Epson Printer Adobe Illustrator Color Setting Recommendations?

[davidhunternyc]

Hello,

I have an Epson R3000 printer. I have not found the optimum "Color Settings" within Adobe Illustrator for accurate color reproduction. The only Illustrator setting which I can be sure of is to set the "Color Space" to RGB. Epson's own PDF color guide does not address the full capabilities in Illustrator and other Google searches yielded less than optimal results as well. Yes, my computer screen is color calibrated but I still need suggestions for which "Color Settings" to choose within Adobe Illustrator for the most accurate color reproduction. Your help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[jdanek]

This is what I use...

and Epson's driver is a good driver.  Not sure why you would not be getting "optimum" color reproduction uless you are having difficulties with the print dialogues.  What type of file are you printing?  How is the printer performing in other applications ( i.e., Photoshop )?  Describe to me what you are seeing that is a problem.

[davidhunternyc]

Thank you for your reply. In Photoshop, I am satisfied with the output but I am using Illustrator with graphics and solid colors that need to be exact. Here is what I'm using in Illustrator but I have no idea if these settings are optimum.

[jdanek]

Your Color Settings are the same as the ones I use, so you should consider them accurate.  When you use the Print command, do not let "Illustrator Determine Color".  Instead, "Let Printer Determine Color" which will honor the color coming out of Illustrator, but you have the ability to use print setups for output.  The Color Settings in Illustrator allow you to deal with incoming and outgoing files.  Like Theresa explains, certain RGB files have certain characteristics which will affect output.  Having said all that, do not be surprised if you cannot "match" all colors.  There are files that you can build that use wide gamut RGB ( i.e., ProPhoto RGB ) and your Epson R3000 will match very closely, but this requires out-of-the-box approaches and fringe settings in both Illustrator ( Rendering Intent = Perceptual ) and Epson's driver ( i.e., specific paper ).  So, sometimes you have to experiment to achieve the color you want.

[ceyhun_akgun]

You need to learn Color Management.

Color Management:

Acrobat Help | Acrobat User Guide

[smartcraft]

This is how I would print using the Epson-Driver:

Always be shure, that all color-corrections of the printer are turned "OFF". The printer should always print linearised, that means: it should print according to a defined standard, always. So corrections should always take place between the printer and the print-software (in this case Illustrator).

The correct setting of the color-management section of the Illustrator print dialog is: "Illustrator determines color", with a printer profile that is tailor-made for your: printer-paper-print quality setting. A correction-profile, the so called "printer-profile" (Which is an ICC-Profile - a correction lookup-table, a rather big file, around 1.5 MB).

You can get this profile, that ensures perfect colors and that will only work with one combination of: paper, printer setting, print quality setting, etc. for some bucks on the internet. Just search for "ICC-Profile Service", or similar.

Then use "Adobe Color Printing Utility" to print out a ICC-Target sheet (provided by your ICC-Profile service provider, which you can easily find on the internet). Send the service provider the sheet. Then he will measure the printed colors and calculate a profile, that corrects the differences between the colors in the file printed and the actual outcome, as measured from the printout.

Got it? Get it!

Without it you will never achieve perfect colors, that look exactly like the colors on your calibrated monitor.

But don´t forget, that you will need a different profile for every-settings an paper-combination. When you are printign on many different media, it might be wiser for you to buy a handheld color-measuring-tool with rgb-profile software for printers and do it yourself.

[Theresa J]

Do you use a print profile, something that is calibrated for both the printer and the paper you are printing on? You have to start with that. It will be pretty much impossible to get exact color matches of solid colors without having a print profile. Also, some colors you create in Illustrator could be out of gamut for the printer. sRGB has a smaller gamut than Adobe RGB so changing to sRGB will limit the possible out of gamut colors.

The color settings you show are your application default color settings. So right now if you create a new RGB document is will be in the Adobe RGB (1998) working space. Older files or ones you receive from somewhere else could be different.