I have CS4 on Tiger 10.4.11 on a completely color managed system, Epson 4800 printer. Printing seems to be broken in the new version. Prints are very dark. I know to select "Photoshop Manages Color" in Color Handling, and "No Color Management" in the printer color management dropdown. The procedure works fine in CS3.
That something is up is suggested by this wrinkle. In this case I am printing using advanced b/w. If under color handling I choose "Printer Manages Color" and go into the b/w advanced setup, it’s still too dark. If instead I choose "No color management", then make my choices in advanced b/w, it works fine.
One would first think that it’s a double color management problem, but I’m turning it off anywhere I can see it in CS4, and still having problems. Is there a new secret handshake I haven’t puzzled out yet?
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Really, "No Color Management", choice #3, after Printer Manages Colors and Photoshop Manages Colors, in the Color Handling dropdown. See here: <http://www.dougplummer.com/clients/cm2.jpg>
In the Color Handling box where you selected "No Color Management", you should have chosen "Photoshop Manages Color".
And then in Printer Profile, you need to choose the profile for the paper on which you are printing.
Then you need to click on the "Print" Button
In the dialog which now opens, choose Color Management (from the drop-down menu in the third box) and make sure that "No Color Adjustment" is selected there.
Then Print.
If prints are regularly too dark on certain matte papers, and you are unable to have a Custom profile made, you may find it helpful to add an overall Adjustment Curve to the file before printing.
I use one for a particular matte stock where an Input of 100 provides an Output of 120; and I save this curve as a Preset so that I can load it as needed.
I see there is some confusion in how I explained my workflows. Here are the Standard Operating Procedures.
For color prints, or for when I want to use a specific output profile I select: Photoshop Manages Colors, and pick the appropriate profile. I use a Perceptual rendering intent with Black Point Compensation checked.
When you press Print you have another series of settings, many of which I have saved as custom presets. The crucial ones are Print Settings, where you choose the proper media type, as Epson adjusts nozzle flow differently under each selection, and Printer Color Management, where Off (No Color Adjustment) is the proper choice.
Using the Advanced Black and White functions requires a different series of choices, which has led to this confusion over why I would ever turn off Color Management. In that workflow I select Printer Manages Colors (in CS3 this works fine) or No Color Management (which appears to be the only way to get Epson b/w to work under CS4). Then under Print Settings you have the option under Color to choose Advanced B&W Photo, whereupon you have those lovely settings under Printer Color Management. Darker is the default setting, for no apparent reason, yet it appears to be the correct choice.
Using the Advanced Black and White functions requires a different series
of choices
I think your best information on this workflow will be in your epson manual…if dark prints are the issue, why are you saying Darker is the correct choice?
It appears in your linked photo that a lot of your pixels are in the lower zones (which look dark and problematic to me going to 4800 Epson ink), maybe you need to reevaluate your file in those areas (for the printer/paper/ink)…
No, Advanced Black and White is not broken. Everything there works fine. "Darker" gives me the print density I want, and it’s the default, and correct, setting. It’s when you involve Photoshop in managing colors that things go awry.
pardon me, doesn’t the epson manual specifically tell you not to use Let Photoshop Manage Color when using their Advanced Black and White driver — what is the problem
Thank you for clarifying the issue with your screen shot. For some reason, I was under the (mistaken) impression you were referring to a setting in the printer driver, not the Photoshop print dialog box.
The only time I would choose No Color Management in Photoshop’s print dialog is when printing a target to create a printer profile.
Incidentally, you might want to take note of this post in another thread:
Eric Chan, "Printer Dialog Box in CS4 – Printing Grayscale Images" #26, 4 Dec 2008 8:57 pm </webx?14/25>
Eric Chan – 8:57pm Dec 4, 08 PST (#26 of 26)
Camera Raw Engineer
That’s a good idea. Unfortunately, that still doesn’t work correctly under Leopard. (i.e., the results from that effort will not match the results from printing under Tiger, or from printing under Windows with CS4, nor match the results from printing under Leopard with CS3).
To make a very long story short, this is a matter currently being investigated jointly by Adobe and Epson. With CS4 on the Mac, Adobe has switched to using the newer printing interfaces supplied by Apple (ultimately a requirement moving forward), with the side effect of going through different driver paths than CS3 did.
