Dark prints, again

I have not printed any images for some time. In May I purchased a new desktop from Puget Systems and subsequently encountered some problems getting my computer to recognize my old Epson R1800 printer; it gave me an unfamiliar menu that seemed to be from a Brother printer rather than my Epson. Ultimately I got my new drivers downloaded and returned to my familiar menu. I thought everything was solved but my first print was very dark. My prints always seem to be on the darker side and I tried correcting the soft proofing with variable results in the past but this print is very dark despite my brightening up the soft proof image before printing. Any suggestions as to how I should proceed?

Dark prints usually means the monitor is too bright. Is your monitor calibrated?

It has been a while; I will recalibrate and see but the degree of darkness compared to screen image suggests to me there is a bigger problem than that.

Unless you are setting a target brightness of 90-100 cd/m^2 in your calibration and soft proofing and then making final adjustments for printing, your prints will be dark. Also note that a moniter is transmitted light where a print is reflected light which is perceived different by the eye. Finally you need to evaluate your print in the proper lighting. The room you do your image processing is probably not that since those tend to be much darker than normal rooms.

The key to matching print brightness or darkness to ones monitor is absolutely the target brightness as E.J. pointed out. It's not just a matter of turning the brightness down, proper calibration software/hardware will actually calibrate it to a specified point. Most monitors are set by default extremely high in this. Personally I have always had to edge towards the 90 cd/m^2 setting.

I've recalibrated my monitor using a targeted brightness of 92 and still get a dark print. I have to lighten the duplicate soft-proofing image to an uncomfortable degree to get a semi-reasonably result on print paper. Don't know what else to do but something is not right somewhere.

Can you post what the histogram looks like when the print comes out so dark?

joseph motto wrote:I've recalibrated my monitor using a targeted brightness of 92 and still get a dark print. I have to lighten the duplicate soft-proofing image to an uncomfortable degree to get a semi-reasonably result on print paper. Don't know what else to do but something is not right somewhere.

There's probably something wrong with the printer, the printer profile, or the printer driver then.  have you done any printer diagnostics.  You said you hadn't printed in a long time.  It is very likely that you have some clogged printer nozzles.  Try to run a Nozzle check and then if that doesn't come out perfect, run print cleans until the nozzle check comes out perfect.

Also, since you haven't used the printer in a long time, have you agitated each of the printer ink cartridges to make sure the solids in the ink haven't settled out.

Regardless of monitor calibration (though my monitor is calibrated), in my experience a simple test for print brightness is the histogram on the image after the icc profile is applied. The image file values should have an average level of at least 128 on a 0 to 255 scale. If an area should be bright, it should be substantially brighter than 128 and near white should be near 255 but not all 255.

Roger

Thank you, all, for your efforts to straighten out my problem.

I experience confusion in the monitor calibration when asked to open my ICC profile. I tried to choose "SPR 1180 Premium Semigloss" for the paper I use but that was denied so I chose Adobe RGB 1998 for the profile. Right choice?
Here is what the result looked like:
Here is the duck image and the soft-proofed image with the histogram:
Finally, here is a photo of the rather dark resulting print:
I haven't checked the nozzle pattern on the printer yet or agitated the cartridges which I will do shortly. I don't quite know what is meant by checking the printer diagnostics. I am also uncertain as to what I should do based on Roger's observation in the most recent posting.

I have agitated the cartridges, run a diagnostic check on the printer, replaced the blue ink cartridge that did not clean with auto cleaning; the nozzle pattern looks fine. A repeat print was again very very dark.

This smacks to me of a problem in the configuration of the printing software, driver or something else related to color management. Joseph, what software are you using to print? Can you post screenshots of the printing windows including all of the related color management settings? And do the same for all of the driver settings in your Epson 1800 driver control panel? Also what specific paper are you printing on, and what ICC profile are you using for it?

Finally, just as one of those forehead-smacking items that has bitten me in the past -- make sure you're printing on the correct side of the paper if it's a single-side coated media. If you print on the wrong side you'll get a crap-looking print no matter what all your software settings are.

A good step in trying to determine where a problem might lie is printing a known standard print.  This will quickly isolate whether there is a problem in your printing workflow, because it should look fine.  If it doesn't you have a workflow issue (your print to me looks like you either have a profile mismatch, bad profile or  an ink load issue).  Personally I recommend to my customers fighting problems with their printers to print this file from Outback Photo and bring it in.  The result of that print helps narrow down where the problem might be coming from.

