Epson Stylus 3000 - WinXP

[Eric]

Anyone out there have this printer and use it on XP?

 

We just pulled ours out of storage because our HP is flaking on us. I'm not at all impressed with the color quality of the 3000. Anyone else have problems with their 3000 on XP?

[Eric]

Here are some example prints from my Nikon D70. They were resized (not resampled) to 225 ppi before I printed them. The HP came out great. The Epson didn't print it the size it was supposed to - it was much larger, which is why it's "zoomed" in a bit here. You can tell how much larger the Epson print was. I couldn't fit the entire image on my scanner bed.

 

HP Deskjet 1220C

 

Epson Stylus Color 3000

[Eric]

Dang, I'm milking my own thread...

 

Okay, I converted my image to CMYK - I had been printing them in RGB. Evidently the HP likes the images left in RGB, though the 3000 likes them in CMYK. However, now it appears too dark. ARGH!!

 

Now, if I can only figure out why the Epson isn't printing at the size I'm telling it to - it's enlarging everything. And, when I tell it to center an image, it's not centered either.

 

Again, if anyone has experience with this printer on XP, I'd greatly appreciate some assistance.

[Ernest Burden III]

Evidently the HP likes the images left in RGB, though the 3000 likes them in CMYK. However, now it appears too dark. ARGH!!

 

All the inkjet drivers are RGB devices. Do not convert to CMYK.

 

I don't understand what you are asking. I have a 3000, I drive it off a W2K machine across a network. But the latest driver (now quite old) is a W2k/XP one so it will work on either.

[Eric]

Yeah, I suppose even when I switched it to CMYK, the printed version was about as far to the dark side as the RGB version is to the light side.

 

My question I suppose is what on earth am I missing?

 

I'm printing directly from photoshop like I normally would. However, even though I am specifying the size in photoshop to print at, it prints the image much larger than I specified. I was also printing from Powerpoint late last night trying to get a presentation finished, and it was reducing my prints too much, and chopping off the top of the sheet (I was printing in landscape mode).

 

I downloaded the only available (that I could find) software (not driver) for XP from the Epson site, and when I launch it (it's the monitoring software), it says it can't find the printer (though it's directly connected to the computer via the parallel port cable). However, it prints fine (though incorrectly...).

 

And I have no clue why it prints the exact same file so much differently than the HP does, be it darker or lighter.

I tried installing the CD that came with the printer, but it cancelled after it checked my OS version. I am assuming I need a newer driver, but that's why I'm posting here, trying to find out if anyone has a clue what's happening.

[Eric]

Okay, I may be getting closer... I went ahead and downloaded the Win2000 drivers, so I now have the interface as it appears in the manual, as opposed to the Windows substitution due to the lack of the proper driver. My images appear to be printing better.

 

In regard to the printing not being centered, ....well, stupidity is the answer there. The last image we printed with the 3000 was about 2 years ago. We print 17x22 I believe, and had adjusted the right-side paper alignment guide all the way to the right, and never moved it back to the proper position. That's why my images weren't centered.

 

I'm assuming the scaling issue is simply due to the fact that I had a substitute driver installed somehow.

[AJLynn]

That's the thing with printers, they all perform a bit differently. Sounds like you still have legacy settings from before, you need to look through the driver options and get them cleaned out, but you can't expect the exact same image from two different printer brands - this is at the core a consumer technology, neither of the printers you've mentioned is a current-generation printer designed for digital photography (which give much better color matching) and each company uses different stuff and gets a different technology that gives different output.

 

If you want you can probably get color profiles for the printers or generate them with your Adobe stuff and make it come out a bit better. It might not be worth it - we do so much marketing material in house that we have a color MFP machine and get it tuned professionally, but even with that sometimes it makes more sense to shop out the printing.

[Ernest Burden III]

earlier thread of interest