Epson 2200 magenta colorcast revisited

[gt1]

I've seen several of the posts here and elsewhere regarding problems

using the Epson ICC profiles and Photoshop on Mac OS X. In my case

I'm using Photoshop Elements 3.0 and Mac OS 10.3.7. The one thing I

determined today that I hadn't seen mentioned by other people with

this problem is that this only happens when the printer is setup

with the photo black ink, if I've got the matte black ink installed

there is no magenta colorcast. <p>

My settings that cause the magenta colorcast (this is with the photo

black ink installed): <p>==========================================

<li>Source space: Document: Adobe RGB 1998 <li>Print space: Profile:

SP2100 Premium Semigloss_PK <li>Intent: Relative Colormetric

<li>=========================================== <li>Print settings:

Media type: Premium Semigloss Photo Paper <li>Ink: Color

<li>Advanced Settings: Print quality: 1440 dpi <li>Color management:

No color adjustment <li>===========================================

<p>

If I click on preview Mac's Preview opens up and the image is

displayed with a magenta colorcast. Since at this point I haven't

even printed, I've just created a Preview, it seems that the problem

is with Elements and the Epson ICCs.

<p>But everything works fine when I use the matte black ink:

<p>================================================= <li>Source

space: Document: Adobe RGB 1998 <li>Print space: Profile: SP2200

Enhanced Matte_MK <li>Intent: Relative Colormetric

<li>================================================= <li>Print

settings: Media type: Premium Enhanced Matte Paper <li>Ink: Color

<li>Advanced Settings: Print quality: 1440 dpi<li> Color management:

No color adjustment

<li>================================================= <p>Should I

give up on using Elements and the printer ICCs for color management?

 

Thanks, Greg

[david choo]

Not sure if this helps but here are my settings in PC format. I get very close color balance with them.

 

I do a "Print with Preview".

 

Then have Color Management set instead of Output.

 

As for Source Space, I have "Adobe RGB 1998" set. (this is the default color space i work in. The Epson can print beyond sRGB from what I've noticed.

 

Then I have the Print Space Profile set to, "Same As Source", which is AdobeRGB 1998.

 

Now once this is done, I hit print and it takes me to the printer settings...

 

There I set the paper to whatever paper I'm using... the software inputs the proper ICC for the paper.

 

I set my gamma in Color controls to 2.2 (I use PCs and they run at gamma 2.2 vs macs at 1.8)

 

Then i print away...

 

When printing B+W, I also use the Printer color controls and drop 1 point of magenta. This usually gives me a non color cast B+W print. And I have compared these prints to traditional chemical prints. It's pretty darn close. :)

 

Hope this helps.

[david choo]

Oh and make sure your original file is set to "AdobeRGB 1998", or whatever colorspace you normally work in BEFORE going to the print menus.

[john_houghton]

The fact that the printer driver preview has a magenta cast may well be due to the fact that the image supplied by Photoshop (in the printer colour space) has not been converted to sRGB for displaying in the preview window. This does not necessarily mean the image will print with a magenta cast. I have seen magenta previews on the Windows version and the actual prints come out normal despite this.

 

John

[dave_terry1]

John has it right. I have a 2200 with a mac G5 DP with OS 10.3.7 and photoshop CS, and I

never use the preview in the printer driver, I use the soft proof option in CS. I do "print

with preview" because that's how you get some of the advanced printing options, but I

never use the preview because it will usually show a magenta cast which isn't there when I

print.

 

Did you actually print using those settings, or did you stop when the Epson preview

showed a magenta cast?

[gt1]

Thanks for the feedback guys. Yes, I have printed several things, maybe it's an issue with Elements as I haven't read any recent problems with PS 7 or CS. And the weird thing is it's only when photo black is installed in the printer. I think I'm going to stick with David Choo's workflow but for the ICC printer profiles I'm going to double-check everything once more tonight.

[paulstenquist]

I print to an Epson 2200 from PS CS on a Mac G4 with cinema display and system 10.3.7. I

use colorsynch workflow and the corresponding generic rgb colorspace. i get virtually

perfect color rendition with both photo black ink and Matte black. The device profiles for

the Epson 2200 and Apple Cinema display are apparently very accurate, and all of the

Epson paper profiles that are supplied with the driver work very well.

Paul

[davesimpson]

Greg

 

I have experienced similar problems with Elements for some time. First with Elements 2 and again after upgrading to Elements 3. In my case with a Canon printer, but same symptoms you describe. Open Print preview, the preview image has a notable color cast when compared to the original screen. However the print matches the preview image quite closely.

 

Very annoying - you spend time adjusting the image only to have the preview image and subsequent print not match the adjusted image.

 

In my case, I discovered a fix by accident. Setting "color settings" in Elements to "No Color Management" seems to fix the problem.

(Edit/Color Settings/No Color Managent)

with this selection the preview image matches the original (no color cast in the preview) and the print very closely matches both the original and the preview images.

 

Only problem that I can see with this fix is that Elements does not recognize the color space information from the camera/scanner. Default is sRGB, although I don't see much difference between the two in most of my prints.

 

I suspect double profiles is the cause, but for the life of me can't figure out where/how. Like you, I have color management off at the printer driver (per canon instructions) so I don't think the problem is there.

 

I'd welcome any other ideas

[steven_clark]

Repeat after me: Software proofing is useful, but it is not gospel. Software proofing is useful but it is not gospel....

[parke_hitchings]

Looking at your settings I am wondering why you would be using relative colormetric.

Generally unless you have an incredibly calibrated system (e.i. a Monaco system) with both

your printer + paper combo and your monitor in sync, you would use Perceptual

Rendering Intent. Even then it is rare for most people to use that intent (its generally for

Commercial Presses I think)

This may be why your proof is coming out a magenta color.

Check out the Monaco website for some details on how it all works (including rendering

intents). They will even give you a brochure which explains a lot.