Printing issues with epson Et 3830, window 11

[MimaO]

Hi, I have used ilustrador long time ago but since last year I found out some issues to print, trying all the settings out I can't get the right colors, for example sage green and shades, beige and shades, dusty ping and shades are printing like grays. My printer is a Epson ET 3830 and work thru windows 11, inwould like to knownthe right presets to get the real colors on matte glossy sticker and photo paper. Thank you!!

[Tina_Irvine]

Hi @MimaO,

Are these colours that you're creating yourself? If so, try removing blacks and adding other colours to darken as needed. If it's a photo, make sure it's CMYK and then try eyedropping to check colour values, or if you have Photoshop, have a look at channels. Adjusting colours to remove some black should hopefully help.

[MimaO]

Hi Tina thanks a lot for your response,  actually those are colors that I took from pinterest and typing by myself the hex code but when I'm printing those colors comes out dark like grays, long time ago I used to use the color settings(edit) Adobe rgb, photo paper matte, even if is glossy, standard resolution and worked perfectly but since nov last year even using the same settings i couldn't get the right colors, I have tried different settings but I don't get them right and I don't know what else to do..

[Tina_Irvine]

I highly recommend printing in CMYK. RGB printing has it purpose, but standard ink for desktop printers is generally cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. Would you be able to provide 2 hex code examples? I'll take a look and see if we can get this sorted.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Non-Postscript printers like this are actually RGB-based, so any CMYK data is converted to RGB data and sent to the printer driver as such, then the printer driver does the color conversion to its particular CMYK inks based on proper ICC profiles to get you the best match. Inkjet inks are quite more vibrant than standard offset printing inks, so it's possible to get more vibrant prints from RGB sources if you don't "dumb it down" by pre-converting to a limited CMYK offset profile. However, if there's an incorrect ICC used anywhere in this chain, especially the accidental application of double color management in Illustrator, then this will affcet the print

[MimaO]

Ok, for example I used #807F6D #ECEBE7 #69594C color, if you see the pic of the screen the colors are right and the other pics are the printing and the colors ate really dark, not even a bit of comparison with the real ones.

[Tina_Irvine]

Thank you so much for sending those hex codes, @MimaO. Seeing those images, it looks to me like it could be a printer setting. One of the colours that you mentioned doesn't have black and it's still looking grey on your printouts.

Have you checked that the black/grayscale settings on your printer are not selected? This could potentially be causing the issue. As Monika suggested, I would also check with Epson. Here are a few other printer troubleshooting tips which might help: https://files.support.epson.com/docid/cpd5/cpd52453/source/printers/source/troubleshooting/reference...

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

@MimaO : I was delving into this a bit more and I think you have several issues against you here. Looking at your screen grabs, there's no way the colors on your screen are correct. I think your monitor might be out of calibration (yes, it could only be the photo you took, but it's impossible to tell). The patches are way too light and washed out. In fact, the printouts you show are more what I would expect from the RGB values in your sample swatches.

Also: since you picked up those color codes from the web, what you need to remember is that it matters very much what color space they were created in. Since the web is typically sRGB, and they don't say otherwise, that's the color space your document should be assigned to for them to match in your Illustrator document. Not sure why you are using Apple RGB as it's a much more limited color space, and colors appear lighter and a bit more washed out. You should be using AdobeRGB (or sRGB if you want to be more web common), and you will see a marked difference, i.e they will be a fair bit darker.

I edited my earlier post about how you should set your Epson: in particular, when you are using Illustrator to manage color, you need to turn OFF any color management in the Epson.

This is how different the colors look on my screen, comparing AppleRGB on the left, to sRGB on the right. Even AdobeRGB is darker:

 

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

What I would try first is to save the file as a PDF and print THAT. If that comes out better, you can assume there's incorrect double color magement happening in Illustrator to make the incorrcet colors.

What's your system and what are your printer settings? and what are you selecting in the Output / Color Manement section of Illustrator's print dialog?

[MimaO]

Thank you Brad I really appreciate all your support. My printer is an Epson ecotank 3830, my Pc use windows 11 and the colors settings are rgb: apple rgb, cmyk: coated fogra39, relative colorimetric, color management's color handling let ilustrator determine colors printer prifile apple rgb, relative colorimetric, even tho If i print thru photshop us the same thing..

[Monika Gause]

Many printer drivers have their own color correction. -are these all turned off?

Do you use the recommended paper and the correct settings for it?

Are you using the recommended driver for your system or just a driver that you could somehow get to work?

What does EPSON say to all of this?

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Apple RGB is quite a different gamut than your Epson; If you send it to the printer with AppleRGB selected as the Printer Profile, the colours will definitely be different. I recommend the following change: In the Let Illustrator determine Colors > Printer Profile, change it to either AdobeRGB or Epson IJ Color 07 (which should have been installed with your Printer Driver; regardless these are essentially identical in color space so if the Epson one isn't showing in the menu, select AdobeRGB). This will tell Illustrator to map your AppleRGB colours to the best it can match in AdobeRGB. Ideally, one would select a profile for he Printer/Paper profile if it exists, but these typically don't exist for consumer-level printers.

Also check your Epson Printer Settings; note what you have under More Options > Colror Correction, This should be turned OFF so you're not doing double-color management.

Of course, since the Epson will convert these values ultimately to its CMYK, you will still lose vibrancy in RGB colours that are out of gamut.

[jdanek]

Generally, I do not "let Illustrator determine colors".  Instead I let printer determine colors.  That in itself may not be easy with HEX colors.  The driver may not interpret them the way you would expect.  In such cases, I create a dupe file and create CMYK percentages to get as close as possible and print that. Submit your HEX file to where you want it to go.