Printing on Epson R1800 with CS4

[Gerald Kelberg]

I am struggling to get reasonable output from my 'Epson Stylus Photo R1800' attached to my iMac running CS4. All seems to go well until it comes to turning off Color Management on the printer - so that color management is carried out by Photoshop and not the printer.

According to books and tutorials, when I get the final 'Print driver dialogue', and click on 'Layout', there should be an option for 'Print Color Management'. Instead there is 'Color Matching'. When I select this option there are two radio buttons- 'ColorSync' and 'Vendor Matching' - these are grayed out and cannot be changed from 'ColorSync'. There is no option for turning off the printer color management, it seems, so color management is being done at Photoshop and at the printer, with predictably rubbish results.

I would be really pleased to hear from anyone with a similar set up and printer who has been able to overcome this as it seems to be the root of my problems. But, maybe it's not! :eek:

Thanks,

Gerald

[WIlliam Maroldo]

I use CS4 and an Epson R2400, and Windows XP. I don't know about Print driver dialog. What I do is go to File/Print, in CS4, and there is the Print Dialog box. There is a choice between "color management/output" in upper left. Right below "Color Handling" and "printer manages colors/photoshop manages colors" can be picked.
What is the print driver dialog? Is this a Mac thing? Are you trying to use Epson software to print? regards~Bill

[Mike Milicia]

Don't have your setup but based on other Epson drivers that I have seen on Mac, I would not
expect to find Color Management options under Layout. Typically, there is either an explicit option
for Color Management in the driver dropdown menu or the Color Management settings are integrated
into the Printer Settings menu.

[Gerald Kelberg]

I use CS4 and an Epson R2400, and Windows XP. I don't know about Print driver dialog. What I do is go to File/Print, in CS4, and there is the Print Dialog box. There is a choice between "color management/output" in upper left. Right below "Color Handling" and "printer manages colors/photoshop manages colors" can be picked.
What is the print driver dialog? Is this a Mac thing? Are you trying to use Epson software to print? regards~Bill

Hi Bill,
Thanks for your response. The "print driver dialog" is the dialog box that comes up after you hit "Print" on the CS4 print dialog box.
I think the underlying issue here is that none of the Epson drivers seem to be working with Snow Leopard yet. I'm getting a sharp clean image combining CS4 with the Mac Gutenberg profile but the colors are way out - resulting in some pretty scary skin colors.
Thanks,

Gerald

[Gerald Kelberg]

Don't have your setup but based on other Epson drivers that I have seen on Mac, I would not
expect to find Color Management options under Layout. Typically, there is either an explicit option
for Color Management in the driver dropdown menu or the Color Management settings are integrated
into the Printer Settings menu.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your response. "Layout" is the default in the dialog. Opening it gives me "Color Matching" but then the choices are grayed out so there is no choice and I don't seem to be able to switch off the colour matching at the printer. :confused:

Regards,

Gerald

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Hi Gerald,
I have been following this thread a bit as I have a 2400, but Windows Platform. Came across this on the Apple Support page. Glossed over it quickly, but it may be of some help???
<style></style>http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2134341&start=0&tstart=0

[Norm Dulak]

Gerald:

Select "Print Settings" instead of "Layout" from the drop down menu, and you should have no problem getting where you need to go.

Norm Dulak

[Gerald Kelberg]

Hi Jackie,
I went to the Epson site, downloaded and installed the latest driver. I was delighted that I could actually bring up a dialogue that allowed me to turn off the printer colour management. I figured this was the breakthrough I needed. I ran a couple of test prints through and the results were absolute rubbish! :( When I have some time I am going to go through all the colour settings for the image as well and see if I can get any improvement.

Norm, thanks for your interest and your suggestion. Sadly, the problem isn't quite that simple.

Best regards,

Gerald

[Jeff Donald]

Did you ever get this resolved?

[Gerald Kelberg]

Did you ever get this resolved?

Hi Jeff,

Answer is a qualified "Yes, kinda, sorta...". I downloaded the latest print driver from Epson and used up a lot of paper and a lot more ink with trial and error adjustments to the "Color Settings". In particular, I found that the image was very dark, but by desaturating the monitor colors, I was able to get an acceptable result for my purposes. Good thing I didn't need exhibition quality prints!

I guess I now need to calibrate my monitor and spend some more time getting the levels right. But that will have to wait till I have the time and inclination to spend a lot more on paper and ink!

Gerald