Best Output Printer

[Renderman]

Can anyone shed some light on what they use to output final images to a client? I have an Epson 1200 printer hooked to a Mac. I always have to mess with the colors so that they look like the screen and end up with two images, one to give to the client electronically and one to print from. I'm considering using a photo output place (like OFOTO) to do my final output. I figured the way I'm doing it now I end up wasting so much paper and ink that the cost will be the same. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Juan

[Brian Cassil]

Have you calibrated your monitor and do you use any kind of color management system?

[Sawyer]

Renderman, I have tried for months to get this right. I have calibrated the *&%# out of my system. All I have learned is that I suck at calibrating. Adobe Photoshop Artistry (not 100% on the name) is a great book it has a very in depth article on doing just that. I take my stuff to a printer.

[Ernest Burden III]

You need to get some professionally produced profiles and learn to use 'em in the Photoshop/printer (in my case Epsons) workflow. RIPs can help, like the one I use for my grayscale machine, but even a $1500 raster RIP needs profiles.

 

Profiles are like a hyperactive 'curve' that finetunes the output, to use them you disable the automatic color management of the Epson driver and have either PS or the RIP use the profile.

 

Epson probably has profiles available if you are using their inks and media. These are either .icc or .icm files. I use special third-party inks and papers, so I have to get profiles specially for them.

 

The difference is amazing.

[Jeff Mottle]

Well Ernest I'd love if you could share some of your knowledge about the Epsons and ICC Profiling, becuase in the past 7 years I have yet to get them to work...any ICC profile, so I'm obviously doing something wrong.

 

Here's what I've tried:

 

1. Monitor is as calibrated as good as I can get it without using something along the lines of a spyder. Basically I've just removed any color casts and set a decent gamma.

 

2. Installed Epson's PIM software which also installs the ICC Profiles for my Epson 960.

 

3. Go into Photoshop and set the RGB colorspace to the Epson 960 Profile using my paper (Premium GLossy Photo)

 

4. Print using the Epson driver and in advanved mode set no color adjustment.

 

5. Print

 

6. Complete dissatisfaction with a VERY bad blue cast.

 

So my question is what am I doign wrong and how does a monitor ICC profile come into play? Help..the only way I was able to get prints to work for the past 7 years at SMED with the KOdak 8650 was through my own built in ICC profile that came with 7 years of know that this crap color of red would print correctly when I printed.

[Ernest Burden III]

Well Ernest I'd love if you could share some of your knowledge about the Epsons and ICC Profiling

I just did. By the way--I am not an expert at this, and do not have my own system up to what some I communicate with would call a top-level workflow. Still, it's in pretty good shape.

 

1. Monitor is as calibrated as good as I can get it without using something along the lines of a spyder. Basically I've just removed any color casts and set a decent gamma.

That's where I am, too.

 

2. Installed Epson's PIM software which also installs the ICC Profiles for my Epson 960.

 

3. Go into Photoshop and set the RGB colorspace to the Epson 960 Profile using my paper (Premium GLossy Photo)

You should usually be working in RGB, as these printers are RGB devices--never mind that they print CMYK, the drivers work in RGB. You want to have a standard colorspace for your documents--the three most common are Adobe1998, Colormatch and sRGB. I use ColorMatch, but sRGB is good, too. And my Nikon seems to store digital pics in sRGB, so when working with them I accept that colorspace. This means you are setting up a DEFAULT colorspace in Photoshop. When you first open a new render it will get set in that colorspace. It's best to allow the dialogs so you see what is happening when you open docs. DO NOT apply a profile to the file, do not convert to other colorspaces. Just leave it alone. Each time you alter the space you reduce the quality of your picture and forever bias it to that applied profile or colorspace. The printer profiles come in later.

 

4. Print using the Epson driver and in advanved mode set no color adjustment.5. Print

6. Complete dissatisfaction with a VERY bad blue cast.

This assumes PS 6 or better yet 7.

When your document is open you can go to View> Proof Setup>Custom to set up a soft-proof. You would navigate to where the Epson-installed profiles are and select the one for your ink and media, deselect 'preserve color numbers' and select the white paper and black point compensation. The 'intent' is best at 'Relative Colorimetric' You can save the setup for future use.

 

Now, what you see on screen is supposed to be a pretty good approximation of what will print. I find the soft-proof often looks a bit more drab than the print, but color is good.

