Awful Color on Epson 2200 after Snow Leopard Upgrade

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

Most photographers or graphics folks doing color-critical work will have already calibrated their monitors with a proper device and will already be using gamma 2.2. So the fact that the default profile has changed from 1.8 to 2.2 is likely irrelevant to most people as they will be using their own monitor profile anyway, not the default Apple profile.

Color management is enough to make anyone's head spin, but the way I understand it, the gamma of the monitor should have no impact on printing anyway. All else being equal, the only thing that changes is how an image appears on screen.
If I was to open and print an image that was edited prior to the gamma change, it will look different on screen but should print exactly the same as it did before.
If, because of the new gamma, I decide to edit the image differently so it looks the same on screen, then of course it will print differently too.

risotto wrote:
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.

I emailed the same guy, haven't heard back yet.

But the response to you is truly sad. If they don't think the 2200, 2400, 2880 printers are being used professionally then clearly Epson does not even understand their own customer base.

And maybe that's the whole problem in a nutshell.

Message was edited by: Bazzography

Message was edited by: Bazzography

danmitchell 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."

Darker? About right? Need to do a new custom profile?

From updating the OS?

Darker is not OK and "about right" is not OK, and there is no reason that one should have to do a custom printer profile for an OS upgrade.

Dan, you are absolutely right about this. Lucky for me, I don't have custom profiles already, and have been meaning to get a few done. Hope you have a backup to revert to. Though I'm a casual printer, I'm very critical on color too. Now that we have the right drivers running, nothing should have changed.

Network 23 wrote:
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.

It shouldn't matter (after all, that's the point of color management!), but I wouldn't be surprised if there are assumptions made that shouldn't be. On further comparison, my colors are good, just too dark. But it's a smaller jump than the full 1.8 to 2.2. If this were a fresh Epson driver, I'd be assuming a cynical ploy to get more ink on the page.

There's a lot of color profile weirdness happening in SL. Who is at fault? I see a Hong Kong standoff with Apple, Adobe, and Epson all pointing their guns around the circle.

1) The printer is apparently receiving different numbers than it did in 10.5.

2) Photoshop CS3 prints differently under 10.5 and 10.6, but InDesign CS3 (way off in 10.5 and even 10.4) now matches it in 10.6. ID's issue had something to do with the OS, as ID no longer did its own conversion. Is there something to that?

3) ID suddenly can't find profiles in the same place they always were. Mmm? Yeah, I'm a version back, but the paths didn't change. And PS has no trouble.

4) I had a display issue with MS Office 2004, where the panels and toolbars wound up with a dark gray background, and label colors in the Save dialog were mud. A fresh monitor profile created in 10.6 fixed it, yet the old profile was fine everywhere else.

I still wonder why Apple dumped the Gutenprint drivers on us instead of the Epson ones that do basically work. Wish we could get a refund for the extra ink spilled. Otherwise, I'm quite happy with SL.

Dan,
That's very interesting. I am also quite critical of my printing, though I don't typically sell my photos. I posted what I did to hopefully help out someone get at least SO so results until this problem gets fixed. A full colorsync workflow also works somewhat good, but prints are dull looking.

Of course it's not correct color management, but it did seem to get rid of the blue cast problem for me. I find it interesting you still get it. That seems to say that something is different with a 220 vs a 1280, although they seem to produce the same problems in a proper color management scheme. I wonder how many other Epson models have this same problem?

I just went to the Epson Drivers page for the 1280 to see if maybe a new driver has been added or something (no new driver), I noticed that they have removed the "Common Updater" file that used to be on that page. I wonder if that means maybe that's what caused the problems? And I hope maybe they will be adding a new one that works?

Elevator Guy wrote:
I just went to the Epson Drivers page for the 1280 to see if maybe a new driver has been added or something (no new driver), I noticed that they have removed the "Common Updater" file that used to be on that page. I wonder if that means maybe that's what caused the problems? And I hope maybe they will be adding a new one that works?

Common Updater no longer on 2200 page either, although it is still listed for other models I checked like the 1900, 2400 and 2880.

Curiouser and curiouser...

For those of you troubleshooting...

I upgraded Photoshop from CS3 -> CS4 at the same time I upgraded OSX 10.5 -> 10.6.