I downloaded the standard test image and printed it at 8x10 on Epson Premium Photo Paper Semigloss; it came out dark (not egregiously dark but clearly too dark). I will next show you the three screen shots from the printing process in PS 6. Royce, I am not sure where to find the settings for my Epson R1800 drivers; can you direct me? As for the ICC profile, I choose the Epson Paper profile in the printing process where the Epson Semigloss appears; should I be finding an ICC profile somewhere else?

You did in fact show the Epson 1800 printer driver settings, that's what you're looking at in screenshots #2 and #3 above, which you accessed by clicking the "Print Settings" button in the window from screenshot #1. Only #1 is Adobe Photoshop settings, the others are the Epson driver.

The Epson driver settings look okay. A crucial setting is in screenshot #3, ensuring that the "Off (No Color Adjustment)" checkbox is checked. That ensures the Epson driver doesn't attempt to do any color management, only Photoshop will do it. Failing to check that checkbox to disable driver color management is a common mistake, and it leads to double-profiling which will easily screw up prints in ugly ways. But you're clear of that problem.

The printer ICC profile is what should be selected in screenshot #1, in the slot that currently says "Stylus Photo R1800". Every different combination of paper + printer has a unique ICC profile that describes how the printer reproduces color on that specific paper. If you're using a particular type of Epson paper, you need to be selecting the appropriate profile for it in this box. I don't know what "Stylus Photo R1800" is, but it almost certainly is not the profile for whatever paper you're using.

The other setting you're referring to, shown as "Premium Photo Paper Semi-Gloss" in screenshots #2 and #3, is not a profile. It's what's called a media type. It's a generic setting that just does some basic config of the printer hardware, things like how much ink to lay down, how thick the paper is (to adjust the height of the printer head so it won't strike the surface of the paper), etc. All papers that are semi-gloss photo papers most likely will use the same media type, Premium Photo Paper Semi-Glass, because they all need the printer hardware to run more or less the same way. But not all semi-gloss papers would use the same ICC profile; in fact the profile for every type of paper is usually a little different, often much different.

So the main thing I see above is that you need to obtain the correct printer/paper ICC profile for whatever type of paper you're using, install it on your machine, and then select it in the Adobe printing window. (If an ICC profile is NOT available for your paper on the Epson 1800 printer, then you have a different issue to be resolved.) There may be other things going on but that's what I can tell so far, from those screenshots...

I think I am seeing light at the end of this tunnel.
Here is the screen when I click on the Printer Profile drop-down menu. Which option, if any, is the correct choice? Would it be the SPR Premium Semigloss Paper which is the paper that I use or might it be the Monitor_8-26-2013_1 (or either of the other two) which, I am thinking, must be my monitor calibrations on those dates? I never noticed that before and have never used that choice. Or do I need to go elsewhere to find the proper ICC profile?

For that paper you would use the SPR1800 Premium Semigloss profile. You always want to use a paper specific profile. I wouldn't print using the monitor profile. Hope this fixes the problem for you.

joseph motto wrote:I think I am seeing light at the end of this tunnel.

Yes, I think you have found the issue, as Royce mentioned if Photoshop is managing colors you must select the correct printer/paper combination to load the right ICC profile in that first dialog box.  Glad things are looking up.

Joseph, I'm still not sure exactly what paper you are printing on. You need to choose the ICC profile that corresponds exactly to your combination of printer + paper, in the Adobe Photoshop printer window. In the most recent screenshot you posted, there are a bunch of printer ICC profiles starting with "SPR1800 ...". For example "SPR1800 Enhanced Matte" is the profile for Epson Enhanced Matte paper on the Epson 1800 printer. "SPR1800 Premium Semigloss" is the profile for Epson Premium Semigloss on the Epson 1800 printer. Whatever paper you're using, you need to install the ICC profile for it if it's not already installed, find it in that list, and select it for Photoshop to use to print.

If you're using an Epson photo paper, most of the common ICC profiles are automatically installed when you install an Epson printer driver. However, Epson has renamed quite a few of their paper products since the 1800 printer model was produced. So the paper name may no longer match the ICC profile that comes with the 1800 driver installation. Worse, the new equivalent paper might actually be different enough from the older paper it replaces, such that a different ICC profile is needed. In that case you'd need to go to the Epson web site and look for the appropriate ICC profile for your paper, download it, and install it.

If you're using a photo paper that isn't made by Epson, you'll need to go to that particular vendor's website and see if they provide a profile for the paper on the Epson 1800 printer.

As Alan said, you would NEVER use a monitor profile to print with. The monitor profile describes your monitor, not a printer, and would never produce proper results for any printer/paper combination.

Sorry for not closely looking at all the replies, but have you disabled the Epson printer color management?
Your duck print is not only dark but the reds seem off.