printing issues with Aperture

I can't print from aperture, to my Epson R1800. Every other app is fine. From Aperture, prints are unusably dark, flat, green, etc. I too am waiting for Leopard...

Printing issue with Aperture on an HP Deskjet.

On Sunday I went to Staples and picked up a HP Deskjet D4260. After I got it home and installed it, I tried it out. One of the images of an Alaskan seascape with a highly rippled water surface showed substantial banding and nothing seemed to be able to fix it. The banding repeat seemed to be equal to the width of the cartridge output jet array. I called HP, but got a "We only speak Mac on weekdays." response.

So I went away and tried again. I finally got the printer to print properly using the following procedure.
1. Select an image and choose Print Image from the file menu or Cmd-P
2. When the Print dialog box appears, click Printer Settings and select the HP printer from the drop down list.
3. Below Presets is a drop down list. Select Paper Type/Quality from the list.
4. Select Paper tab and choose your paper type from the Paper Type drop down list.
5. Drom the Quality drop down list choose Best.
It is this last step that causes the paper to be written in smaller steps than the Normal quality which was the default setting.
I hope this helps someone.
Regards,
Don

I print from Aperture and Capture NX to a R1800 just fine. Have you got the paper profiles for the paper and printer? Have you got a profile for the ink and paper done?

No, Aperture will only let me print at the "Normal"low quality setting. It literally won't let me select any of my high res/fine quality profiles, always snaps back to "normal".

Sounds like you have the wrong driver installed. The current Intel Driver for the R1800 is V3.01 Mine is connected via Firewire nor USB. And it is connected to the Firewire 400 hub on my Apple Screen.

Does that help?

"and was told that the problem as with the Epson drivers, that they were not "robust" enough for Aperture's requirements.."


This is a bunch of balony. Apple's Aperture is the one not "robust" enough. It's easy.... There are a bunch of printers out there all with different drivers and it's supposed to be Apple that makes them work with their "pro" software. Saying that everyone elses printers are inadequate is really "I'm rubber, you're glue" mentality coming from Cupertino. The reality is that EVERY OTHER PROGRAM works with our printers except Aperture. EVERY ONE.

It is Aperture who's printing engine is not "robust" enough to handle the printers of the world. Why then would they be saying "Leopard will fix it" if it in fact wasn't due to shoddy printing engines (that they seem not to have the need to fix before asking us to update both Aperture and the OS).

This is Apple being arrogant. Don't get me wrong, I think Aperture is the best app out there for this purpose that I have found so far, but the printing engine is soooooo horrible. My HP Photosmart 8750 is absolutely unusable without calibration hardware. Many others experience this problem but have yet to band together to do anything about it. I surely would have never bought Aperture had I known I would be able to print nothing from it.

From what I have learned, it is because Aperture is unable to be flexible in accepting Absolute Colorimetric and Perceptual Colorimetric Values from certain printer's drivers. So, if your printer doesn't give you the option (like mine doesn't) of setting it to Absolute Colorimetric, you are SOL and you will get better prints from using the "generic cmyk" profile. It is supposed to be the "professional software's" responsibility to be able to adapt to the various printers out there in the world. It just shocks me that this kind of thing is coming from the graphix powerhouse that is Apple. It's a freakin switch to toggle, not that hard- Absolute, Perceptual... what would you like today, sir?

Sorry you are having this issue like so many of us are. And sorry it seems we'll have to shell out for 2 updates before our issue is fixed by Apple.

The Epson R1800 OSX Leopard drivers will be available in November according to the Epson UK web site. What, if anything, it fix's or add's is anyones guess. Maybe Apple have updated printing support at OS level in Leopard.

I dont have to much trouble with my R1800 and after profiling seems to print just fine.

Message was edited by: jpgrove

Apple Tech are correct in one way, System Managed does work well. But a great deal depends on what settings you have in the printer driver box. For the best results you need to profile your printer, i did this and the results are better than the System Managed Ones, Epson have posted some generic ICC profiles for there paper and the R1800 on the US web site.

To print on a R1800 in Aperture, select the photo select print image, select your printer and goes to printer settings, now if your using a profile or System Managed then you need to turn off colour management in the print driver, so do that, then select the correct options for your paper from the Print Settings Drop down box,

Does that help?

I print from Aperture without any problem to an Epson R2400. In my workflow I have a calaibrated monitor and use paper specific 'canned' profiles (meaning the ones provided my the manofacturer).

I get very high quality prints that are very consistent from monitor to print. They way I do it is:

(1) I soft proof with the profile to see in the monitor the kind of results I can expect on print. Given the image colors, some will work out better depending the paper I use and its ability to reprdouce the gammut I need (color think it's a great application to visually see this - meaning comparing the color gammut of an image to that of the paper profile you are about to use).

(2) In Aperture I select the profile of the paper I am going to use (NOT 'system managed', since in my eperience it provided inacurate colors.

(3) In the Epson Print Driver, I turn color management off (otherwise you will get really awful images). I also choose in the 'Print Set-up' option the specific paper I am going to use; this will also greatly affect the results.

With these steps I have gotten awesome images; the ones I used for my last exhibit and continually sell.

Hope this helps! Martin.

PCalvin,
I've used Aperture since it was first released, and have printed photos on my Epson R1800 until a few weeks ago, when I added an Epson 3800.
I produced beautiful prints on the R1800, consistently, with very, very close matches to my calibrated monitor. To get these results, I always choose a profile for the paper I was using, generally Epson's profiles for its papers, and chose my printer, which was set up for the R1800 and the paper in use. ALWAYS printer color management was turned off ("No color management"). And, unlike another responder, I didn't get blocking in shadows. Rather, depending on how well I had processed the file in Aperture (for example, by using the Shadow slider in the Highlight/Shadow box), I was able to get, in the print, more or less detail, the "more or less" being entirely dependent on the extent of my intervention.
In short, I have been thoroughly satisfied with using the Epson R1800 and Aperture. For example, recently I had an image accepted for an international exhibition. The print I made for the exhibition was much larger than my R1800 could handle (20x30 inches), so a colleague - a VERY prominent and successful fine art photographer - allowed me to print the image on his Epson 9800. When I took my image to his studio to print, he looked at the file and urged me to rework it to remove noise and blocking that made the image really crappy. He showed me how the image could be cleaned up in Photoshop. I returned home and, with substantial work and experimenting, I was able to refine the image and produce a version that, when printed in his studio, he praised as "really fine." And, I did all of that work in Aperture, none of it in Photoshop. I even printed a segment of the image on my R1800 with the image sized at 20x30 so that I could see what the texture of the image in the print, on the chosen paper, would look like. (I used the same paper on my R1800 as I used on my colleague's 9800.)
So, it's my experience that gallery-quality printing on really fine papers (Epson Premium Luster; Hanemühle Photo Rag Pearl, used for my exhibition print) can be done on the Epson R1800 using Aperture.
Cheers,
Lou Outlaw

PCalvin,
Sorry that I misunderstood your question/problem. I never learned the Zone System, so I can't be of any assistance, I'm afraid. Hope another poster can and will be.
Cheers,
Lou

I have found the same results with printing from Aperture.

I print with the Epson 3800 and it prints beautiful in every other application but Aperture. Of course with the proper profiles and color management. Even my little R380 doesn't print well from Aperture. Most of Epson's drivers are universal now, not that it would make a difference. But I have ran out of patience with trying to print from Aperture for now.

But for now I print from Photoshop. That has been my solution.