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?

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

q,

While I fully symphatize with you, as I still occasionally shoot with film cameras as old as my sixty-year old Leica rangefinder which my father used through 1955 and I uninterruptedly since then, we have to realize that the days of equipment built to last are long gone, never to return.  The truth is that these days companies would not survive with the old business model.  I hate that too, but it's reality.

[Guest]

Ramon, I am sure you are correct that the model for success in our ever-changing technology world is to make sure that the consumer needs to buy constantly to keep up with the latest equipment.  I do think that the business which does things differently can sometimes be very successful in a smaller niche.  The updates can be less than the purchase of the entire printer or camera.  I think a nice profit could be made if the company sold only the needed new technology and the initial engineering was good enough and innovative enough to allow continued use of what is needed to physically operate with the new technology.  I know, as a consumer, if I recognized that design philosophy in a technology company, I would be willing to make the top of the line investment initially.

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

Here is the problem with that strategy the technology updates but the physical nature of the equipment does as well for one reason or the other, the demand for the new technology is great so the manufacturers have to update and since they can it compels them to do so.

So now they do so and then the clients wan it.

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Wade,

You must have tried the email route again, your post is totally blank.

[grayscapes]

IF the EOL cycle you mention is true, that is indeed sad.  Of course, the Stylus Pro 3800 is not out of date and (I think) is still on the market.  So that device should be updated and it has not.

Besides, we are not talking about the hundreds and hundreds of consumer level printers out there, we are talking about the fewer than 6 high end pro/semi-pro models that define Epson as a leader in the industry.  If they can't keep that up, then what gives?

My SP 3800 is great and renders images beautifully.  I am not a high volume producer and expect to keep it going for many years.  Lord knows Epson happily sells me ink cartridges and paper for that printer.

I want the damn driver updated already.  Sheesh.

Cheers,

grayscapes

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

Well this would not be unreasonable.

I agree if the printer is current and there is a need to update the

driver then they have to do it and even if they have stopped selling

the printer t least for a couple of years they should support it.

But beyond that I think it is not practical.

[Guest]

Wade, I do not want to belabor this issue, since I realize this Forum is for technical issues primarily. My basic point is only that if Epson wants to sell a heavy duty higher end printer to those of us who will not wear it out in a couple of years, it (as well as its friends at Abobe) should at least provide updated drivers and or profiles at a reasonable cost to the consumer.  I am not asking for free support.  As I state above, other providers such as Adobe and Apple should also make such an update possible, since someone with a printer which is several years old would like to know if they buy updated software (whether an application or operating system) that their printer won't become unusable for all practical purposes.

[grayscapes]

I sent the following email to Epson Support today.  I will let you know if they respond.

There is a persistent problem with the color profiles used by my Stylus Pro 3800 (and certain other Epson high-end printers) that results in documents being "double-profiled" so that B&W prints come out too dark when color managed by Photoshop CS 4.  There is a lengthy posting and discussion thread about this issue here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/2086443#2086443

I have called Epson Technical Support several times and have been given only half-baked work arounds.  Epson needs to update its printer drivers to work properly with Apple's OS 10.5.x and Adobe's CS4 and Lightroom.  This is a critical issue for pro photographers and Epson's reputation as the leader in printers for this market is on the line.  People are jumping to other manufacturers out of frustration with this.  Unfortunately for me, I do not have the luxury of spending thousands of dollars on a printer only to junk it after a couple of years because Epson will not fix the problem.  Please review the link above and provide us with an indication about when we can expect to see properly updated drivers for the affected printers.  This printer has been great for me, but it causing me no end of problems in the past 6 months over this issue.  Please help.

~grayscapes

[grayscapes]

So here is the response I got:

Thank you for taking the time to contact Epson. It is my pleasure to respond to your inquiry. I apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced. When using the Advanced Black and White setting you have to let the printer determine colors by choosing that option in the driver. By doing this it disables the option to turn the color management on or off because the driver is going to take over.

Should you require further assistance with this issue, please reply without history (when possible), as our email system contains all previous correspondence. If you have a different technical support issue, please submit another email request via our website (http://www.epson.com/support), and we will respond in a timely manner.

Thank you again for contacting Epson.

Sandy A

Here's your chance . . . how should I respond?  I want to ask why their driver suddenly no longer supports Photoshop management of colors, and an end-to-end color managed workflow.  Anyone else?

Cheers,

grayscapes

[grayscapes]

OK, so I was too impatient to wait for the responses from you all.    Here is the response I sent:

So what happened to color-managed workflows and support for Adobe Photoshop managing the colors for the printer?  That used to work very well and enabled me to shoot in Adobe RGB 1998, edit in Adobe RGB 1998 and print in Adobe RGB 1998.  Plus, I am using a calibrated monitor and I want to make sure that what I see on the screen is what comes out of the printer. 

Adobe's engineers say that Epson's drivers have a bug in them.  They even say that they have provided Epson with the information to correct the problem.  Why hasn't Epson acted on this?  It is really unacceptable from the top imaging hardware company in the industry to treat its loyal customers like this.  I spent a considerable sum of money on my Stylus Pro 3800 and I have a reasonable expectation that it will continue to perform properly for many years and that Epson will offer the appropriate driver updates to keep pace with Apple's OS updates and Adobe's software updates. 

Your answer to my problem amounts to nothing more than another half-baked work-around.  It is not the solution.

I am still willing to ask any other questions or make any other comments that you like.

