[Gandhi]

Having a few issues with my new printer at the moment....

I was bored yesterday and being as thought the weather was crap I went out and treated myself to new Epson R220 photo printer. All I can say is.... WOW! Results are pretty darn good.

However, there is, as always, one minor fly in the ointment. All my prints are coming out too dark. Now, before anybody says it's my monitor, I'm 99.9% sure my gamma is correct on my screen. I've used Adobe Gamma to adjust it and checked it with a couple of places on the web. My workflow is all profiled to adobe 1998 Gamma.

I've followed the tutorial on here about printing, and had a bit of a look about on the net but I seem to be doing everything correctly.

Confused, Please shove me in the right direction!

[Steep]

Are you using icm, What paper are you using, have you got a printer profile for it, what software are you printing from, etc. etc. ?

Wait a while I'll think of more...

[Gandhi]

icm?

Ilford gallerie smooth glossy,

printing from PS CS2.

I have the profiles for the epson paper, but there are no profiles on the Ilford website yet for the R220.

[CT]

ICM - Intelligent Colour Matching. In this mode the printer disables all colour management and attempts to match it's output with what you see on the screen. It should be an option under 'Advanced' settings in your printer menu, and it's definitely worth giving it a go.

[Gandhi]

jst been running a series of test prints, and so far, the ICM option has produced the best results.

Now, should I be using ICM in the printer software, and selecting 'let printer determine colours' or should I use the ICC profile for my printer and let PS manage the colours?

I think the only way I'm gonna sort this is to do various test prints till I'm happy with the results!

[ASH]

Originally Posted by gandhi

jst been running a series of test prints, and so far, the ICM option has produced the best results.

Now, should I be using ICM in the printer software, and selecting 'let printer determine colours' or should I use the ICC profile for my printer and let PS manage the colours?

I think the only way I'm gonna sort this is to do various test prints till I'm happy with the results!

If you are going to use the ICM option from the printer divers then set CS2 to let printer determine colours.

To be honest what your monitor is showing has nothing to do with what your printer prints out. I spent the best part of a year with theses sort of problems.

If you want everything to be spot on you'll need to calibrate your monitor with something like a Spyder and then have custom profiles made for your printer, ink, and paper.

This is what I've done and I'm now getting great results. You also need to set up the colour settings correctly in CS2. Adobe gamma is ok but no way near as accurate as calibrating hardware.

I know it's more expensive but try using Epson paper I think you'll be pleased with the results.

[Steep]

I've just discovered that the place I linked to in the links forum for epson profiles has had to take them down. However I do still have the profile for the R300 which is the same for all the R range including my 200 and your 220. I chose this one because I use the Ilford gallerie classic pearl and it's best suited to that but it may be just as good for glossy too.

The profile is here http://www.marnoch.org/temp/MC_Luster.zip if you want it.

Unzip and copy the icc file to system32/spool/drivers/color/ and you will be able to choose it next time you want to print.

[Gandhi]

was that inkjetart by any chance? I did remember them having profiles, so looked and was a bit non-plussed when I couldn't find them!

Thanks for the profile. I've downloaded it, and I'll give it a try later. I downloaded the one from the ilford website for the paper, and the R300, as far as I'm aware they all use the same ink, so the profile should be ok, it seems to be pretty accurate from the couple of tests I've done since.

I don't think I'll bother with getting a profile made, or using hardware calibration just yet. Maybe when I can afford a pro printer and a big monitor the investment will be worth it. Until then, I've checked my gamma on various test images on the web, and it appears to be pretty accurate. I used this set of test images to check my gamma, and it appears ok

I'm gonna have a look around for some test images and print some of those too.

Thanks for all your help dudes!

[ASH]

Originally Posted by gandhi

was that inkjetart by any chance? I did remember them having profiles, so looked and was a bit non-plussed when I couldn't find them!

Thanks for the profile. I've downloaded it, and I'll give it a try later. I downloaded the one from the ilford website for the paper, and the R300, as far as I'm aware they all use the same ink, so the profile should be ok, it seems to be pretty accurate from the couple of tests I've done since.

I don't think I'll bother with getting a profile made, or using hardware calibration just yet. Maybe when I can afford a pro printer and a big monitor the investment will be worth it. Until then, I've checked my gamma on various test images on the web, and it appears to be pretty accurate. I used this set of test images to check my gamma, and it appears ok

I'm gonna have a look around for some test images and print some of those too.

Thanks for all your help dudes!

I've got some test charts, if you pm me I'll email them to you.

[Gandhi]

cheers dude. have pm'd you.

[ASH]

They've been sent, hope you got them.