ink, paper, time, money, blood, sweat and tears

[ashle...@adobeforums.com]

Last week I sent off some test charts to have my R1800 printer profiled. The profiles came back with a warning though that there may be a problem with my inks since they were much darker and had significantly less gamut than was typical for the R1800. The prints I tried were awful, so today I've spent about 8 hours trying to get to the bottom of this problem including about 30 minutes spent on the phone to the US speaking with Inkjetfly who make my CIS and found out what is wrong.

We went through all my settings and verified that everything was correct but prints were still coming out horribly dark with all colour management switched off. Eventually we tried a print through Apple's Preview and that was spot on with all colour management turned off.

I have now installed CS3 and with the same settings the print outs are significantly closer to the original chart, much like Preview. Despite turning off all colour management there appears to be an issue between the print engine in CS4 and the Epson driver with OS X which is causing very dark prints. For whatever reason the results are massively out in CS4 with the R1800. Perhaps other printers are also effected.

I wrote and told nativedigital who did the profiles purely for the sake of letting them know what I have discovered and to their credit, they have said that if I send them new test charts they will do the profiles again for free. This is a problem though that simply shouldn't exist.

[ashle...@adobeforums.com]

I should add that I am using 10.5.6 and the latest 6.23 Epson driver. CS4 has all recent updates as well.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Ashley:

Have you set your Printer as your Default Printer?

Check out this thread:
<http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b837a5>

[ashle...@adobeforums.com]

Thanks Ann, I've selected it several times now as default having seen this suggestion earlier but its made no difference here. Over the last few days I've tried various Epson drivers and even the Guten driver to try and sort this out, removing the Epson folder from the printer library with every new attempt and its been a real nightmare. I must have 30 sheets of expensive Hahnemuhle paper strewn across my office here and all of them are dark because of this problem.

CS3 works and now it looks like I will have to go back to CS3 for printing even when the profile is successfully done but I really think its wrong when we are left like beta testers to discover these problems. Luckily I have CS3 here, so I am able to find this work around for the time being but somebody who has just purchased CS4 and doesn't have any earlier versions would be well and truly stuck.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

Sorry to hear you're experiencing the problem, Ashley. My prints are coming out spot on, but then I'm on Tiger 10.4.11.

[ashle...@adobeforums.com]

You know there are many points I appreciate about Leopard but in all honesty it has never as reliable and stable as Tiger. To me the upcoming Snow Leopard version which is supposed to add few features but concentrate on stability and getting rid of bugs is an admission that they never got Leopard right. Perhaps Apple spent too much time on their iPods.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

If CS4 ran in Panther, I'd revert to 10.3.9 in a heartbeat. It has all the features I want from the OS.

[Richard Lynch]

The title of this thread is exactly the reason why I suggest using a service for printing. I don't even own a printer, and I used to work pre-press. I get better quality prints for less through a service, and with less trouble, no maintenance, great consistency, and more. I wrote a blog on this over a year ago that still is applicable:

<http://www.hiddenelements.com/blog/2007/01/calibrating-my-home-printer.html>

Just an idea!

[Lundb...@adobeforums.com]

Perfectly valid in your case.
Surely you HAVE a printer, though. or do you memorize emails and pdfs?

[ashle...@adobeforums.com]

I seem to have solved the dark prints issue in CS4 but I am not entirely sure how. Yesterday I re-installed the driver for my SX200 and made that the default printer. Then I did a print this morning forgetting that I was still in CS4 but it was fine.

I agree with what Richard is saying in principal but I gave up on lab prints about 8 years ago. When they moved over to digital processes like the Lambda, suddenly everything seemed so flat and muddy with little detail, which was nothing like the original images. I recall one time looking at an image I had shot with the Hasselblad in South Africa on a perfect sunny day and wondering why it all looked so miserable and lacking in detail. I ran some prints through the Epson 1290 and suddenly I had vibrant rich colours and amazing detail. Ever since then I have printed everything myself.

[g_ba...@adobeforums.com]

> Perhaps Apple spent too much time on their iPods.

Eh?

[ashle...@adobeforums.com]

For a while it seemed as though Apple was far more interested in dedicating time and resources to the iPod than looking after their computer users. Leopard was a long time coming and felt extremely buggy when first released.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Yesterday I re-installed the driver for my SX200 and made that the default
printer.

That does seem to be the answer:

Remove the old Driver; Reinstall the newest available Driver for your printer; and make it the Default Printer

[ashle...@adobeforums.com]

Yes, except that in this case both printers have the latest driver and I made the other printer the default.

[Ann_She...@adobeforums.com]

Unfathomable!

But at least you got it working …

:)

[Ramón_G_Castañeda@adobeforums.com]

My experience with labs mirrors that of Ashley in the last paragraph of his post #9.