Color Accuracy of Epson Photo Stylus 750 printer?
Bill Tuthill
Picky people with a good eye, or a Macbeth color chart, seem to
agree that the HP Photosmart printer produces more accurate colors
than the Epson Photo Stylus 700. What about the 750?
I have been less than pleased with Epson's ICM color profiles
in Windows98. My old Color Stylus P2 shows crossover problems,
with green highlights and magenta shadows, for crying out loud!
That's something I can't easily fix in software.
I'm totally satisfied with the color accuracy of my 1600x1200
Iiyama 450 monitor, and don't want to degrade the accuracy of
online photos just for the sake of a deformed inkjet printer.
sharonf
printer. The background colors come out well, but flesh tones look washed
out. I've tried several different settings. One thing that I should mention
is that most of my tests were done on the photo glossy paper...so I'm
wondering if the regular photo paper might be better?
Bill Tuthill wrote in message <7lavpf$3q...@fido.engr.sgi.com>...
Tri Tran
indistinguishable from a photo. I find that colors are *very* accurate on my
G3 Power Mac.
Tri Tran
Rafe B.
>Can anyone speak to the color accuracy of the Photo Stylus 750?
Can't speak for the '750, but the two Epsons that I've
owned and worked with (Stylus Color 600, and Stylus
Photo 700) are both dead-on in terms of color
accuracy. In fact, they're more accurate than my
$700 monitor (Viewsonic PT-775) and my Matrox
video board.
Try printing a test strip and/or calibration image to
your Epson. Try using Epson paper (I recommend
the Photo paper , S041141.) Also, try running the
driver with all-default settings.
rafe b.
Dominic Chan
this comment surprising. I have never been able to get the PhotSmart
to be right on. Most photographs actually do look fine, but when
printing a grey step, I always get some green tint somewhere along
the scale. Unlike 4 colour printers where you can gain full control
over the colour balance by adjusting the orthogonal C-M-Y-K components,
the PhotoSmart decides for itself the crossover between light-magenta and
magenta, light-cyan and cyan.
I found the current Epson Stylus Color produce the most accurate colour
without any correction in the driver. The only problem I had was with
the Photo Stylus 700, which sometimes produces a dark brown colour for
very dark grey.
Bill Tuthill <tut@ishi> wrote in message
news:7lavpf$3q...@fido.engr.sgi.com...
ck...@my-deja.com
from www.epson.com. I found that the default Color Management ICM
Profile for the printer (EE_501.icm or something similar found under
Control Panel/Printers/Properties, NOT the display ICM profile) tends
to err on the overly saturated & contrasty side - likely to be a sale
tactic for the average consumers who are more likely to be impressed by
the saturated colors. Since I do my own adjustments using Photoshops
prior to printing,I simply remove the printer's ICM profile.
The steps: I used Colorific to calibrate my Iiyama 9017E/T monitor and
install the resulting monitor ICM profile under Win98. Copy the gamma &
phosphor data from the Colorific Info box to Photoshop 5's color
settings RGB dialog so that the correct ICM profile is saved with the
TIFF/JPEG. More importantly, Photoshop's own monitor compensation must
be off (Adobe Gamme utility must not be run) or else the color
compensation would be doubled. Next, remove the printer ICM profile
EE_501.icm (sp?) from the printer color management dialog to get rid of
the unwanted emphasis. Finally,set color management to ICM in the Epson
print properties/Advanced settings.
Now I'm getting nearly perfect color matched print outs from Photoshop
5 scans. Believe me, the results are simply amazing.
The only "problem" for me is to fully utilize the full 1440dpi
resolution of the printer. My Polaroid 35mm SprintScan Plus can only
produce a scan up to 2700dpi, which means maxing out at around
2800x2300 (roughly) after cropping. This translates to a small, < 2
inches printout at 1440dpi mode.
Cheers,
C.K.
In article <7lavpf$3q...@fido.engr.sgi.com>,
t...@altavista.net wrote:
> Can anyone speak to the color accuracy of the Photo Stylus 750?
> Picky people with a good eye, or a Macbeth color chart, seem to
> agree that the HP Photosmart printer produces more accurate colors
> than the Epson Photo Stylus 700. What about the 750?
