snow leopard dark prints again ... still

<p>I googled this and searched the photo.net archives my basic question: is there still a problem with Snow Leopard and printing specifically prints are too dark. Here is my situation and specifics.<br /><br />My "old" system was a PowerPc G5 running os 10.5.8. I'm running Photoshop cs3 and print to an Epson r1800 using the latest epson driver version 6.23. When I print from my old system the print I get is a reasonable match to what I see on the screen.<br /><br />My 27" iMac just arrived and I ran a target install of all my apps and files from my G5. To be absolutely sure, I went to epson downloads and loaded the epson driver. I checked the version and serial numbers and they are identical across both systems. Note: The epson r1800 does *not* have a specific driver for snow leopard but rather a universal binary that requires Rosetta which I had installed anyway for other older software.<br>

Similarly I downloaded the .icc profiles and am using epson premium glossy as my test paper. I also calibrated my iMac using Spyder2 2.2 but for the purposes of this discussion I would think that is irrelevant (correct me if I'm wrong... I'm far from a color management expert)<br>

I used the same file across the two systems. I printed the file using my G5 and it was fine. Using the exact same file and the exact same setting in Photoshop I simply unplugged the UsB cable from my G5 to my iMac and it is way way too dark. As far as I can tell the only variable is the OS ... everything else is identical. I tried this "workaround" from Luminous-landscape No joy,<br /><br />

<h3 >THE WORKAROUND</h3>

<p >For anyone having this problem, here is the workaround:</p>

<blockquote>

<blockquote>

<p ><strong>Open (untagged) profile target image in CS4.</strong></p>

<p ><strong>Edit -> Assign Profile... -> Adobe RGB. Click OK.</strong></p>

<p ><strong>File -> Print...</strong></p>

<p ><strong>Set Color Handling = Photoshop Manages Colors.</strong></p>

<p ><strong>Set Printer Profile = Adobe RGB.</strong></p>

<p ><strong>Set Rendering Intent = Relative Colorimetric.</strong></p>

</blockquote>

</blockquote>

Uncheck Black Point Compensation.<br /><br />Reading through the various postings throughout Apple and Adobe I gather that this is a well known problem but it has been months since it first surfaced. Is there no known workaround? Is it specific to the r1800 or are most Epson printers afflicted? </p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>It's sounds like there aren't a lot of options. Can you just lower the monitor's luminance (or brightness in the video settings) on that system to compensate? I use a glossy IPS panel (NEC 20WMGX2) on a PC, and my prints (Epson 2880) are too dark unless the monitor is at 89 cd/m^2 (Spyder3Pro 3.1.4).</p>

Paul, it is my understanding that this solution is a way to convince the OS to make a print without applying any profile

whatsoever, which turns out to be difficult with snow leopard. The only time you would want to do this (that I can think of) is

when you are printing target files meant to be read with a spectrophotometer in order to build color profiles. This essentially

tricks the OS into not applying a profile when printing. I don't think this is a good recipe for making prints in general. I am

getting quite accurate prints with snow leopard and both Epson 3880 and 11880 using the tried and true method with a

profiled monitor. (Turning off printer color management and using a printer/paper profile from photoshop).

<p>Mark and Brad,<br>

To clarify an add to my post in PS I my settings are "photoshop manages colors". Brad your suggestion of turning my monitor all the way down does not fix the problem in fact in makes it worse. So for example if I slide my brightness setting all the way down I'm looking at a file that looks like it was under exposed by one to two stops. So I can "fix" this by adjusting levels but the resulting file and output is horrible i.e. my file is properly exposed why would I set my monitor all the way down. Sure it matches the print but it does not really fix the problem because there is not way to properly adjust the file other than an artificial levels change that completely damages the output of a properly exposed file.<br>

Mark, I'm not sure what you are saying but I think what you are suggesting is what I'm doing. <br>

My frustration is at an all time high. It took me weeks to figure out how to make my G5 play nicely with my r1800 because the resulting prints were typically too bright. I eventually had to download Epson drivers from Europe (why they were not available in the US is beyond me) but that eventually fixed my problem.<br>

