Strange Cast to Prints

I haven't printed anything in a while but last time I did print I had no problems.

I purchased a new NEC PA 271W BK SV with Spectraview. I set it up and I Calibrated it. I decided to try a print and the result has a slight pink/purple cast especially in the light areas. Some of the colors look right in the prints and some have the cast.

Here is the relevant info

Printer: Epson R1900
Paper: Red River Polar Satin
Correct icc profile from Red River

Also Paper: Epson Ultra Premium Luster
Correct Profile

Both papers same result

Monitor Profile
White Point: Target 6500         Actual 6517
Luminance:  Target 80             Actual 80.2
Gamma: 2.2
Contrast 608:1

Anyone have an Idea what might be happening here.

Tim

Are these new images worked up for the first time on the new monitor? Or had you printed them before?

As far as your monitor calibration targets, those look okay, though perhaps luminance of 80 cd/m2 is a bit low. (I don't usually recommend going below 90 cd/m2 without good reason.) I'd suggest double-checking your printer's function to be sure there's no clogged heads or other issues affecting the ink lay-down that could be creating the cast. You say you haven't printed in awhile but not whether you've done any nozzle checks prior to making these new prints. Clogged heads will definitely skew colours.

Also, under what light are you comparing the prints to the screen? Prints can only reflect ambient light, and many print-to-screen mismatches in my experience are happening because folks are looking at the prints in crappy light.

There is of course all the usual colour management troubleshooting that can be done as described in many past threads. But if you're convinced your settings are okay then the main thing to do would be to evaluate the monitor & printer profiles with your images in question, and see if there's an interaction between them that's causing the images to have a cast when printed but not when viewed on the monitor...

Royce

Thanks for the comments. I did do a nozzle cleaning. I'm going to try a few things in the morning. I think i'll reinstall the ink cartridges and replace any really old ones. I'll let you know what I find.

When you soft proof the image before printing can you see the colour cast on screen. I've had this issue with a few images after some slight tweaks when soft proofing they then printed fine.

Thanks everyone. It's going to be next week before I can resolve this. When I went downstairs this morning to try some of the suggestions I saw that the ink light was blinking, seems the cyan cartridge needs changing (this may be the source of my problem). I went to my ink stash and sure enough I have no cyan cartridge, so I have to order one. With that and a full load of school stuff to do before the end of the month, don't even ask why a 60 year old is still in college it'll be a while before I can get to this. I'll give an update when I get the ink and the time to mess around with it.

Make sure you run a nozzle check after changing the cartridge. It just sounds like you may have a clogged nozzle.

You bet, if the cyan cartridge was ink-starved and/or clogged, then it certainly would have created colour casts. Replace the cyan and run nozzle checks to be sure there are no persistent clogs or ink-feed problems, and see where that gets you...

Thanks everyone I ordered ink and will follow all the advice when it shows up

Got the new ink. Did a nozzle check and clean and installed the new cyan cartridge. Also replaced all of the other inks since they were getting long in the tooth and the replacements I had on hand were at their expiration date so I loaded them.

I have run a few test prints and everything is perfect. The prints match the new monitor extremely well.

Thanks for all the help

Glad to hear you're back up, Tim.