In the meantime, if you are printing from Tiger to the ABW driver, as you are Doug, using No Color Management is probably the easiest option. (However, note that this will not work under Leopard …)
BTW, what are your RGB and Gray working spaces in CS4’s Color Settings?
No Color Management is probably the easiest option
Hmm… I went back and looked at my Epson 7880 manual for the Adv BW instructions (I used this option once before under CS3-Ps-10.4x and got good results).
Outside of Ps, Epson manual recommends:
PRINT SETTINGS set Media Type set Adv BW uncheck High Speed
PRINTER COLOR MANAGEMENT Color Toning (Neutral/Warm/Cool, ect) Tone: Darker/Lighter
Inside of Ps, Epson notes:
"If you are printing from Photoshop, make sure you do not use Photoshop’s color management settings when using Adv BW Photo mode. There are no profiles associated with this screening and color management technology."
I seemed to recall setting "Printer Manages Color" on my job — but Eric is recommending selecting "No Color Management" in the Ps dialog we get after hitting Command+P in Photoshop?
++++++++
I am still printing out of CS3/10.4.11, but have to admit I don’t understand what’s going on…
Eric, glad to have you chime in here. It sounds like my initial impression is correct, that printing in CS4 is broken, and we need to wait for the update. My workflow now is to work on the files in CS4, flatten and save as a duplicate, and print that from CS3.
For files destined for print I use either Adobe RGB or ProPhoto for color spaces, including for b/w.
The lack of responses to that question seems to be the answer to it.
Exactly!
What 10.5.6 will bring is anybodies guess. When will we see is getting to be an even bigger question.
As for those running Epson printers you really should be getting on Epson’s case about creating a plugin for PS like Canon does.
This Adobe blaming Apple and the Printer/drivers, Apple blaming Adobe and the Printer/drivers, Printer/drivers blaming Apple and Adobe is getting to be pointless when nothing ever get fixed and every-bodies update breaks something else. And, I can go on and on about what application version, OS version, printer driver version works and does not work or what workarounds to try.
Frankly I am tired of wasting my time on this, and I don’t see much of a chance any of this will get fixed anytime soon. It is like nobody tests any of this before they release updates and we (the end user) end up being the beta testers for all of this or getting screwed – however you want to take this.
My response from now on is going to be, get a Canon and use the plugin (or any other printer that uses a plugin) or get a RIP.
Hmm… I went back and looked at my Epson 7880 manual for the Adv BW instructions
Those instructions don’t work all the time because they make assumptions about the document working space (specifically, the gamma encoding used).
This is precisely why I spent a long time in 2007 researching the topic and ended up writing software to build ICC profiles to be used with the ABW driver. That way the guesswork is taken out of the equation.
Again I am going to ask. Does anybody know of any Printer/Driver combinations that actually work correctly with CS4 and Leopard?
Sure. Here are a few Epson models that I know of: R1900, R2400, R2880, 3800, 4800, 4880, 7800, 7880, 7900, 9800, 9880, 9900, 11880. Just as long as you’re printing via the RGB color driver. (I believe the HP Z-series printers work as well but have not personally verified this.)
Doug writes:
It sounds like my initial impression is correct, that printing in CS4 is broken …
To the ABW driver under Leopard? Yes.
In general? No.
… and we need to wait for the update.
Yes, but not necessarily from Adobe.
It remains to be seen exactly where the problem is and who will provide the fix or workaround. The update will come from some subset of Adobe, Apple, and/or Epson.
(Epson Advanced B&W driver) make assumptions about the document working
space (specifically, the gamma
So, Eric, you are saying we need to Convert to a space (or gamma) in Photoshop before Command+P — because the Epson Adv B&W driver will assume a color space/gamma — what would that assumption be based on (gamma of our Mac default MonitorRGB)? Assuming I am not talking about feeding the Epson grayscale.
Does this CS4-Apple-Epson issue have anything to do with some users reporting dark prints in Photoshop Manage Color – No Color Adjustment Epson workflow? — For example, someone using 1.8 gamma Monitor RGB…
Sure. Here are a few Epson models that I know of: R1900, R2400, R2880, 3800, 4800, 4880, 7800, 7880, 7900, 9800, 9880, 9900, 11880. Just as long as you’re printing via the RGB color driver. (I believe the HP Z-series printers work as well but have not personally verified this.)