Now with this upgrade in hardware I have the reverse problem which is WORSE than the previous problem. What makes me very suspicious is that there is a specific Snow Leopard driver for the R1900 which is the later version of the r1800. There is no Snow Leopard driver for the R1800 which makes me think that Epson's solution is to force me to abandon this printer. I guess my next course of action is to contact Epson and enter phone tech support hell.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Mark and Brad,<br>

To clarify an add to my post in PS I my settings are "photoshop manages colors". Brad your suggestion of turning my monitor all the way down does not fix the problem in fact in makes it worse. So for example if I slide my brightness setting all the way down I'm looking at a file that looks like it was under exposed by one to two stops. So I can "fix" this by adjusting levels but the resulting file and output is horrible i.e. my file is properly exposed why would I set my monitor all the way down. Sure it matches the print but it does not really fix the problem because there is not way to properly adjust the file other than an artificial levels change that completely damages the output of a properly exposed file.<br>

Mark, I'm not sure what you are saying but I think what you are suggesting is what I'm doing. <br>

My frustration is at an all time high. It took me weeks to figure out how to make my G5 play nicely with my r1800 because the resulting prints were typically too bright. I eventually had to download Epson drivers from Europe (why they were not available in the US is beyond me) but that eventually fixed my problem.<br>

Now with this upgrade in hardware I have the reverse problem which is WORSE than the previous problem. What makes me very suspicious is that there is a specific Snow Leopard driver for the R1900 which is the later version of the r1800. There is no Snow Leopard driver for the R1800 which makes me think that Epson's solution is to force me to abandon this printer. I guess my next course of action is to contact Epson and enter phone tech support hell.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Here's a workaround to the problem that I should've thought of long ago. Rather than have PS manage colors I used "printer manages colors" and then selected Epson standard in the print settings dialog. Close to what I want and a huge improvement over the previous prints, This is at least workable and since I typically only use Epson paper will do me until there is an official fix.</p>

 

<p>I already see lots of problem in this little explanation</p>

<p>1_screen calibration is REALLY important, so yes its relevant to talk about it. What is the luminance to witch you set your calibration? 110-120 or higher.. Oh wait, a spider 2 WONT give you the option to tune your luminosity level.. so maybe (certainly) that your Imac is way too bright, normally it is ship with a 180cdm2 or around.. while you need something more like 110-120. A bright scree will make your print look too dark of course.</p>

<p>2_you dont APPLY a color space, you CONVERT to one, again that could yield to serious problem.</p>

<p>3_Then the other problem is that you set your PRINTER profile to adobe rgb.. you should set it to a paper profile such as SP1400_Glossy paper for example</p>

<p>4_you should ALWAYS check black point compensation</p>

<p>So basically, it seem that you just dont know how to print .. nothing to do with snow leopard ; )</p>

<p>follow this link to learn more, and buy this book to help you ;</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00MBIJ</p>

<p>Color Management for Photographers: Hands on Techniques for Photoshop Users by Andrew Rodney</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Reading through the various postings throughout Apple and Adobe I gather that this is a well known problem but it has been months since it first surfaced.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The “Fix” above produces a Null conversion (Assign Adobe RGB (1998), then set Adobe RGB (1998) as the output). That’s used for those who have an issue printing <strong>untagged</strong> targets for building profiles using some drivers under Snow Leopard. It should not be at all necessary if you are printing actual images with embedded profiles and using a color profile.</p>

<p>When you say the prints are too dark, they look too dark everywhere or they look darker than your display?</p>

<p>Andrew, the OP specifically states that his prints were fine on his old G5 system and now under the same settings on his new 27" iMac it prints dark as demonstrated in his linked image.</p>

<p>There's something really messed up somewhere and the only thing that's changed is going from CS3 to CS4 and from OS 10.5.8 to Snow Leopard. Also there's no Epson driver with updates for his r1800 that are specific to Snow Leopard.</p>

<p>Why are there still these issues with printer drivers and OS updates? Since I've been into digital imaging starting in '98 with an Epson Photo EX and Mac OS 8 and Photoshop 4 and up there's seems to always be printer issues concerning color, some big like this one and some small like the driver/OS Colorsync wanting to use the monitor profile as the definer of color with no solutions until an update between Epson, Mac and Adobe.</p>

