Mac and printing with the R2400

It has come to my attention that my R2400 isn't printing correctly because it does not support postscript printing, via a warning I get when printing in Photoshop and it is evident in the prints as they will not get even close to the brightness of the image as soft-proofed. Everything is printing too dark. I have double checked all the print settings and they're good. The warning states that the printer may not recognize such items as calibration, etc.

Can someone enlighten me on this. Do I need to use special settings for the R2400. Per Epson, it doesn't support postscript, whatever that is. Help???

Just saw the previous post before this, but if anyone has any input, I would appreciate it. Is the offer still open to call you Scott?

Hi Wayne, I assume you're mostly trying to print photos, in which case Postscript doesn't matter at all. Postscript is a "page description language" developed by Adobe in the 80's ... think of it as a predecessor of Acrobat PDF.

I don't understand why you're getting a warning related to Postscript when you try to print.

Questions:

- what target luminance have you calibrated your display to?

- are you using Print With Preview in PS?

- are you letting Photoshop or Epson perform the color conversion to output space?

- are you using Relative Colorimetric or Perceptual intent rendering?

- are you choosing the correct paper profile? which paper are you using?

Hi Eric, Thanks for responding.

I also addressed this in the older post. I am using the same setup I've always used, per John Shaw's printing setup guidelines for printing in Photoshop.

Questions:

- what target luminance have you calibrated your display to?

***Unable to answer that at the moment, as I am away from the computer, but I used the monitor defaults as E.J. suggests when calibrating with Optix XR Pro. I set it up with a room lighting setting to match my typical room lighting. I have gone through bright, medium, and dim room settings. This worked fine on the PC.

- are you using Print With Preview in PS?

***Yes with PS2; it isn't available in PS3.

- are you letting Photoshop or Epson perform the color conversion to output space?

***color handled by Photoshop

- are you using Relative Colorimetric or Perceptual intent rendering?

***Perceptual is used as recommended

- are you choosing the correct paper profile? which paper are you using?

***Always! This happens with Epson Semi-Gloss & Prem. Luster

Just FYI, I also printed using Apple Colorsync as the color handler and got the same results.

Wayne, Perceptual is probably not your best choice here (depends on the image but in general it is not). Relative Colorimetric is generally a better setting since it will only remap colors that are outside the space. If using Perceptual and you have colors out of gamut, Photoshop will try to compress all of them (i.e. remap all colors) to maintain the same relationship and fit within the paper's gamut. This is not always desirable.

Guy

Even though Perceptual Intent may not be the optimal choice for the image Wayne is printing, it should not cause the image to come out way too dark the way he's describing. In fact, perceptual often prints a bit lighter than relative colorimetric, so there's something else going on.

Hmm, are you using the latest Epson drivers for the 2400? (check the Epson support site)

Eric

Wayne,

This sounds a lot like you've got both Photoshop and Epson doing color management.

Under print preview, set "let photoshop determine colors" under color handling, set the printer profile, set rendering intent. For your papers, I like relative colormetric.

Then hit "print"

Under print, print settings, set media type to the paper you're using. Click advanced settings then select the print quality.

Under print, color management, select "no color controls". This last is important to avoid double color management.

Cheers

Hi Tom,

That's why I'm confused. I've used "Relative Colormetric", also, and always choose "Let Photoshop determine colors", as I soft-proof each image with the paper profile I intend to use. This always worked on the PC, as long as my monitor was profiled, as they are now. I re-read John Shaw's material and changed back to "Perceptual" to try to fix the issue.

The bizarre thing is that the prints don't really very no matter what I do. I'm really stumped on this one.

Just FYI for anyone replying, my settings are:

Softproofed in Photoshop.

Let Photoshop determine colors

Rendering Intent: tried Relative Colormetirc & Perceptual

Profile: i.e.R2400 Prem Luster Best Photo

Print Setting:

Color management: Off

Hi Wayne, is this a new R2400 or have you had it a while and it just started behaving like this?

Eric

Eric has a good question. Now, I'm grasping at straws. Did you set the "media type" and the "print quality"? Sometimes, for unknown reasons, the presets change without warning. I check them every time as a result.

Cheers

The printer is 5 months 7 months old and Epson has summarily dismissed it as printer issue after checking my settings. Tom, I'm kind of OCD on the settings thing. I always check the settings too, as I don't trust any computer 100%.

**Ammended: Just for kicks, I reinstalled the R2400 drivers on the PC and opened the same image in PSCS2 on the PC. I made no adjustments, as the image is ready to go according to my monitor. My PC has always output great images. This time I got the same dark muddy image I was getting from the Mac.

I called Epson again and we tried printing from different programs with the same bad results. They are sending a new printer. We'll see.

Wayne, do you see any other sorts of printing defects, such as banding? Weird color casts? Or is it just that everything is too dark?

Just dark and muddy. Same results from PSCS2 on PC, PSCS2&3 on Mac, and iPhoto on Mac. I tried every setting I could think of in PS on both machines, but the results never changed.

Ah, just saw your post above regarding a new printer. Hopefully this does it. It almost sounds like a damaged print head to me -- laying down too much ink. Another NSN member had a similar issue recently ...

Wayne, I feel your frustration. Usually this happens to me about 366 days after purchase. If it's going to happen, this is the time while you're still under warrantee.

Since you're seeing it with your PC, it's probably the printer.

Sorry to hear your troubles and hope the new printer is the fix.

Cheers

I also posted in the Apple forums. Apparently, where my PC setup usually said Printer Profile: Same as Output, I needed to put the paper profile. I made the change and that did it, I think. I have to try some more prints. The irony is the Epson tech didn't catch it either and is now sending out a new printer. I was used to my PC setup saying "same as output", so I kept blowing right past this. Thanks for the help. I feel silly, but probably not as silly as the tech will feel when he figures this out.

Hi Wayne, that's great that you found the fix, but that sounds a little weird to me. After all, you also said above

Same results from PSCS2 on PC

Are you saying that the paper profile wasn't specified correctly on the PC either?

I haven't gone back to it, but I'm guessing not. Either way, I covering my bases and letting the replacement printer come in.

So I am on my second R2400 replacement printer from Epson. The first one came in covered in ink; it was all over the place. I FINALLY got the second replacement today. I have reset my printer settings in the printer utility, uninstalled, reinstalled, and almost sacrificed a chicken, but I can not get the drivers to work properly. No matter what I do, I get lines through the advanced settings.

1 - Yes, I am using the intel mac driver. I even downloaded two more times in case I was getting corrupt files.

2 - I've uninstalled the drivers using the driver setup; restarted; reset; restarted; re-installed.

Nothing. After 3 hours of this BS, I'm cooked. I am getting just a little frustrated. What am I missing? HELP!!!

Sorry, what do you mean by "lines" through the advanced settings?

Eric