Eric, thank you very much for posting that. Now people will at least know what can be eliminated in their search to correct what color problem they may be encountering.
So, Eric, you are saying we need to Convert to a space (or gamma) in Photoshop before Command+P — because the Epson Adv B&W driver will assume a color space/gamma — what would that assumption be based on (gamma of our Mac default MonitorRGB)? Assuming I am not talking about feeding the Epson grayscale.
Yes.
The ABW driver wants to be fed gamma 2.2-encoded image data.
This is why my standard recommendation for printing to the ABW driver __ONLY__ is to use:
Color Handling = Photoshop Manages Colors Printer Profile = Adobe RGB Rendering Intent = Relative Colorimetric Black Point Compensation = Enabled
Why does this work? Because no matter what your image working space is (e.g., sRGB, Adobe RGB, ProPhoto RGB, Apple RGB, ColorMatch RGB, etc.), doing this will cause your image data to be encoded in gamma 2.2 before the data gets passed off to the driver. (Adobe RGB has a gamma encoding of 2.2.)
The same workflow will work in Lightroom, too. You just need to check the "Display Profiles" checkbox in Lightroom to access Adobe RGB when selecting a printer profile.
If you are in grayscale mode instead of RGB mode, choose "Gray Gamma 2.2" instead of "Adobe RGB" for the printer profile.
However, the catch is that — as noted in this thread — there is currently a glitch, which we (Adobe + Apple + Epson) are investigating. One of the symptoms of that glitch is that the above suggested workflow does not work on Leopard.
Does this CS4-Apple-Epson issue have anything to do with some users reporting dark prints in Photoshop Manage Color – No Color Adjustment Epson workflow? — For example, someone using 1.8 gamma Monitor RGB…
I started dealing with this in CS3, I took the time to figure out that CS3 wanted me to lay down too much ink. All of this fuc_kedupedness started with CS3 and you are just now noticing it?
I love it when people who are supposed to know what they’re doing go around and around. Now the whole damn country and most of the rest of the world is doing it. Why doesn’t some one fix ColorSync while they’re at it?
With CM by PS the Color Matching selection in the driver setup are still grayed out but in Main/Color/Set/ No Correction in now the choice. It used to default to ColorSync which resulted in double profiling when printing from PSCS4. The behavior is now back to the way it was in PSCS3. Plugin still works fine with the 1.91 drivers installed.
I can also select Fast Graphic Process but I still cannot select monochrome.
All I did was install the iPF81009100-Drv-MacX5-191. I did not add any printers. Just installing this driver fixed this problem.
I suspect for those with the iPF5000 installing the 1.90 driver would fix this as well.
Under the advanced B&W setup, there are choices for darkness settings. The default is darker. If you have not already, reset it to normal. I am not sure what names they use, since I am at work and do not have access to the printer. But you will see what I mean.
Yes, but the Darker setting really is the "normal" setting. When you send a gamma 2.2 file through ABW, that Darker setting should give you a print that very closely matches your calibrated screen.
This is to all Epson R1800 users that have had trouble printing with Intel Mac’s in CS4 or LR2. Despite everyone’s suggestions in this forum, I couldn’t get anything to work. The prints were too dark and adjusting the image to lighten it before printing defeated the purpose of working in a color managed workflow. I found a thread on these Adobe Forums (now lost) that suggested downloading the R1800 driver from the Epson European site – Epson UK. The Driver is 6.23 and is listed as 322037eu dmg. You will find it if you look on the right side menu, select your printer model, operating system etc and download. It is a 66mb file so it takes a while. I am not advocating this but it worked for me. You have to remove the old driver (6.12) then install the new driver. There might be some other adjustments depending or your particular setup. For example, the paper names are different and the menus aren’t the same.
By the way, if you look at this site it is clear that the Europeans clearly anticipated the advent of Leopard and began the process of developing drivers to suit. No pun intended but why do we live in the dark ages?
OMG…I have spent all day printing the same image small test papers varying one option at a time. My images either come out too dark or too light…not at all what is on my calibrated screen.
I am printing on an Epson R1800 from CS4 on a Mac Pro (intel-based) running leopard. I am so frustrated. I figured a work-around in CS3, but it jsut isn’t the same, or even close in CS4, and forget about turning off the printer color managment…that is just terrible.