<p>And you never knew who fixed it when it finally got fixed. Just one day you decide to reinstall some recent updated driver or Adobe/Mac OS update and all of a sudden it was fixed.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>There's something really messed up somewhere and the only thing that's changed is going from CS3 to CS4 and from OS 10.5.8 to Snow Leopard.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Its not something all users moving from those products are experiences, just the opposite (the results are the same) so something is off here for sure. Could be the version of the driver and lack of SN support. But the “fix” mentioned above is from an LL post that discusses printing targets and is setup this way to produce a null profile conversion where sending untagged data <strong>does</strong> invoke a bug (where, we don’t really know). </p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Why are there still these issues with printer drivers and OS updates?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Because various companies are changing the goal posts during the game. Apple does something that breaks a fix Epson or Adobe (or even Canon) produced to fix another bug and so on. For example, the bug fix above for untagged docs. You’d suspect it was a Epson or Snow Leopard bug. But you can also bypass the bug in SN using Preview! So then it looks as if the bug is in Photoshop. But that may not be the case. Its a big friggin mess. </p>

<p>Tim, you have to agree that it is in a way pretty sttrange that the OP have good result before if he was printing the way he describe here.. as nothing is good in is setting.. make me wonder what he call acceptable ; ) (no offense)</p>

<p>I have a epson 280, a 1400, a 2400, (had a 3800) and a 7880.. all WORK and give me consistent result, and im also on Snow Leopard since the day its release, was on a Mac pro Intel, now on a Imac 27inch (also have a macbook pro unibody).. because i know how to print.</p>

<p>The ASSIGN profile, the ADOBE RGB as the icc profile to print, the bright screen of the Imac 27 ALL this and even more will result in bad result. Whe are not even talkinbg about the epson driver yet that could also be the wrong one or the generic one instal by default by OS X (many user THINK they have the correct one because they download it and install it.. but ditn remove the generic one first).</p>

<p>let see if the OP can give us more details or feedback ..</p>

<p> </p>

<p>paul, forget phone tech support with Epson. Do this through emails. I learned my lesson dealing with Dell warranty claim on my Dell 2209WA and got an immediate replacement through email exchanges after around 10 days of phone tag and department bumping using Dell's customer service on the phone.</p>

<p>Emails also provide legally documented proof of services rendered. I don't think they can record all CSR phone exchanges to figure out what order number went to what case number.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Wonder if a bum installer and/or uncompressing downloaded updates is at fault. It's happened before with all three Adobe, Epson and Mac OS going back years.</p>

<p>patrick, the linked image sample the OP posted is more than matching to a bright new 27" iMac display. That dark print looks like a linear print I get off my Epson NX400 All In One when I turn everything off in the printer driver in OS 10.4.11 on my 2004 G5 iMac.</p>

<p>Tim, that could be due to the ASSIGN adobe RGB and the use of the adobe RGB as the PRINTER icc profile..?</p>

<p>Let me clarify with the following two screen shots of what I normally do. I wish I had not included that "fix" in my original posting because I will freely admit I had no idea what it was meant to do. I merely tried it because I was desperate and figured what harm could it do trying i but it seems to have caused a lot of confusion. Anyway here are the two screen shots of my normal settings for printing routine. This settings are identical from my G5 to my iMac. The screen on my G5 an Hp 2335 is calibrated and looks reasonably similar to my iMac. <br>

As far as I can tell the *only* variable is the OS (leopard on my G5 and Snow Leopard on my new iMac). As outlined earlier the procedure and settings are the same, the driver *appears* to be the same i.e. when I do a get info from the printer panel on the pref pane the driver version and serial number are identical what is on my G5. I ran the experiment where the only difference is unplugging the USB cable from my G5 to the iMac. I have run the experiment 4 times to make sure I have not inadvertently missed a setting<br>

Patrick, I have read many many of your postings and fully respect your depth of knowledge but I am at a loss to understand how this can be screen calibration issue i.e. I have my brightness turned up too high is what your are suggesting?<br>

If I turn my brightness all the way to the left the screen image is so dark that it is just about unusable. Furthermore, in examining my pictures on my iMac it would suggest that every image I took for the last 40 years is off (underexposed) by 1 or 2 stops which I know is not the case.<br>

