Printing too dark in CS4

[_doug_plummer_]

I have CS4 on Tiger 10.4.11 on a completely color managed system, Epson 4800 printer. Printing seems to be broken in the new version. Prints are very dark. I know to select "Photoshop Manages Color" in Color Handling, and "No Color Management" in the printer color management dropdown. The procedure works fine in CS3.

That something is up is suggested by this wrinkle. In this case I am printing using advanced b/w. If under color handling I choose "Printer Manages Color" and go into the b/w advanced setup, it's still too dark. If instead I choose "No color management", then make my choices in advanced b/w, it works fine.

One would first think that it's a double color management problem, but I'm turning it off anywhere I can see it in CS4, and still having problems. Is there a new secret handshake I haven't puzzled out yet?

[Was DYP]

For those with this double profiling problem, and those of you that don't have this problem.

Have you noticed that Epson driver pages now list Epson Common Driver Updater. Have you installed this and has it made any difference with the dark etc. prints.

[grayscapes]

I just downloaded and installed the driver update and will give it a try.  I will post my results.

~grayscapes

[grayscapes]

Nope.  Still too dark.

I'd be curious to learn whether anyone else had better results.

~grayscapes

[GJWS]

Don't assume this is limited ot MAC!  Here in Windows Vista 64-bit land with LR2.3 and PS CS4 and an Epson 4880 I can report:

Monitors calibrated, papers profiled.

Driver 6.52US

LR nearly gets is right but you have to brighten by about 10% on final print to get what you see on screen.  Colors are correct when brightened.

PS gets it so horribly wrong I give up.  Really dark and I'm not wasting paper and ink to find out the fix. I'll send the job back to LR for printing.

What I do find interesting (as others have observed) is that the UK site seems to have newer drivers, newer firmware for the printers compared to USA.  Not that the 6.60 fixed the dark prints!

If you get prompted by the UK site for a Post Code (Zip Code):

DD2 1BK

will work.

[kenlsiegel]

I too have had the same issues...please review my information and see if anything else clicks.

I am using Mac Pro Leopard 10.5.7 with CS4 and LR 2.3

I have an Epson 3800 and Epson 7900 using custom profiles from both Cathy's and Xrite i1Xtreme.  I can make good prints dead on with profiled monitor with the 7900 but when printing to the 3800 prints are unacceptable as they are 2 or 3 stops to dark.  I use no color management and results are the same with PSCS4 and LR on two different brands of paper.  The issue is obviously an Epson problem...if I can print fine to the 7900 but not to the 3800 and all else is the same it must point to Epson.  Oh I should mention that prior to getting my Mac i was able to produce good prints with a PC (XP Pro) and the 3800 so further proves it is an Epson "Mac" driver issues specific to the 3800. 

Thoughts?

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

kenlsiegel wrote:

…so further proves it is an Epson "Mac" driver issues specific to the 3800…

…and most likely tied to the Epson driver under Leopard.

Epson recently posted "Common Driver Updaters" for most printers.  Have you checked to see if there's such a recent Common Updater for that printer?

[Was DYP]

Oh I should mention that prior to getting my Mac i was able to produce good prints with a PC (XP Pro) and the 3800 so further proves it is an Epson "Mac" driver issues specific to the 3800.

Thoughts?

You could try installing the Epson Common Driver Updater although post #127 indicates it did not help with this problem.

Have you tried printing with the 3800 set as default?

Looks like your only option is the use the ColorSync workaround.

[Joseph_O_Hara]

I spent some time experimenting this weekend and have come up with a method of printing in Advanced B/W mode that seems to more or less work properly. By "work properly", I mean that the prints match the appearance of the display fairly closely-- close enough to be usable. My setup is:

IMac running Mac OS 10.5.6

CS4

Epson 3800 printer

Image source: Epson 750 scan from B/W film, 16-bit, gray gamma 2.2 profile

Latest software updates installed everywhere.

Steps followed are:

1. Edit image in CS4 with View-> Proof setup -> Custom set to the paper I plan to use (I have tested with Epson's PGPP profile and Crane's profile for

   Museo Silver Rag and gotten a good match in both cases)

2. Create a flattened TIFF and resize at 360 dpi. The gray gamma 2.2 profile is still embedded in the file at this point.

3. Prior to printing, select "Do not color manage this document" in the Edit -> Assign Profile menu. This causes the image on the screen

   to appear flat and light.

4. In the Epson driver, select Advanced B/W mode and "Printer manages colors". In the Advanced Color setting, select "Normal" instead of "Darker"

    (I don't have the Mac in front of me now so some of this terminology might be a little off.)

    I hope this is helpful if anyone is still struggling with this problem.