Tom, I am totally going to do this tonight. I’ll run a back-up first, just in case. Then try it. THANKS for the idea and all the numbers!
Wnderlnd – I’m having Magenta problems today. I didn’t change anything overnight. I’m also frustrated with my R1800. There is a magenta cast on my prints!!! I used hue/saturation to put a plus 8 to get an acceptable print. I’ve checked everything! And tried the old driver and tried CS3. No more time today.
I have the exact same problem. When printing on my Epson 3800 from CS4 all prints too dark. If I switch back to CS3 all prints as it is supposed to. When I contacted Adobe, I was told that the engineers will get back to me on the issue and that there does not seem to be any solution available at the moment. So just forget CS4 and use CS3.
Then you need specific profiles for those papers in conjunction with your printer. All profiles have to be specific to one combination of printer/ink/paper. But I gather you know that already
went to the Epson UK site, and there is no Epson 3800 printer. Is that printer called something else in the UK?
Very likely, but then the profile for the UK model won’t work with your printer. I use the Epson 2200, which is the 2100 in the UK and the rest of Europe. The profile for the 2100 and my Epson 2200 do not recognize each other.
I sould add: CS4 running under 10.4.11 is generating outstanding, right-on-target prints on my Epson 2200.
If you don’t use Epson Papers (or have custom profiles for the papers that you do use) you are sailing in troubled waters.
Experiment with some of the Paper profiles that you do have and see if one of them gives better results with your paper.
Are you sure that you have set "Photoshop Manages Colors" and that your Profile is the same in both the first Print window and in the Print Settings in the second window; and that Color Management (n the second window) shows: "Off (No Color Adjustment)".
Yes I checked the settings a dozen times. All is set the way I had it in CS3, the same as you describe. I also called the company who does my paper profiles, and they don’t think the profiles have to change from CS3 to CS4. Epson said not to waste time with this and wait for a patch.
Do a search both here and in the Lightroom forum for "ColorSync Utility" and you will find a way to work around this issue with Epson driver that are not properly updated for Leopard which causes double profiling with CS4.
Thanks to everyone who pitched in and offered suggestions. The puzzle seems solved and here is what I did to get CS4 to print correctly:
Original Problem: CS4 prints too dark. When I switch to CS3 without changing any other parameters, all is well, and the prints come out properly.
SOLUTION: I was lucky to have a laptop with CS4 that printed just fine. I noticed that the Epson printer driver on the MacBook Air was different from the driver on my iMac. The iMac driver had been updated to the latest version while the MacBook had not been updated but rather had a fresh version of the driver installed.
Hoping this was the key i deleted to trash the Epson printer driver on my iMac (StylusPro3800-09A6E5 (IP)).
Next i downloaded the latest printer driver for the Epson 3800 from the Epson website (StylusPro3800-09A6E5) and installed it from scratch on the iMac
I then went to system preferences and opened Print & Fax deleting the Epson 3800 printer (hit the – button). I reinstalled the Epson printer from scratch. Hit the + sign and wait until the printer is found (printer has to be on) . The OSX interface will find the new driver and install the printer with the new driver.
I launched CS4 and the prints no longer looked too dark, but identical to CS3.
Hope this helps anyone who has run into the same problem.
" Again I am going to ask. Does anybody know of any Printer/Driver combinations that actually work correctly with CS4 and Leopard?
Sure. Here are a few Epson models that I know of: R1900, R2400, R2880, 3800, 4800, 4880, 7800, 7880, 7900, 9800, 9880, 9900, 11880. Just as long as you’re printing via the RGB color driver."
I’ve been running tests on my 9900 in the past few days. Yesterday I printed Gretag TC9.18 RGB profile targets from a MacPro running 10.5.5. As far as I know there is only one 9900 driver as it’s so new. I printed the target from CS3 and CS4 both in exactly the same manner – No Color Management in the Adobe print dialog and in the Epson driver with the same Velvet Fine Art media setting chosen.
Comparing the two data files read on a Spectrolino/Spectroscan with UV filter using Gretag’s Measure Tool, the two data files show a maximum Delta E of an astonishing 20.72 on the patch with the greatest difference and many patches in the 10-16 Delta E range.
