Awful Color on Epson 2200 after Snow Leopard Upgrade

Gotta add my adventures here. Went through everything y'all have gone through, including contacting Apple and Epson. Finally gave up over the weekend and installed the Epson 2200 driver on an old G4 Powerbook running 10.5.8. I can now print again! Hopefully this will be resolved in a timely fashion, but in the likely event that it's not, 10.5.X or earlier is they way to go. Don't waste more time trying to get it right on SL until a fix is posted.

Curtis, InDesign CS3 got, uh, Snow-blind in 10.6, and can only see profiles in the Adobe profiles folder. Copy or alias your profiles here, and you should see them in ID: HD/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/

John, you can access all the Advanced settings if you click the triangle, then select a different radio button, then reselect Color Controls.

My earlier tests were off on a couple of things. First, 10.5.8 does work as expected (Photoshop good, ID too dark). I must've messed up my settings on the first try. D'oh!

In 10.6 with a fresh 2200 driver install (11832.dmg, then 13044.dmg from Epson's site; driver shows as version 3.03), ID and PS are nearly identical, and similar to ID in 10.5, but a touch more saturated (better).

In each case, I am using the standard printing procedure:
Photoshop/InDesign manages colors
Printer Profile: SP2200 Enhanced Matte_MK (I'm using matte black)
Intent: Relative Colorimetric (what I've historically chosen, and used for all in this test)

Print driver:
Paper: Enhanced Matte, 720 dpi (saving ink; it's close enough)
Color Management: No Color Adjustment
I also generally do -20 ink (again, consistent for all tests)

The 10.6 prints are darker than the 10.5.x, but color is about right. Nothing a custom profile could not compensate for. But what if Apple/Epson "fix" the issue in 10.6.1? Aaaargh!

Finally, yesterday I got all clever and copied the 3.09 plugin from the 10.5.8 disk into 10.6, but no changes. It works and shows up as version 3.09, but that's it.

My system is a straight upgrade from 10.5.8, not a fresh install, and CS3 is also an existing install, fully updated.

Nancy, thank you for the tip on accessing the advanced settings: works great.

You mentioned custom profiles. That is one way that we might be able to (temporarily) get printing to work in SL. I can borrow a Colorimeter from work, and run a 729 patch chart and scan it in. In theory the custom profile should fix the color shift. However, home-made profiles, in my experience are always inferior to ones made my the paper manufacturer.

I have made profiles using an i1 and Printfix Pro (729+ patch). When looking at the profiles in ColorSync, the gamut is always drastically inferior to Ilford or Epson paper profiles. If you prints need accuracy in the very light/saturated and very dark areas, the homemade profiles fall flat on their face. Of course, in you invest several thousand dollars on a really good colorimiter, you could get past this. Some of the packages run up to $30,000 though!! New car anyone?

Seems a bit much, I'm happy booting up in 10.5 to print in the meantime. Running an OS off of an external firewire is not nearly as slow as I expected.

Stan

Nancy Raymond wrote:
The 10.6 prints are darker than the 10.5.x, but color is about right. Nothing a custom profile could not compensate for. But what if Apple/Epson "fix" the issue in 10.6.1? Aaaargh!

I wonder if this has anything to do with the default OS gamma change from 1.8 to 2.2 in Snow Leopard? When you use Color Controls, you get to pick which gamma to use, but when you use No Color Management, you don't. I wonder about the interaction between the print data sent out and the assumptions made by the Epson driver (such as gamma) under Color Management Off.

Anyway, if you do make a custom profile I guess you wouldn't have to worry about those questions any more.

Has anyone tried downloading and installing the latest version of Gutenprint (5.2.4?) Apparently it has resolved some driver issues, and it also includes a utility that allows you to access Espon Features like head cleaning, nozzle check, etc.

Interesting comments here. I'm also a photographer, and just upgraded to 10.6 with my "old" Epson 1280 along for the ride. I can't think of my 1280 as an "old" printer now. It still works just fine. 😀

Ive tried out the Gluttenberg drivers, and they aren't too shabby. However I've always let my 1280 handle the colors, and use my Eye One ICC profile as the RGB space. I'd still prefer an Epson driver to get my nozzle utility back. Fortunately my Windows XP disk still has the old driver, so I can diagnose any problems by booting over there. Inconvenient yup, but I hope Epson gets on the ball as others have suggested here. I don't feel like a new printer yet, but then again I could always fire my up englarger in the darkroom to print RA-4! 😉

Message was edited by: Mr. PG

Another thing I just did -- downloaded and installed the ICC profiles from the Epson site, and presto - they're back in the pulldown menu again. Anyone else done this?

I tried Gutenprint 5.2.4, all it gave me were super pink super solarized awful prints. The print settings in Guten are ridiculously complex and undocumented. I tried my best to set it up like my standard Epson settings for 1440dpi Lustre paper, but still no dice. Does anyone have any idea how to set up Guten to emulate "No Color Management" and use the proper 2.2 gamma? I have had no luck making anything close to decent on the 2200 with it.

OK, this is all wrong for what proper color management is supposed to be (Photoshop manage color and "No Color Adjustment" in the printer dialog options), but here's something that seems to work and gives me very very good color matching so far on an Epson 1280.

Monitor (24 inch 2009 iMac) calibrated with a SpyderPro colorimeter.
Photoshop CS4 "Color settings" set to North American Prepress 2, except "Intent" set to Perceptual instead of "Relative Colorimetric"
In CS4 print dialog, "Photoshop Manages Color", Printer Profile "Epson sRGB"
In Epson print dialog, "Print settings> Media Type- Premium Glossy Photo
Color Management- Color Controls with a 2.2 Gamma and "Photo Realistic"

Again, this is not what I have used for years as proper color management, but it seems to work well and I can't explain it, but it seems photoshop is managing the color. In the normal color management method this would be the equiv of double profiling or double managing and should produce a magenta cast. But it works well, so that's why i think CS4 is managing the color. My 1280 is old enough that I doubt Epson will put out new drivers that work correctly with CS4, and I'm not about to buy a new printer now.

Now if I can just get Lightroom to work right (I haven't tried this yet for Lightroom, but it's not likely to be possible since the Print Settings and Color Management options are crossed out in the Epson Print dialog when using LR2

Other than my printing troubles, Snow Leopard is working WONDERFULLY for me and is substantially faster and much more elegant in a lot of stuff. Even with printing problems if I had to decide whether or not to upgrade again I'd without a doubt choose to upgrade.

Steve T

I would think if the default gamma settings changed, then yes, a tweaking or recreating a color profile would be in order.

But sometime when I think, it gets me in trouble 🙂

danmitchell wrote:

This method is probably fine for non-critical printing, but it is not OK for careful and critical work.

Indeed. That's exactly what printers like the 2200 are for... careful and critical work. Many of these printers are being used in professional settings by people who rely on their equipment. I don't need a 2200 to print off recipes, I need it for photography. This lack of support from Epson is not a good way to foster brand loyalty.

I think everyone needs to contact Epson about this and politely ask for a proper Snow Leopard driver for the 2200 (and whatever other printers are no longer working properly).

Speaking of Pro Use, I got a reply back from Mark the Epson guy who promised working drivers for Snow Leopard. He said that that article was only referring to Epson "Pro" printers, not "Photo" printers, which fall into the "Advanced Amateur" division. He promised to forward my email to the correct department.

At least he didn't tell me that I should buy a new printer, but apparently users of 13" printers are "Advanced Amateurs." You need to hit 17" wide format to be considered a "Pro." Whatever size print's I am making, I am just as picky about my color on a 4x6 as a 17x22.

Message was edited by: risotto