Awful Color on Epson 2200 after Snow Leopard Upgrade

Hi again.
I posted the following to the Epson site-- and will post any (if any) response. If someone has a corporate number that will reach someone specific, please pass it along-- I'm an author and can probably get a formal response.

----
Hi folks. I am involved with a group of digital professionals who are using the 2200 for professional photography and art purposes. As of yet, the results that we get from printing to the 2200 from Snow Leopard are not acceptable. We have received conflicting information about whether you are intending to ship a driver to reinstate the professional color controls to the 2200 through Snow Leopard-- we have been told by a manager in tech that a driver is in the works, and due 2nd quarter, and by general tech people that the "work around" with reinstalling previous drivers is sufficient. The workaround does NOT restore the professional color controls and generates sub-standard results. Would you please clarify? I will pass along the information received here to the full group. Thank you!
----
thanks to the "group" here.
--ss

HI again.
here is the formal response:

----
Response (Elliott R) 10/30/2009 02:19 PM
Thank you for taking the time to contact Epson. It is my pleasure to respond to your inquiry.

Epson is aware of the color control issues regarding the 2200 and the Snow Leopard OS. Epson intends to release the driver for Snow Leopard in January of 2010, but we are trying to push for a sooner date. If colors are critical at this time, we
recommend converting back to Mac OS 10.5.x until the correct driver is released. We do apologize for the inconvenience.

Should you require further assistance with this issue, please reply without history (when possible), as our email system contains all previous correspondence. If you have a different technical support issue, please submit another email request via our website ( http://www.epson.com/support), and we will respond in a timely manner.

Thank you again for contacting Epson.

Elliott R
---
thanks all!

I've been trying to establish what the problem was with Snow Leopard and my 9600 as the prints come out ugly and dense and oversaturated. I can simulate the final print by assigning the print profile in Photoshop, my guess is this s what's going on with the OS and driver the incorrect translation of the profile.

Hopefully Epson will sort it out soon, luckily I have access to 10.4 for printing or my business would have been in big trouble.

Maybe there's hope? I'm not sure who this guy is, but if he really is associated with Epson and this is correct, for the 1280, maybe the 2200 will also get updated sooner than expected?

http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10469637#10469637

Count me in. I upgraded to Snow Leopard a few weeks ago. I don't print on a daily basis and in the past have been able to assume I could print on pretty short notice.

Well this morning I needed to print 3 photos unexpectedly. "No problem!" I thought. However, I have a 2200 as well, had no idea of the issues, and found I could not print. 😟

I came looking for a solution to this problem, but I have a fly to throw in your soup: I upgraded to Snow Leopard in September, and until a few days ago, was getting beautiful color out of my Epson 2200. Then, quite suddenly, the color went horrible. Muddy. Greenish. Weird spotty color changes, like I've a couple prints of a gray and black dog on a red upholstered carriage seat, an the dog looks close, but the seat is bright, fluorescent green in the print.

As far as I know, NOTHING changed. Except, of course, that I can't drag a decent print out of the printer to save my life.

So, ok, everybody here says that the "solution" is to go back to 10.5. Well, guess what, I've got another Mac here that runs 10.5, being a PPC machine, and I can't get a decent print out of IT either. Off the very same file.

So I'm not so quick to blame the Epson driver situation. Especially since when I made the upgrade to 10.6, I noted that my Epson driver went away, and all I had was the Gutenprint driver, and it was from that that I was getting such good prints. I missed the features, mind you, but the color was great. When the problem cropped up, I went and got the Epson upgrade installer, to no avail.

So, it is my guess there's something else going on here, obviously something in the air, however, as it appears a lot of folks are having a problem.

I don't know your experience level or anything like that so please don't take offense if these suggestions don't apply.

You said you were able to print fine and now can't. And it makes no difference if you try it with SL or 10.5. So I am wondering if the problem might be the printer itself? Have you run the cleaning tool? Can you print a good test pattern? Maybe one of the ink cartridges is bad? You say the dog is OKish, but the seat isn't. I would think if the dog is OK and the seat is weird that you might have a color that isn't printing. If cleaning doesn't work maybe try new cartridges?

How about the file itself? Have you tried other files? Maybe the color info in that particular file is corrupted or something?

Again, just thoughts that popped into my mind.

Michael Corbin wrote:
I came looking for a solution to this problem, but I have a fly to throw in your soup: I upgraded to Snow Leopard in September, and until a few days ago, was getting beautiful color out of my Epson 2200. Then, quite suddenly, the color went horrible. Muddy. Greenish. Weird spotty color changes, like I've a couple prints of a gray and black dog on a red upholstered carriage seat, an the dog looks close, but the seat is bright, fluorescent green in the print.