This indicates something VERY different going on in the data paths between CS3 and CS4. Visually the CS4 version looks just slightly LIGHTER than the CS4 version, but it’s the extreme Delta E difference that is so troubling.
Given this massive difference, how the hell is Epson making profiles for these printers? You would have to know exactly how your customers were going to print.
My contact inside Epson was at the studio today (Southern Ca. advantage) and I’ve sent her copies of the data files as well as screen shots of the Measure Tools comparison along with some of Eric Chan’s info. So far no one I’ve spoken to at Epson really seems to understand the complexity of the problem.
I have not yet generated the CS4 profiles and made comparison print from the Leopard/CS4 combo. That may have to wait until after I print a 400 print order in the next week and a half.
CS4 and Tiger is no problem at all, but you can’t run Tiger on a new MacPro. For the meantime, it’s going to have to be CS3 on the MacPro until this mess is figured out.
A sure indication that that CM is not being turned off in the CS4/Leopard Epson driver combination. I bet if you change the profiles in the ColorSync Utility that you will get a different output.
Somewhere somehow the assigned profiles (look in the CU) for the selected media is still being picked up in the printflow even with CM turned off in the driver.
The latest drivers for the Canon iPFX100 series printers get this right, so it can be done.
If that’s the case, and it may be, then, in order to print to Epson with CS4 and Leopard, you’d have to change the CU default profile every time you changed your media. I’ll experiment with this and see.
With an Epson PC/XP driver I can choose the Epson drivers AND do selective modifications from the same GUI. Why can’t you do that with a Mac?
You can do selective modifications from the same GUI, but if the drivers are not fully updated (correctly) for Leopard then CM will not be truly off.
It appears that there is a correct procedure(from Apple for Leopard) for implication no CM in the driver. Apparently the CS3 printing routine does not implement this correctly, but for what every reason with most printer drivers it actually works. CM off in the driver that is.
Apparently the CS4 printing routine does implement this correctly, but for what every reason with most drivers it does not work. CM off in the driver that is.
It appears to me, be it Apple or Adobe or both that there is an effort to idiot proof the driver setting when choosing Application Manages Color to force the driver to no CM. So if the driver is not written correctly it is still being forced to do something else, and that might be picking up the default profile for the media selected.
I don’t believe you are going to get Adobe or Apple to make any changes, so the ball is in Epson’s court.
If you do a search for the issue we fought with, with LR1.3.1 and was corrected in LR1.4.1 and was brought back with LR2.0 you will get a better understanding of this whole mess.
Profiles alone don’t cure all problems. Or do they?
Perhaps I’m off-base, if enlightenment is available have at it. Anyhow:
The main thing is I can tweak on the fly with my PC/XP (Elements 7) and Epson printer/GUI. On Macs it’s always been oh heck, print’s off, go back and work on the original file even though the eyedroppers are spot on and the driver is right.
With CS1 and me, on the fly has was never possible on my G3, PB G4, or my MacPro laptops. Seems like a crude and inflexible workflow logic to me. Turn on the PC/XP, combine the profile with a tweak in the GUI, bingo it prints. What’s so hard about that?
What’s with all the negotiations when using a Mac anyhow? Granted, there are better options than the Epson GUI.
Profiles don’t cure all problems, but a good custom made profile (and I’ve been making them for many years now) sure go a long way. If you used a custom profile and either converted in Ps or used the Let Ps Manage Color dialog, which is ostensibly the samething minus the live preview, you would never have had access to the "Color Controls" dialog, if you’re doing things correctly. If you did convert in Ps and then accessed Color Controls then you would be double profiling. If you had access to great custom made profiles you would never ever want to use those adjustments again – one – because they’re very crude, and two, because they just aren’t in same league in terms of what they can accomplish.
The problem right now, and we’ll have to see how Epson addresses the problem, is that there is something different going on in the CS4 data path that is providing a non expectant result when trying to pass off "raw" data to the printer. You need to be able to pass raw RGB to the driver in order to make a profile, and you need to be able to repeat that data path exactly in order for the profile to be valid. That the two "raw" data paths for CS3 and CS4 are very different indicates a problem needing to be addressed.
I was beginning to think that Adobe and Apple were right about the printers and their drivers and compatibly with Leopard.
But after checking out LR2.3RC today I am SHOCKED. In fact I am so SHOCKED I am really at a loss for words, or maybe I should say I am so PISSED it is best to say no more.