[Guest]

I have recently moved to MacPro and Photoshop CS4 and have the same problem you recite.  I have contacted Epson support, and I had the impression that they had experienced a problem with CS4 and Epson (my printer is the Epson Stylus Pro 4000) printers relative to the existing canned ICC profiles.  I do not know if new profiles will be forthcoming.  There was a suggestion that this same problem had occurred when CS3 first came out, and that Adobe came out with a fix in a driver update.  I do not know whether this is true, but I have tried every possible fix for this printing issue without solution.

[Chris Cox]

At this point, Apple and Adobe are sure that the problem lies with Epson (and only certain versions of their drivers).

Epson has been notified, and given a lot of evidence that the problem is in their drivers.

Ttry the workarounds suggested until Epson fixes their drivers.  Of course, letting Epson know that you don't like their current driver bugs might help.

[Was DYP]

But did Adobe learn something useful from LR2.3RC that brought the

double profiling problem back with drivers that worked correctly in

PSCS4 and LR2.2 and the final release of LR2.3?

[Chris Cox]

But did Adobe learn something useful from LR2.3RC that brought the

double profiling problem back with drivers that worked correctly in

PSCS4 and LR2.2 and the final release of LR2.3?

Yeah, we made it match the code in Photoshop more closely and avoid some Cocoa printer driver issues in the OS.

[Guest]

The best rendering I can achieve using CS4 with the OSX (5.7) is to use the "automatic" setting while having the printer do the color management.  It also helps slightly to choose a gamma of 1.5 under the automatic setting.  Yes, I do have my monitor fully profiled.  It is strange, in that with my PC and earlier versions of Photoshop, the color was very accurate. The Colorsync rendering under the "Custom" setting is the next best.  By far the worst rendering is using Photoshop to apply the canned ICC printer profiles provided by Epson.

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

I am using the R1900 and this is what I found that works and might works for me

Photoshop managers printing

with Adobe RGB 1998 as the profile same as the document which is Adobe RGB 1998
and this is imprtant in the Epson print dialog I choose Color Settings>Color Controls>Adpbe RGB 1998.

Call me crazy but I don't see why you would profile an image and not make cerrtain you stick with it all the way.

Any way it works extremely well.

You will like it.

[Guest]

Wade, if someone could verify to me that one of the moderate priced

photo printers had canned profiles that were up to date with OSX 5.7

and with CS4 and Lightroom 2 to render accurate colors and brightness,

I would probably purchase the printer shortly.  If there is a basic

issue in CS4 affecting printers generally, that may not be an answer.

Obviously, this is a huge issue for photographers printing their own

images for sale.

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

Photographer q wrote:

Wade, if someone could verify to me that one of the moderate priced 

photo printers had canned profiles that were up to date with OSX 5.7 

and with CS4 and Lightroom 2 to render accurate colors and brightness, 

I would probably purchase the printer shortly. 

I generally print from photoshop but just did a print from LR 2.4 I am using a Epson R 1900 my settings where the canned setting of printer managers printing, then in the print dialog I selected my paper it doesn't have the Ultra Premium Gloss so I chose Premium Gloss and for the color setting I chose in this chose Epson Standard and Photo RPM as the quality and gloss optimizer on.

Looks pretty good to me and in my light in my apartment it looks a touch darker than my screen, but I have like 11 foot ceilings and that makes the apartment a little darker than most so I would have to look at in in another space or in the daytime but from expereince it will be in the day time very much like the screen.

I can tell you that for me this looks very good and makes me extremely pleased with the printer. The printer just helped me get a very important client who is world renown and if he gives me more work then this thing has paid for itself 1,000 times over maybe even more than that.

Hard to tell this from a photographic print might even be better.

Also I want to thank you I might in the future reimport the files into LR once i save them as tiffs, since I can print multiple files in one batch.

Set a batch and go do something else.

This is my experience and the prints are beautiful.  

By the way if you print to from Illustrator you have to go to a pdf first the vector has a little problem with direct printing from Illustrator in 10.5.7.

But Acrobat prints very good since the 10.5.7 update from Apple.

[Guest]

Thank you, I will take a look at the Epson 1900.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Photographer q wrote:

…if someone could verify to me that one of the moderate priced 

photo printers had canned profiles that were up to date with OSX 5.7…

I'd phrase that differently: "When someone can verify that Leopard plays nice with third party drivers, I might consider moving to it."  Of course, if your machine won't run Tiger, then you're stuck.

Incidentally, it's monumentally unwise to expose all that personal information in your signature in public.  You must love spam and scams. 

[Was DYP]

Photographer q wrote:

Wade, if someone could verify to me that one of the moderate priced 

photo printers had canned profiles that were up to date with OSX 5.7 

and with CS4 and Lightroom 2 to render accurate colors and brightness,

All the Canon iPF Series with drivers newer than 12-2008 work correctly with 10.5.7.

I don't know about the Epson or HP printers. Maybe someone else can fill us in here.

