Printing woes!

box · 27 Apr 2009 at 13:33

We've got an Epson Photo R1800 at work, but it has never seemed to print anything properly. The colours are always WAY off, normally leaning towards the magenta. It has real trouble printing shadows and dark areas, especially facial textures. In areas of darkness, a lot of detail is lost, as if the area has been flooded with black ink. Areas of black can also sometimes be printed as a 'dirty orange' colour.

I've done pretty much everything I can think of. I cleaned the nozzles, and they are all clear. I've changed colour profiles, adjusted gamma, reinstalled printer drivers, used different PCs/Macs. Nothing seems to make a difference.

Below are some sample shots. The first is the original digital copy. The second is a scanned printout. For an example of the kind of problem I'm talking about, just take a look at the yellow/orange 'halos' around the details over the left shoulder. The area in general has also lost most of its detail.

This has been going on for over a year now and it is starting to drive me insane! Any ideas?

gt_junkie · 27 Apr 2009 at 13:40

Having looked at reviews it looks like a very nice printer.

I'd either question the calibration of the printer (and your PC screen too since both should closely match) or alternatively consider that this may be a fault with the printer itself.

Orange/muddy blacks just seem weird to me and the blue/purple hue seems strange too??? :confused:

gt

box · 27 Apr 2009 at 13:51

Just another comparison for you...

Notice the shades of yellow in the armpit of the printout!

These are a lot more pronounced on paper.

Original

Print-out -- Image colour profile left unchanged - Printer colour profile set within printer to EPSON driver (glossy)

gt_junkie · 27 Apr 2009 at 13:53

Yeah i can see them - it's almost like the colour profile is running out of range so it just gives up printing the black correctly? :confused:

Saw something similar when someone sent some pictures to an online photo printing service - they came out much like this and it turned out to be a faulty profile in the end.

Do you use any callibration hardware?

gt

rpstewart · 27 Apr 2009 at 14:06

I'll admit I'm no expert in colour profiles etc but I have found with my R800 (the A4 version) when printing to CDs I was getting similar symptoms. Turns out that by fiddling the paper type (selecting semi-gloss photo paper rather than premium CD) I got far better results.

gt_junkie · 27 Apr 2009 at 14:15

Good point RP - had this happen before.

Also, are you using adobe, lightroom or anything similar?

I only ask since a friend of mine who also uses an Epson A3 printer had adobe mess up their colour profiles which resulted in terrible print issues.

gt

box · 27 Apr 2009 at 14:19

All I'm doing at the moment is printing straight out of Preview, keeping things as basic as possible, and allowing the printer to assign a colour profile.

I've also tried switching off the printer's colour management and setting this up in Photoshop instead, but to no avail.

gt_junkie · 27 Apr 2009 at 14:23

Might have been photoshop then - my friend suspected that photoshop had altered the colour profile on install meaning it was borked.

If i was you i'd try the printer in a different (non-photoshopped) PC and see if your print colour accuracy improves!

gt

box · 27 Apr 2009 at 14:30

gt_junkie said:
Might have been photoshop then - my friend suspected that photoshop had altered the colour profile on install meaning it was borked.

If i was you i'd try the printer in a different (non-photoshopped) PC and see if your print colour accuracy improves!

gt

The said printer is shared between over 20 Macs/PCs in the department, all with an identical problem.

box · 27 Apr 2009 at 14:32

Image colour profile forced to sRGB - Printer profile set to sRGB...

Image colour profile left as standard - Printer profile set to sRGB...

What strikes me is that, yes, changing the colour profile makes a difference. But there just seems to be an underlying problem in that everything is flooded with magenta.

gt_junkie · 27 Apr 2009 at 14:34

Very strange then - are they all using the same/similar software?

If they are then i'd still use a basic standalone PC to check how it prints out of the box. If they aren't using identical software then i'd consider that the printer was faulty.

That said, my first impulse really would be to try to print out with a PC that is completely unrelated to the department - it would just rule out any common software based issues.

gt

box · 28 Apr 2009 at 14:14

Tried printing on my laptop from home. Image is almost identical to the first print-out above. :mad:

I'm at a loss as to what to do...

True_Scotsman · 28 Apr 2009 at 14:18

What software are you using for printing?

As i had this problem before with an older Epson (R200) while just using the windows print viewer. I changed to the Original Epson printing software to print out and the prints were as they should be.

Hope this helps.