Has there been any progress on this issue? I have quite a few systems in a computer lab setting and have just upgraded to CS4 and have been seeing this problem on both our Epson 3800 and 2400 printers. Here’s the setup that we have:
G4 towers and G5 Imacs running 10.4.11 Adobe Photoshop 11.01 All displays calibrated. Latest Epson printer drivers installed.
When I print a color test chart on CS3, the colors match the display. However on CS4 it looks very dark and muddy… almost as if preserve color numbers had been checked on in proofing. I’m using the identical workflow for both programs, along with the canned Epson profiles which have worked great so far. I’ve also tried the Epson UK drivers, deleting and adding the printer and making it the default one, with no luck. At this point, I’m going to attempt a re-install, but I’m not holding my breath.
It sounds as if you are going to have to invest in Custom Profiles for your printers?
I can only tell you that CS4 printing works perfectly for me (ie: it prints as an almost identical match to the Soft Proof preview for the correct Paper Profile, plus Simulated Paper Color, on an Epson R1900 from a G5 on OSX 10.4.11).
To what intensity/brightness are you calibrating your Monitor?
And by how much does the printed and dried result differ from View menu/Proof Colors (when set-up to simulate paper color?
You may just need to re-calibrate and profile your monitors to a lower Intensity?
With 10.4.11 you should not be seeing this difference between CS3 and CS4. I thought it was only a 10.5.x issue. All though we did see this issue with LR1.3 that was then corrected in LR1.4. As to the LR2.3RC problem it was corrected in the LR2.3 final release.
Have you tried the ColorSync workaround?
Your printers are register in ColorSync?
It is possible because CS4 is different than CS3 is in 10.5.x that there could be something that is setting (by default) or changes something in the driver that is causing the double profiling in 10.4.11.
This actually has nothing to do with the color profiles and yes, I had this problem with 10.5.6. I had the exact same problem and was able to solve it as follows:
My Original Problem: CS4 prints too dark. When I switch to CS3 without changing any other parameters, all is well, and the prints come out properly.
SOLUTION: I was lucky to have a laptop with CS4 that printed just fine. I noticed that the Epson printer driver on the MacBook Air was different from the driver on my iMac. The iMac driver had been updated to the latest version while the MacBook had not been updated but rather had a fresh version of the driver installed.
Hoping this was the key i deleted to trash the Epson printer driver on my iMac (StylusPro3800-09A6E5 (IP)).
Next i downloaded the latest printer driver for the Epson 3800 from the Epson website (StylusPro3800-09A6E5) and installed it from scratch on the iMac
I then went to system preferences and opened Print & Fax deleting the Epson 3800 printer (hit the – button). I reinstalled the Epson printer from scratch. Hit the + sign and wait until the printer is found (printer has to be on) . The OSX interface will find the new driver and install the printer with the new driver.
I launched CS4 and the prints no longer looked too dark, but identical to CS3.
I’m not sure, but it sounded like you have not yet installed the new printer driver, and fully deleted the old one. Not an "update", but a full reinstall of the driver is necessary. (Dated 09/18/08 for the MAC)
Deleted the printer from Print/Fax (PrintCenter) by pressing – downloaded the driver from Epson. ran the uninstall option to delete any previous driver. ran the install option to add the new one. Added the printer to Print/Fax (PrintCenter) by pressing +
The driver that I’m using is epson12786.dmg I haven’t heard of the StylusPro3800-09A6E5 that you’re mentioning. is it from another region on Epson’s site?
On another note, I ran the same file, but had the printer handle the color, and it came out almost identical to the one I did in CS3. Very frustrating 🙁
Printer Driver – Tiger v3.57, Leopard v6.11 Intel-based Macs with OS X (v10.4.4 – v10.5.x), PowerPC Macs with OS X (v10.3.9 – v10.5.x) epson12786.dmg – 38.7MB – posted on 09/18/08
The new driver you downloaded seems to be correct. You just have the name of the dmg file before uncompressing it. I did not do an unistall, I just dragged the old driver to the trash and deleted it. This should not make any difference. All the steps you took seem correct. You removed the old driver from the trash etc. I’ll write again if I can think of anything else…
My problem is having 2 Epson printers. I am on a MacPro – running OS 10.5.6. I use Photoshop CS4 – and I have a new 9900 connected with USB – and a 9800 connected with Firewire.
