Some Guidance for Getting a Good Print In Lightroom

[gerryt]

For some days now I’ve been trying to get a good print from Lightroom but it’s not happening, basically they are too dark and generally lack punch and vibrancy. I still have to use Photoshop to get good prints, some of which hang nicely on my wall.

Here is a detailed description of how I’m printing.

My Monitor is a Lacie Photon19 vision, hardware calibrated by the Spyder Elite 3.
Printer is the new Epson Stylus Photo R19''

Take photos with EOS 4'D in RAW, color space set to sRGB. Import from CF card into LR 1.4.1 Do my pick and rejects in Slideshow module, edit them, then export at 1''% quality JPEG 3''ppi I now open Photoshop CS2 and this is when I sharpen and do any selective editing, I then save my pics.

Now to the print, First my good results with PS (I have working spaces set to sRGB in>Edit>color settings. Open image>File>Print with preview>Page setup>A4>Sheet (borderless) select orientation>set size>Options (color handling) Let Photoshop determine colors>Printer Profile (sRGB IEC61966-2.1) Rendering Intent (Perceptual) Black point compensation ticked>Click Print>Properties>Main Tab (Quality Options-Best Photo) (Paper Options-Sheet>Type: Epson Premium Glossy>Borderless ticked> (Print Options-PhotoEnhance & Gloss boxes ticked>Advanced Tab (Print Options-only the Gloss box ticked) (Color Management-PhotoEnhance selected>click OK and OK again and printing begins.

I’m getting nice prints from the above setting “don’t know why” I realise that in the Advanced Tab of the printer driver Color Management should be set to ICM but I’m confused about the settings below that. If I tick: Off (no color management) the boxes below are greyed out. The color management section is stumping me.

No onto printing with LR. Open image>set to A4> (Image Settings) none of the 4 boxes are ticked> (Page Setup) pick printer, paper size, source>borderless and orientation>click OK > (Print Job Tab) print resolution ticked>3''ppi>print sharpening unticked>Color Management: other and from the list I select SPR19'' Epson Premium Glossy as that’s the paper u use. I’ve also tried Managed by Printer but get even worse results. In the printer driver Advanced Tab color management set at PhotoEnhance, ICM ticked with Off (No Color Management) tick or unticked, when it’s unticked I select at the very bottom (Show All Profiles) then 2nd last box from the bottom I pick SPR19'' Epson Premium Glossy, click OK>OK and it prints. I think mostly it’s how to properly set the controls in the Color Management section of the Advance Tab that is hard to understand. I’m very new to printing and just used to view my pic on my monitor. It’s really doing my head in after spending £6'' on printer and LR and getting poor prints. I want to use LR for my whole process from import to print, I’ve read some posts in here and seen that some others have had the same problems printing and have found solutions and help here, hope some of you can do the same for me.

Cheers.

 

[Victoria Bampton]

Hi Gerry

I'll say here and now, I haven't spent much time with Print! But let's give this a shot anyway.

In Lightroom you have 2 options - set Lightroom to manage the colours, or set the printer to manage the colours. You don't want to do both. So only assign your Glossy profile in Lightroom OR in the printer dialog.

Hopefully someone will come along with more helpful tips!

 

[AedanC]

Hi Gerry,

I have wasted a lot of time trying to solve a similar problem and only yesterday managed to get the same results from Photoshop and Lightroom. I don't know if what I'm doing is right or wrong but I can say it works for me.

If you want to try what I did the steps are below:

In Photoshop:

In photoshop go to Edit->Color Settings and then set things as below.

Then in Print Preview set things like this:

And in the Epson dialog click on the Advanced button on the bottom right of the main page and set things like this:

Note the following possible differences:

1 I'm using an R18'', not R19'' so the profile names may be slightly different in your case.

2 In the Epson dialog picture above the bit where it says 5x7 Premuim Glossy will be different in your case, it's just a name I chose to save the settings with.

In Lightroom:

In the print dialog set things like this:

And set everything in the Epson dialog exactly the same way as you did in Photoshop.

I'm sure other people will have different ways of doing things but this might be worth a try.

I also found the Premuim profiles on the Epson USA web site seem to give better results than the ones that came with my printer.

Aedan

 

[gerryt]

Thanks Victoria and Aedan, i'll take your tips on board and give them a try fingers crossed..

 

[Sean McCormack]

I wouldn't recommend the High Speed for highest quality Aedan, but otherwise the settings look correct for a Lightroom managed Print.
The key is turning off Colour management in Driver, while setting the profile etc in Lightroom.

 

[gerryt]

I wouldn't recommend the High Speed for highest quality Aedan, but otherwise the settings look correct for a Lightroom managed Print.
The key is turning off Colour management in Driver, while setting the profile etc in Lightroom.

Thanks Sean.