Epson 2200 - Installed and printing... advice please

[Sean Dempsey]

I actually didn't know most of that, so that was a huge help. I am gonna save your post so I can review it and make sure I get all that memorized. I'll have to print another test now and see what all that did, I am glad I know where all those options and settings are now. Hopefully this all makes a nice improvment.

[Sean Dempsey]

I tried this, it still looks great, so it probably worked great.

One thing I notice is that my printouts are very accurate, but not as vivid and saturated as my monitor. It could be just that my monitor is like staring at a light bulb and the printout is a dead piece of paper (which would make sense), so maybe that's normal. It looks GREAT though. I am totally baffled that a regular person like me can now produce huge photos that look great with just a Rebel and a printer...

a few questions about Adobe RBG now... my camera manual says the photos will look subdued and require processing. Does that mean just tweaking in the raw editor and CS? Also, a footnote in my camera manual says about the Adobe RGB setting "The ICC profile is not appended. To convert the profile, you must set Adobe RGB". no idea what that means.

thanks again!

[racingpinarello]

I tried this, it still looks great, so it probably worked great.

One thing I notice is that my printouts are very accurate, but not as vivid and saturated as my monitor. It could be just that my monitor is like staring at a light bulb and the printout is a dead piece of paper (which would make sense), so maybe that's normal. It looks GREAT though. I am totally baffled that a regular person like me can now produce huge photos that look great with just a Rebel and a printer...

a few questions about Adobe RBG now... my camera manual says the photos will look subdued and require processing. Does that mean just tweaking in the raw editor and CS? Also, a footnote in my camera manual says about the Adobe RGB setting "The ICC profile is not appended. To convert the profile, you must set Adobe RGB". no idea what that means.

thanks again!

I think you are doing everything fine. I know that my printer (lightjet 5000 from Calypso) cannot handle the color gamut of my monitor to the printer. This is why I use the Soft Proof tool in Photoshop with my final print profile. It will show the color gamut of the print profile.

My lab told me about this when I was uable to get an accurate print from my calibrated monitor. Once I got this, I now know exactly how my prints will turn out.

Overall, I think you are making great use of Steve's advice.
Loren

[Sean Dempsey]

Steve's advice was really great and it's still helping alot, but here's a new problem

Premium Photo Paper (PK cartridge) - Gorgeous, blow my mind.

Premium Luster Paper (PK cartridge) - Same, stunning and amazing.

Enhanced Matte Paper (MK cartridge) - Hideous. Not even usable. Something HAS to be wrong.

As a note, I printed the exact same photo twice, once with PK and Premium Luster, then with MK and Enhanced Matte, both epson papers.

I got my document in PS. The color space is set to Adobe RGB (As is my Camera). I go to "Print with Preview", select "Document" as the source space, and as the print space its "Enhanced Matte_MK" as the paper, intent is "Relative Colorimetric".

I then go to the print properties box. Paper gets selected as Enhanced Mtte, Photo 1440dpi, High Speed, Edge Smoothing. Then on the Color Management I choose "ICM" and "No color adjustment".

I then print it, and it's hideous. The colors are all flattened out, gradients look posterized, colors are off. The black is WAY to light, it's like a weird charcoal gray. Shadows are way off and too flat, the contrast is much less than the other sheet.

I am looking at these side by side, and there is a notable difference, it's not just stylistic between matte and luster, it looks like there is defininitley something wrong. I've seen my friends matte printouts and they are great, this one looks really really bad...

Am I missing something here? I have the right inks in, the right papers, the right color profiles... why would luster/gloss be 100% perfect, and then switch to MK and Matte paper and suddenly go to total crap?

Advice and ideas are greatly greatly appreciated.

[Sean Dempsey]

I made those changes, but still get the same results.

I am thinking it might be the cartridge, because the glossy PK looks great. There is literally no black on the matte printouts. The closest it gets is a muted brown/black color.

Maybe I'll try doing a matte paper with a PK cartridge. I don't know, maybe I should go to Staples and get a MK cartridge and try it out....

[Sean Dempsey]

Hmmm

if I open the portrait, convert it to CMYK, then in my channels box hide the black channel, that is similar to what it looks like. There is SOME black, but the effect is the same.

Maybe the cartridge is just bad? How would I find that out?