 

When doing the print page setup which brings you to the Epson driver, you carefully select the print resolution and media, which should match the .icc profile you selected. As you mentioned you set the color management to 'no adjustment' or similar language. This is usually found by clicking 'advanced'. You would see the CMY/BC sliders, but they will get grayed out.

 

When you are doing the print from Photoshop (with the softproof still active) the print panel has a set of choices, 'Source Space' will be set to 'Proof' and will say the icc profile you set, then 'Print Space' will be set to 'same as source'

 

NOW you hit print.

 

I should make clear that none of what I wrote is the result of my own innovation or genius--it is all what I have been taught to do by other, more informed, people and tutorials. The methods are only as good as the profiles let them be--I had a set of professional profiles for my color 7000 that just couldn't deliver a neutral gray no matter what I did. I got a new set done and now I can completely nail neutrals like never before. Same printer, ink, drivers, PS, and file. I do not know if the Epson profiles are good, but I suspect they are.

 

Did I miss anything?

[Renderman]

Thanks guys for the replies. My head is of course spinning. I should've suspected it wasn't going to be simple. There is sooo much to learn in this field and so litte time in the day. I will try your suggestions later in the week. For now i will take it to a print bureau.

Thanks

 

Juan

[ingo]

It looks like we can easily fill an Epson discussion forum

 

From my experience i either get good results with ColorSync profiles, needs a bit of work but gives good results; i have an Epson 2000P.

A bit easier for you Windows guys is the tip i get from another colleague to make the first print as is from PS, than move in PS the color sliders, for example in selective color or hue/saturation, that the picture on the screen looks like your print. Than simply move the sliders to the other side, if you have for example cyan at -10, move it to +10, and voila, you have a nice print.

And if you want good prints avoid highglossy paper, better use semiglossy paper or what i like most is the archival matte paper.

 

HTHINTN

 

ingo

[Craig Ramsay]

I have been messing about with colour profiles for the past few months and trust me it is a complete head f**k

 

I bought a colour spyder with software to calibrate my monitors and printer an it does work really well but it takes a lot of tweaking, paper and ink/toner to get it spot on.

 

You should have a different icc/icm profile for each different type of printer and paper that you use.

 

Craig

[Brian Cassil]

This is obviously a point of great frustration for more than just a few of us and I'm surprised this topic hasn't come up in the forums prior to now.

 

The info here is great so far and nobody is even claiming to be all that profficient at setting up consistent color output! So, Jeff, how about getting a real expert to help us all understand the process a little better?

 

This is a fun little explaination of color calibration written by Steve Upton that I have used in my class. It doesn't give any real practical information on setting things up but the theory is described in plain, easy to understand terms.

[Craig Ramsay]

Sounds like a very good idea Brian

[ingo]

So what are your problems ? My only frustration is that the inks are always empty whenever i needed them :ngeupset:

[Jeff Mottle]

Ok looks like I'm back in business. Turns out that one of my cartridges has stopped flowing ink. No damn wonder I things looked like crap. Actually my yellow stopped so I had to take it out and shake it a bit.

 

NOTE: Even though there is a two way valve on the cartridges, make sure to cover up the ink port before you shake them...just to be safe. And don't touch the chip or you could lose all of the ink level data.

 

BTW, I found out all of this after phoning Epson, who were actually quite helpful, although they really just guided me though the cleaning cylces and gave me a few tid bit of info. The most important of which is to make sure that you turn off your Epson printer when you are done with it. Unlike other inkjet brands the Epsons use a eletronic method of laying down ink and the jets heat up if you leave the printer on. This drys the ink out prematurely and clogs your jets, as was my case. I guess other Inkjet are thermal based and do not have this "feature".

 

Anyway the info Ernest provided got my images about 85-90% perfect. Which is probabyl about as close as one can expect to get when comparing an RGB preview to a 6 color ink process that converts to an RGB....

 

Whoohoo, I'm happy now that I do not have to tear my hair out anymore.

[Ernest Burden III]

Turns out that one of my cartridges has stopped flowing ink.

Yeah, it looks like I did miss something in my posts, sorry. I forgot to mention that you must verify that the printer is actually firing on all cylinders. Epsons have a nozzle check routine, plus many models have hidden menu items for advanced nozzle checks and cleaning functions.

 

I have been working way too many hours lately so I can no longer guarentee the completeness or accuracy of what I post. But in the current economy in the US I feel the need to do extra work now if its available--who knows what to expect in a few months. And I want a new computer.