The 9900 is selected as the default printer under Print and Fax on the MacPro.
I switched the 9800 to MK (I donated my older 9600 to an art department – that was my old MK printer).
Now, the 9900 is near-perfect, but the 9800 prints everything with blocked-up blacks. Any region with black in it is just solid black.
I tried several profiles for the 9800 – including one I made with my X-Rite i1 – mostly with Somerset Velvet for Epson. None of the profiles cured the blocked-up blacks on the 9800.
There is a suggestion that a printer NOT selected as the default pinter ignores "Photoshop controls color" – and, therefore, ignores my profiles.
Is that the case here?
I am in Chicago today – attending an Epson workshop. I’ll bring up the issue there.
There is a suggestion that a printer NOT selected as the default pinter ignores "Photoshop controls color" – and, therefore, ignores my profiles.
Is that the case here?
That theory can be easily tested in one of two ways:
* either make the printer your default profile (it takes seconds and can be easily reversed); or * Convert your image file to your target profile, then let the Printer Manage Colors.
That theory can be easily tested in one of two ways:
either make the printer your default profile (it takes seconds and can be easily reversed); or Convert your image file to your target profile, then let the Printer Manage Colors.
That should confirm or disprove that theory.
When I get back to the studio, I will do the test.
Make sure that it actually takes the default setting. On some systems setting it from the Printer & Faxes preference pane does not take. Check the CUPS interface <http://127.0.0.1:631/printers> to see for sure. You can set the default printer from the CUPS interface if you cannot set it from the Printer & Faxes preference pane.
This issue has been driving me crazy. Thanks to all that posted. I am using the following:
Mac OS 10.5.6 MacPro Spyder color calibrated cinema monitor Epson Stylus Pro 3800 Epson Enhanced Matte paper (for B&W)
I also have LR 2 and PS CS4 installed.
For the life of me I could not get my B&W prints to come out right in CS 4 or LR 2. After reading here, I selected "Edit in Photoshop CS3" from Lightroom’s library. I printed as usual from CS3 (PS manages colors, using SPro 38 EMP profile). Perfect results.
Too bad I burned so much paper & ink, not to mention hair (!) trying to get to this point. I hope someone releases an update to fix this issue with CS4 soon.
This whole process is logical nonsense to me, sorry. On a color printing head in the darkroom you had three color corrections, plus you had a timer for exposure time, and an f/stop on the lens.
There is such an endless clutter of obstructions in digital printing. Sure, if you find the right combination great. But look at the misery that smart engineering could eliminate. So where is the smart engineering?
This is interesting. I’ll test this tomorrow when I get to the studio. I’ll print out a profile target from CS3, which works fine in Leopard with the 9900 as the default printer, measure that the compare it to a CS4 version of the same target printed with the 9800 as the default printer.
I’m thinking that this can’t be enough to "fix" this problem, but measuring two targets and comparing them in ProfileMaker’s Measure Tool will tell just how different the two options really are, within the tolerance of the Spectrolino.
If, in fact they produce statistically similar results, that will be more information for my contacts at Epson, who are already aware that there is a problem of sorts.
One update: The prints from CS3 were not as sharp as the earlier prints. Don’t know why. My ink cartridges (SP3800) are getting low, but that should not be the problem. I applied the sharpen filter then printed at 2880/best quality in ABW.
I hope we get this fixed. BTW, I can’t get good prints out of LR 2 either–same exact issue as with PSCS4. Too bad too, because the sharpening is awesome.
Oddly, I managed to get some recently taken and edited photos printed straight from LR2, (I had to lighten them in ABW) but not the older photos–those had to be printed from CS3.
aviduser, it is an issue we (Adobe) are currently pursuing with the print vendors. The hope is that they will release updated printer drivers that resolve the issue (however, as the ball is in their court it is not something we can ultimately control). Nearly all of the current printer models already have updated drivers; generally it’s the older models whose drivers need a refresh.
Thanks for your response. I hope that someone gets on this fast. It is frustrating to say the least. I wasted a ton of paper & ink the other day messing with it. Wound up having to print in CS3.
I assume that a new driver will address the issue for both CS4 and LR2?