As I pointed out earlier I have a workaround in using printer manages color option. Also I just tried printing from Aperture 2. It too is dark in output but only slightly whereas printing from CS3 is totally unacceptable and unusable. </p>

<p>Full disclosure, I have read many documents on color management but only have a vague working knowledge of how the pieces work together e.g. I calibrate my monitors (yes I probably should upgrade my calibration hardware) but I do not think that monitor calibration is at the root of this problem. <br>

I am using Photoshop Cs3 on both systems and since it was brought across in Target mode all environmental settings are the same.<br>

Of course thank you all for taking the time to read and post suggestions.<br>

PS<br>

Off topic and a simple question that I can't seem to find anywhere (yes I am exposing the depth of my stupidity) When people quote portions of a previous post it is highlighted in a grey box. How do you get that grey box around the portion you are quoting? </p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>next screen shot</p><div></div>

<p>OK, so with those 2 new screen shot all look fine as far as setting goes.. different from what you wrote earlier do.</p>

<p>So do the print look darker than the monitor, or they look dark also when you look at them close to a window let say?</p>

<p>You dotn need to turn the luminosity far to the left.. you need to turn it down to a know value like 110-120, on my Imac the brightness indicator is around the letter HT in the display setting. Of course, your work area should be also around those value.. a darker work place will show you a darker print vs the monitor</p><div></div>

<p>Patrick,<br>

Thanks for the screen shoot. That is essentially where I set my brightness level before starting the calibration process. For all of Apple's user interface genius you'd think they could put some tick marks under the brightness line so you would not have to refer to ht as a setting :)<br>

The prints are so dark that compared to the monitor that they are unusable. I would scan then but my scanner still needs to set up. The sample I attached simulates what the prints look like i.e. the shadow detail is completely blocked up. I typically judge all of my output from my printer under a True color ott-light so the shadow detail is completely blocked no matter what type of light inspect them with.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>The prints are so dark that compared to the monitor that they are unusable.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>But are the prints dark when you don’t compare them or look at them elsewhere? We need to know if this is a disconnect between print and display (that’s what its sounding like) OR an issue with the prints whereby the look off in all cases. And what are you using to view said prints next to the display? </p>

<p>Andrew, <br>

I'm using True Color OTT-Light to judge the prints. Yes, the monitor is showing one thing the printer is printing very dark compared to the image display. Also when I look at the prints in daylight of a window the shadow detail is completely blocked up. It's not an issue of my viewing conditions in my opinion if that is what you are driving at. The prints are not remotely close to what they should be.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>

 

<blockquote>

<p >When people quote portions of a previous post it is highlighted in a grey box. How do you get that grey box around the portion you are quoting?</p>

<p > </p>

</blockquote>

<p >Highlight the text making sure you don't include top and bottom carriage returns (or else it may become an oversized gray box) and click on the (")-quotes icon in the top gray panel containing the other typographic formating tools.</p>

<br />

<p > </p>

 

</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Yes, the monitor is showing one thing the printer is printing very dark compared to the image display.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>OK that needs to be resolved either by adjusting the luminance of the display and/or the OTT-Light which isn’t an ideal illuminant but that’s a different post. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Also when I look at the prints in daylight of a window the shadow detail is completely blocked up.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Just this one image or all images? </p>

<p>We need to figure out if the issue is the display and viewing conditions (sounds like it is, maybe partially) or an image issue, or a printer/profile issue. </p>

<p>I have experienced the same problem with an R1800. Comparing prints made with Epson profiles under Snow Leopard & Photoshop CS4 with prints made under (non-snow) Leopard and Photoshop CS4, I find the Epson profiled prints under Snow Leopard are darker than the Leopard ones. My fix was to generate my own profiles. I can now print the same image via Photoshop CS4 & Snow Leopard twice with one print using the Epson profiles and a second print using my own profiles and demonstrate that the Epson profiles produce darker prints. This is not an issue with monitor brightness. It is not an issue of double profiling. It is an issue with the Epson R1800 profiles under Snow Leopard.</p>

<p>No matter what it is, there is no where to start without knowing the monitor's exact luminance. The 110-120 that Patrick mentioned is what will match printers.</p>