>
> I have been less than pleased with Epson's ICM color profiles
> in Windows98. My old Color Stylus P2 shows crossover problems,
> with green highlights and magenta shadows, for crying out loud!
> That's something I can't easily fix in software.
>
> I'm totally satisfied with the color accuracy of my 1600x1200
> Iiyama 450 monitor, and don't want to degrade the accuracy of
> online photos just for the sake of a deformed inkjet printer.
>
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
DDavis1055
A 2700dpi scan will give you more than enough dpi for a quality 8x10inch image.
One thing to keep in mind is that the human eye can't percei ve detail above
300dpi.
Dominic Chan
with only black and white (not grey) contents, the human eye can
readily detect the difference between a 300 dpi print and a 600 dpi
print - the former is much more "jagged".
In a picture containing continous tone, it is indeed hard to perceive
details about 300 dpi. However, some pictures do contain high
contrast elements similar to "line art", and for those, higher resolution
than 300 dpi can be percieved.
DDavis1055 <ddavi...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:19990630230758...@ng-fb1.aol.com...
<snip>
Peter Tattersall
> The only "problem" for me is to fully utilize the full 1440dpi
> resolution of the printer. My Polaroid 35mm SprintScan Plus can only
> produce a scan up to 2700dpi, which means maxing out at around
> 2800x2300 (roughly) after cropping. This translates to a small, < 2
> inches printout at 1440dpi mode.
Reconsider.
You'll see a number of resolution specs - lpi (lines per inch), dpi
(dots per inch), and ppi (pixels per inch). They aren't equivalent, and
they're certainly confusing. I don't try to work out which is which or
really appropriate, I just go for the raw numbers and what I think the
abbreviations are supposed to represent.
Your scanner is reading 2700 locations per inch at some colour depth,
maybe 30 or 36 bits. Your printer is printing one of six colour inks
(CcMmYK) at each of 1440 locations per inch on the paper. In order to
simulate more colours than these basic six (plus the assumed white of
the page, and probably plus the effect of overlaying inks), you have to
average them over several of those locations. Sending one of your
scanned locations to one of the printed locations doesn't give you a
good representation of your image, so you need to open it up a little.
Epson recommends using about 1/3 the resolution of the printer, or
about 480 ppi. Actually the printer has differing vertical and
horizontal resolutions - 1440 x 720 dpi - so 240 ppi might be more
appropriate. I've used both, and they're about equivalent to the eye,
with the 480 ppi setting _maybe_ being slightly better when you're
really close to the print. Someone else has pointed out that beyond 300
ppi on a continuous tone image is no longer distinguishable, so maybe
all you're seeing close to the print is the difference between 240 ppi
and 300 ppi. Either way, at the 240 ppi number you can get 11 2/3
inches out of your 2800 x 2300 image.
I've also gone lower. At 200 ppi the print is acceptable, but is
starting to look a little soft. The image is still Ok, but no longer
stunning, down to about 140 ppi, and below that I find the pixelation
obvious and annoying. I found 1600 x 1200 Nikon 950 images acceptable
at 10 inches x 7.5 inches. YMMV, it depends on your personal
tolerances.
--
Peter Tattersall ) Let us all be happy, and live within
pe...@earthlight.dynip.com ) our means, even if we have to borrow
) money to do so. -- Artemus Ward
Bill Tuthill
>
> The steps: I used Colorific to calibrate my Iiyama 9017E/T monitor and
> install the resulting monitor ICM profile under Win98. Copy the gamma &
> phosphor data from the Colorific Info box to Photoshop 5's color
> settings RGB dialog so that the correct ICM profile is saved with the
> TIFF/JPEG. More importantly, Photoshop's own monitor compensation must
> be off (Adobe Gamme utility must not be run) or else the color
> compensation would be doubled. Next, remove the printer ICM profile
> EE_501.icm (sp?) from the printer color management dialog to get rid of
> the unwanted emphasis. Finally,set color management to ICM in the Epson
> print properties/Advanced settings.
Thanks for this procedure! You have just gone over the heads of people
who post "Epson rules!" messages on this newgroup.