Of course if you are going to use canned profiles, canned profile that are registered with the media setting in the ColorSync Utility then the double profiling bug is not going to matter when printing with those media settings since you will be double profiling with the same profile. But I this case it is very important that your printer is truly set as the default printer. Or you can select printer manages color and choose the media and corresponding profile in the driver.

This double profiling bug really only is a problem with custom profiles, but even then you can assign custom profiles to the selected media (limited though) in the ColorSync Utility as a workaround. Back to double profiling with the same profile.

[Jeff Schewe]

Chris Cox wrote:

At this point, Apple and Adobe are sure that the problem lies with Epson (and only certain versions of their drivers).

Epson has been notified, and given a lot of evidence that the problem is in their drivers.

Just to be perfectly clear about what Chris is saying...he is correct that to the extent that Leopard compatible drivers need to be updated to work properly with Leopard and CS4/Lightroom 2.x (the driver numbers for Mac are in the 6.xx range). Yes it is an Epson issue to be dealt with. But...the fact is that the older drivers for printers such as the 2200 or the 1400 (I think the number was) and x600 printers (76/9600) or the 4000 that "are out of date" meaning Epson still sells materials but no longer sells the printers nor supports the software/drivers, are simply never going to be updated...

Sad fact of life but when something is no longer being actively sold, manufactures just ain't gonna support the stuff. Not in this economy...so if you are running the current Photoshop (CS4 11.01) and running the current Mac OS (OS X 10.5.7 as of today) you better be using one of the currently shipping Epson (or Canon or HP) printers otherwise you are really shyte-out-of-luck. Seriously...expecting some sort of backwards compatibility update from Adobe/Apple/Epson is really not at all realistic...ain't gonna happen no ways, no how...

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

>

Sad fact of life but when something is no longer being actively

sold, manufactures just ain't gonna support the stuff. Not in this

economy...so if you are running the current Photoshop (CS4 11.01)

and running the current Mac OS (OS X 10.5.7 as of today) you better

be using one of the currently shipping Epson (or Canon or HP)

printers otherwise you are really shyte-out-of-luck.

Seriously...expecting some sort of backwards compatibility update

from Adobe/Apple/Epson is really not at all realistic...ain't gonna

happen no ways, no how...

>

I am not certain it would be in the users interest to support the

older printers and software as that might actually keep the user

falsely convinced everything is fine and there is no reason to update.

If you ever saw a print made the the r1900 you would understand what I

mean. And I am certain they will improve on that as well. Just the

idea that you no longer have to make like twenty test prints finally

get it going well enough and

every third image you have figure out how to correct the color again…

well it is worth bringing this technology to the newer and larger

printers as well.

So things will change and you are probably better off. I have save so

much on paper and ink that that in itself have paid for the printer

several times over.

So the upgrade approach is serving to everyones benefit, shareholder

the company the staff retailers users etc.

[Guest]

The problem is that the larger printers for personal use do not make as much sense if their useful life is only several years.  It would seem that there would be some incentive for updated drivers to be produced, perhaps by some license or coordination with third party venders.  Do custom ICC profiles represent a solution to this problem.  Obviously a printer, regardless of its initial cost, is somewhat worthless if it cannot reproduce acceptable prints after the first several years.

[Was DYP]

Do custom ICC profiles represent a solution to this problem.  Obviously a printer, regardless of its initial cost, is somewhat worthless if it cannot reproduce acceptable prints after the first several years.

No, as I have already pointed out earlier, with drivers that are not properly updated for Leopard the problem is double profiling.

A RIP is one solution to this problem, or print from applications that do not use the printing path that LR2 and PSCS4 use. But at what point other applications will be updated to use this new printing path is anybodies guess.

[Jeff Schewe]

Photographer q wrote:

The problem is that the larger printers for personal use do not make as much sense if their useful life is only several years.

Large format printers are for pro use. In pro printing, the darn things will nearly wear out before they are obsolete...in any regards, it's simply not practical to keep updating drivers long after Epson quits selling the printers. But their useful life is quite long all things considered but you will always be limited in terms of software/hardware compatibilities. If you wanna be using the most up to date computer, OX and version of Photoshop, you'll need to keep current with the updated printer as well.

And it ain't "several years" anyway...the 76/9600 and 4000 printers haven't been on the market for 4-5 years and were replaced by the 78/9800 which were replaced by the 788/9880. We now have the 79/9900 in the market while the 880 series are still being sold. The 2200 was replaced by the 2400 which was replaced by the 2880.

Time marches forward...so you either march along or get left in the dust.

[Guest]

I guess I am still looking for the company with a modified business plan.....printers that represent an investment over the longer run with updated drivers which can be purchased and camera companies that build the heavy duty body of a quality pro camera with updated modules to insert when technology marches ahead. (These modules could be priced right...)  Then we could have equipment that would be an investment and have the longevity of some of the classic film cameras.  I guess not the most attractive plan for the current companies....but it might instill brand loyalty.