Awful Color on Epson 2200 after Snow Leopard Upgrade

Yes, at this point it appears that those using the Epson 2200 are basically hosed. That'll teach me to upgrade to a new OS... 😟

I can get the thing to print by turning of color management entirely (e.g. - not having photoshop manage colors) and then using the Epson printer software manage color with the photo-realistic setting. It is not a very good solution - the print colors do not match those produced by letting PS manage color - but in an emergency it produces a print that is not grossly green/blue.

Dan

Thanks for offering a possible solution - but it doesn't work if one prints in the recommended way out of PS CS4 and lower. The normal and correct way to print is (as the person following your post mentioned) to select "Photoshop Manages Colors" by selecting this option in the first print dialog box, click the "Print" button at the bottom left to bring up the next "Print" dialog window, use the "Color Management" tab and select "No Color Adjustment."

The awful print is just as it was before the process you described, I'm afraid.

Are you perhaps choosing "No Color Management" in the first print window and then "Color Controls" from the "Color Management" dialog in the second window? This turns color control over to the printer, which is not the best or most accurate way to print. With this option I do, as I mentioned earlier, get a print that is "less awful" than the horribly bad dark green/blue and unusable version when I print the correct way - but the colors are not right. The effect may be subtle if you are not very critical about printer output, but I'm comparing a print made a few days before the upgrade to the best I can get using this second-best method and the print is noticeably bluer and darker - not consistent with the print output I need.

The Gutenberg option sounds interesting, but I have yet to hear of anyone getting a simple and consistent method of precisely duplicating the results using the normal "Photoshop manages colors" approach. And with high quality printing, consistent and predictable results are absolutely critical.

One person reported online that he had contacted Epson, whose representative told him to "get a new printer - do you expect us to support a printer that is six years old!?" Very bad attitude and awfully poor customer support if true. If I ask Epson today how long their new printers will last, do you think they'll tell me "no more than six years after the printer was first introduced?" And don't forget that most of the prints were not purchased on the day of introduction "six years ago," but were purchased perhaps several years after that. If this continues to play out this way, one would be very wise to reconsider purchasing any Epson printer but the very newest model right after introduction - and it might be a better idea to compare support with other manufacturers of excellent photo printers. HP photo printers are every bit as good as Epson and Canon has been doing an increasingly fine job recently.

It also doesn't help that the Epson site is completely silent on the subject of this and many other printers relative to Snow Leopard. I would not like it, but if they really don't intend to support the 2200 and other printers, where is the list of those that they no longer support? (Apple issues such a list from time to time.)

Dan

Risotto:

Thanks for the follow-up, and many good points there.

Epson has a bit of a history of being reluctant to commit to full Apple support, which is very ironic given the heavy use of their printers by photographers who, by and large, are very big fans of Apple computers. Your point about requiring rosetta to use their updaters/drivers is a good one - it is way past time for that sort of thing.

I'll cut them some slack if they do the following: make some kind of public statement (besides the current unsatisfactory and incorrect ones) about their support of their own printers under Snow Leopard, that they then get on this and solve the problem in a matter of weeks at the outside, and that they correct the wrong and useless information currently at their "support" web site.

While it is my experience that I can use Epson printers with my Mac (until now at least) to produce very high quality photographic prints and that no one else produces printers that do a better job at this...

... there are now credible alternatives from both Canon and HP and if Epson can't see fit to support their Mac-using customers I'll switch. I know others who have and who are quite happy with the results they are getting.

Dan

By the way, I see that the footer to my messages has indicated that I use a Powerbook G4. That was outdated. I use a variety of Intel-processor Macs these days. This should be updated starting with this post.

Dan