Would Colorific allow creation of a custom ICM profile for the Epson 750?
That might be an alternative for people without Photoshop. Are there
other applications that allow customization of ICM profiles?
> The only "problem" for me is to fully utilize the full 1440dpi
> resolution of the printer...
The Epson Photo Stylus is 1440 dpi in one direction only; the other
direction is only 720 dpi. Given that Epsons can't lay down two colors
of ink onto the same dot, and given that most colors are a combination of
two CMYcmK inks, 360 ppi is the theoretical maximum for your printer.
This means you can print 11.25 x 7.5" images without interpolation.
A4 paper might allow you to go further in the 11.25" direction.
FOR7
>Picky people with a good eye, or a Macbeth color chart, seem to
>agree that the HP Photosmart printer produces more accurate colors
>than the Epson Photo Stylus 700. What about the 750?
>
>I have been less than pleased with Epson's ICM color profiles
>in Windows98. My old Color Stylus P2 shows crossover problems,
>with green highlights and magenta shadows, for crying out loud!
>That's something I can't easily fix in software.
>
>I'm totally satisfied with the color accuracy of my 1600x1200
>Iiyama 450 monitor, and don't want to degrade the accuracy of
>online photos just for the sake of a deformed inkjet printer.
>
>
I use a Samsung monitor and what I see is pratically identical to what I print
on my 750 with a slight brightness difference. Color is on the money. I'm very
satisfied with mine!
done...@my-deja.com
Photo Stylus 750?
> Picky people with a good eye, or a Macbeth
color chart, seem to
> agree that the HP Photosmart printer produces
more accurate colors
> than the Epson Photo Stylus 700. What about
the 750?
>
> I have been less than pleased with Epson's ICM
color profiles
> in Windows98. My old Color Stylus P2 shows
crossover problems,
> with green highlights and magenta shadows, for
crying out loud!
> That's something I can't easily fix in software.
>
> I'm totally satisfied with the color accuracy
of my 1600x1200
> Iiyama 450 monitor, and don't want to degrade
the accuracy of
> online photos just for the sake of a deformed
inkjet printer.
>
>
previously posted to this question are right on.
I will add a few observations and tips of my
own. Certainly manual calibration is essential
for ultimate color accuracy. This involves
turning off all automatic color correction stuff
for the printer and the application. Then you
must calibrate your monitor's contrast, gamma
(Colorific is great for this), color temperature,
and brightness. Do this with the ambient
lighting in your workspace set up similar to the
lighting you expect the final print to be viewed
in. (Your brain readjusts your color perception
based on the ambient light color.) You should
use a standard test image for your calibration.
This can be a photo with a wide range of tones
and values, but must contain some light
fleshtones and some neutral grays. It should
also have a set of test strips containing a 10
(or so) step grayscale; and CMY and RGB, both
fully saturated and light pastel. These color and
greyscale values should be created and/or checked
for purity (E.G. the saturated red should be
256,0,0 and the pastel red should be 256,200,200)
This will be critical when calibrating the
printer.
Ideally, you can look at the monitor screen under
a magnifying lens to adjust for pure R,G, AND B,
with only the appropriate phosphor dots lighting
for each color. (This is probably a little
idealistic given the nonpurity of the phosphors
used.)
After you are satisfied that the monitor is
accurate, you can begin printer calibration. Now
a magnifying lens is essential. After printing
the first test image, look for an even
reproduction of the grayscale, with each step
equally distinct. After adjusting printer
brightness and contrast to correct the grayscale,
look at the color patches under magnification.
The cyan patches should have no yellow or magenta
dots in them, etc. (I haven't tried this, but I
suppose it would also work to create color
saturation step tablets just like the grayscale,
to optimize saturation.) Adjust the printer's
color and saturation levels until the printed
grays and colors all are perfect (it can be done,
I've done it.)
Now your reference photo should be perfectly
reproduced, and if it isn't, the balance of the
photo itself must be called into question. (Which
is exactly the point of precision monitoring.)
Now that you know the process, you can repeat it
for other ambient light conditions, paper types,
etc. Be sure to manually record all settings in
anticipation of data corruption.
Yes, it's work, but well worth it!