Perhaps we should all begin emailing Epson tech support (must do it through their support website initially) about this issue.  Send them the link to this forum thread and pressure them to fix the problem.  Maybe if enough people contact them, this issue will get somebody's attention.  If nothing else, this thread makes Epson look incompetent.

grayscapes

[Guest]

Grayscapes, thank you for your efforts with Epson.    I too, had contacted its support group, with a similar result.  Since the continuation of the purchases of Epson inks and papers for the "older" printers must provide some profit to the company, I would think it would be a business benefit to the company to resolve the driver issue.  Clearly, if the color and brightness can't be resolved, the printers can't be used on a current Apple system.

[Was DYP]

the printers can't be used on a current Apple system.

They can be used on the current Apple system with the workaround that I have mentioned. Though not as ideal as if Epson corrected their drivers.

[Was DYP]

There is a persistent problem with the color profiles used by my Stylus Pro 3800 (and certain other Epson high-end printers) that results in documents being "double-profiled" so that B&W prints come out too dark when color managed by Photoshop CS 4.

Have you tried this driver from the UK site? Driver  {v.6.57:} 28-May-2009,

http://alturl.com/d4q4

I have heard it supposedly deals with the"no color" and AWB issues with Mac OSX.

[Art_Mattiello]

Hi All,

OK - so I too have been printing to an EPSON R1800 with CS3 and was happy as a clam....then I buy UPGRADE CS4 and everything goes dark.

For Days I have been trying to figure out WTF.  Well, I have done every suggestion in every forum - I Tried the new Drivers in MAC OS Leopard 10.5.7. I deleted and downloaded new GUTENPRINT, tried EPSON USA drivers - none helped. I color synch, calibrated and still Dark Prints....wasted time wasted paper and not sure who's to blame.

This morning I found the EPSON UK driver for my printer (live in NYC) .....I downloaded it and the Prints were closer than before- not as dark, but not a match as in CS3. I then found //forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1003&thread=31085537

This seems to work!!!!

Hope this helps

Art

[Ramón_G_Castañeda]

Your link does not work.  Can you provide the thread title and which forum @ dpreview?  It sounds interesting.

Thanks in advance.

[Art_Mattiello]

HiTRY:http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1003&thread=31085537

Art

[Guest]

I have been following these posts and have participated above.  I have studied the new posts and the referenced thread, but I have not resolved the color and darkness problem for my Epson 4000.  I had installed the Pro4000 profiles in the ColorSync>Profiles folder as suggested in the thread and the profiles are recognized in Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2.  Interestingly though, when I run the Colorsync Utility and click on "Profiles" it does not recognize any ICC profiles for my printers.  When I run the Repair Utility in Colorsync utility it lists a group of ICC profiles,  but then states that the profiles cannot be repaired  with this reference: "Tag 'dmnd'......Tag Size is not correct".   Since the ICC profiles are not recognized in the ColorSync and there is a reference to a problem with the format for the ICC profiles, does that explain the problem with using the profiles with Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2?  Are the applications not finding or recognizing the profiles?

[Was DYP]

Under Devices in the ColorSync Utility for your printer, are the media settings listed with their corresponding paper profiles?

[Guest]

No media settings show under "Devices".  I did examine the other entries further, and see that under "Profiles>Computer the profiles are listed.  My concern is that under the Profile First Aid "Verify" selection the SPro4000_Core.plugin contents are show to be "bad profiles" because the "Tag size is not correct".  Is there anything to do to correct that problem, or does it not affect the usefulness of the profiles?

[Was DYP]

No media settings show under "Devices".

Then your printer driver did not install correctly.

You will want to look at this.

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1003&message=31085537

Also search for previous postings by Jesse Phoenix, as he had the exact same problem you are facing.

[Guest]

I am not sure what you mean by "media settings".  In my earlier post, I was talking about the "Devices" tab in the ColorSync Utility.  Under that tab, it lists the various devices on my Mac Pro, including the printers.  It lists the Epson Stylus Pro 4000.  When selecting that printer, it does not show any of the ICC profiles, but merely lists an ID for the printer and states that "Scope:Any user of current machine"  If you go to the "Profiles" tab of ColorSync Utility it lists various Profile categories including "System", "Computer" and "Displays".  Under the "Computer" category, it lists the various canned Epson Pro4000 profiles.  Again my concern was that under the "Profile First Aid" tab in the ColorSync Utility when I do a Verify, its shows these Epson ICC profiles as bad profiles which it can not repair.  What does it mean that they are bad?  Does it mean that the software cannot utilize them for the color management function?

[Was DYP]

Well the CU does call it Mode instead of Media. But if they are not

listed under the printer (triangle) in the devices tab then the driver

did not install properly. Not registered with ColorSync.

I would not worry about what "Profile First Aid" says. Almost all my

profiles say the same thing and I have no printing problems.

[Guest]

I reinstalled the printer drivers, and I have the most recent driver for the Epson Stylus Pro 4000.  It is a mystery to me how this all works though I know that in my Colorsync Utility that the profiles do not show up under the "Devices" tab but do show up under "Computer" under the Profiles tab.  It is somewhat interesting why there is not a category under the Profiles tab for printers, but there is not one.  I may go and study the workings of the Colorsync Utility more so I can understand what it is showing.  Short of that, I do not know how to solve the basic issue of the poor color using the canned ICC profiles.   Thank you for your suggestions, I will continue to see how to solve it.

[Guest]

Was DYP, I guess the reinstall did reference the Profiles under the printer in the Devices section of the Colorsync Utility.  That has not helped the color rendition of the prints, however.