PS CS3 prints fine, but PS CS4 has the blue green cast and wrong gamma that others have mentioned.

Just wanted to echo all the experiences here:
10.5.8 plus Aperture, Photoshop, etc etc printed perfectly with color managed workflow on an Epson 2200 (via Firewire)

Upgraded to 10.6; 2200 no worky...Google, read, download, install...10.6 sees the 2200

Printing from 10.6 (and 10.6.1) now via USB to Epson 2200 with color managed workflow (from Aperture, etc etc) produces dark, greenish prints

Booted back in to 10.5.8 and everything looks great 😟

Still waiting for Epson to deliver.

Im not a pro but I hang and display my prints because they look great. I profile my hardware and want my equipment to function as it should.

Message was edited by: ppmax

Here's a cross post from Luminous. Looks like help may be on the way:

http://luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=37601&hl=2200

Hopefully they (Epson) will update ALL printer drivers. I'm hoping anyway.

In the mean time has anyone tried Epson Easy Print? It only lists a couple programs it will work with, but it was released a long time ago, maybe they only updated the link that says it works with 10.6?

Looking at the LL post, it seems there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We might get working drivers .... sometime. However, according to Apple, 10.6.1 was not the light, http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3669#epson (Updated 11-Sep-09) still lists the 2200 as only working with Gutenprint 5.2.3.

I am still rocking 10.5.8 on my external and everything is working fine. I use prints as sources for paintings, so getting the color spot on is very important, and worth booting a different OS for in the meantime.

Message was edited by: risotto

I can't claim to be a pro, so I'll just say I've always left gamma at 1.8.

My understanding, at least in part, of the color calibration was to get the output to look like the screen; I know it can be a PITA to get right, especially when your printer can also color manage. I had lots of prints that were heavily tinted purple ,or yellow, or very washed out.

In my exposure to color calibration, changing gamma had a weird/bad effect on output. (knowing it had changed, that's why I suggested recalibrating)

AJ wrote:
My understanding, at least in part, of the color calibration was to get the output to look like the screen

Well, that's part of it for sure, but in isolation that isn't really the right way to look at it. This is a brief but very clever explanation of the idea behind color management:
http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/color-management-setting-clocks.html?se arch=color+management&bool=phrase

Getting the output to look like the screen should only ever come after your monitor is properly calibrated.

Let's say you are editing an image in Photoshop. The color of your sky looks a bit off so you tweak it to look a nice rich blue. If your monitor is off, you could actually be turning the sky purple, even though it looks blue on your monitor. Now when you go to print the image, the sky comes out purple instead of blue. It may lseem like you are having printer issues, but trying to match the printer to the screen at this stage would be trying to make two wrongs into a right.

A few hundred dollars will get reasonable introductory-level monitor calibration hardware/software package. Once the monitor is calibrated, then you can look into creating a profile for your specific printer/ink/paper combination. Unfortunately, equipment and software for doing that is usually much more expensive, and the cheap printer calibration tools that are sometimes bundled with monitor calibrators, in my experience, make pretty poor printer profiles and should be avoided.

I found the Epson 2200 and the collection of profiles for the various ink/paper combinations I got from their website to be very good. If you calibrate your monitor you will likely see prints that are very close to what you see on screen (assuming of course that you are using a proper color-managed workflow and not running Snow Leopard). In my case, to obtain a perfect print with my 2200, a factory profile and my calibrated monitor requires just a very minor curve adjustment to lighten the image slightly before printing. It was so close after just monitor profiling that I didn't bother investing in printer profiling equipment.

AJ wrote:
I can't claim to be a pro, so I'll just say I've always left gamma at 1.8.

The problem you run into is that vast majority of hardware and software on the planet assumes a gamma of 2.2... Windoze, the web world, your neighborhood 1 hour photo lab etc. If your computer and your images are isolated from the rest of the world it wouldn't matter much, but when printing or sharing, being on the same page as everyone else makes for fewer headaches. And 2.2 is actually much closer to the native gamma of computer monitors and TVs too.

Apple's use of 1.8 dates back to 1984, QuickDraw and the LaserWriter... long before color management came along. It never made sense to me that Apple continued to use 1.8 by default for so long. If you're interested, here is a good article on gamma 1.8 vs. 2.2 and the Apple history of it:
http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/gamma-18-or-22.html