As far as I know, NOTHING changed. Except, of course, that I can't drag a decent print out of the printer to save my life.

So, ok, everybody here says that the "solution" is to go back to 10.5. Well, guess what, I've got another Mac here that runs 10.5, being a PPC machine, and I can't get a decent print out of IT either. Off the very same file.

So I'm not so quick to blame the Epson driver situation. Especially since when I made the upgrade to 10.6, I noted that my Epson driver went away, and all I had was the Gutenprint driver, and it was from that that I was getting such good prints. I missed the features, mind you, but the color was great. When the problem cropped up, I went and got the Epson upgrade installer, to no avail.

So, it is my guess there's something else going on here, obviously something in the air, however, as it appears a lot of folks are having a problem.

The problem discussed here is an Epson driver issue _for certain_. As posted earlier, Epson has said so themselves, which is why they are working on a new driver to be released in the first quarter of 2010. What you are describing is unrelated to the driver issue.

The problem we have been discussing here occurs only in Snow Leopard when using the Epson driver in a proper color-managed workflow (where Photoshop manages colors, not the printer, and you select the appropriate color profile for your specific paper/ink combination). I'm guessing you are not using a color-managed workflow if you were using the Gutenprint driver.

You say you are getting the same results with different computers running different operating systems and different drivers. It stands to reason then that you can eliminate those things as a cause because you are looking for the common denominators. So I concur with Elevator Guy above. The common denominators are the printer and the file (if only the one file produces bad results).

You didn't mention whether other files produce the same bad results, but I'm guessing that they do, and suspect you have a printer problem. It is not uncommon for a nozzle to plug up, resulting in only one colour not reproducing correctly, which is what you are describing. Run a nozzle check with the Epson Printer Utility, and use the head cleaning function to try to clear the problem.

I come late to this discussion, but not to the problem. For background, I am a skilled amateur photographer and very longtime Microsoft user. I have used Photoshop from its infancy and have grown used to most of its quirks. I live in several locations, maintain similar computer equipment everywhere, and color profile monitors, papers, and occasionally one of my scanners.

Last year I received the MacBook Pro as a gift from the kids. I thought I would finally enter the world of "real" color management. I discovered very quickly that all of your problems with the R2200, R1800, R800 I also have. I, too, have spent hours working through various setup scenarios.

David Brooks, at Shutterbug, was very helpful in confirming that I wasn't nuts. The Spyder 2 tech were extremely helpful, testing and sending a new Spyder just to make sure the profiling was accurate--same lousy print results. The response from Epson was ugly.

Today, I downloaded the latest driver for the R800 and get decent text prints. You won't like my solution. If I want serious prints, I fire up the aging Dells, make sure the monitor profiles are current, and print away. The other solution I use: I run a Vista machine under VMware, so I can get a couple of key connections with my Microsoft servers. So I loaded CS3 and print using a calibrated external monitor attached to the laptop. I have come to the conclusion it is totally an Epson issue.

Since I have fallen in love with the Apple operating system and the hardware generally, I am going to buy either a desktop or the iMac 27". That means I have to solve the printer issue. I have to means to buy any of the higher end printers, but it seems everyone is having an issue.

Hi,

Epson just posted a NEW 10.6 driver for the 2200 v. 8.12 posted 11/25/09.

Use on 10.6.2/27" iMac (2009): density correct, skin color a bit red but overal better than 10.5.8 with PS CS4 and have NOT re-profiled my monitor under SL and yet to check for new printer profiles, though I suspect I will have to generate my own.

Weirdness with driver note:

1. Install program flakey (on 2009 27' iMac) (hard to maintain focus so that password can be entered).
2. Printer test page does NOT work for either USB or Firewire.
3. Printer utilities works ONLY with Firewire (same as 10.5.8)

Overall very usable (better than anything since CS2 and I suspecgt with better profiles will be on the money.

Hope this helps,

Ed

Hi,

After commenting on color issue at DPReview Mac discussion board, User there suggested removing all, traces of the Epson driver, emptying trash and rebooting to fix color issue.

I did so, reinstalled new driver and latest profiles, and "poof", color is now spot on without red cast. Also test print NOW works, still need firewire to use utility. Installer still a little flakey about holding until first letter of password entered.

All-in-all color is as good as I have evder seen from 2200 & prepackaged profiles.

hope someone else finds this useful.

Ed

The color

thank you! for some reason I didn't get the notice that this was posted (even though I'd subscribed). YEAH!!! thanks again-- now I can get the new computer....

Hi, i am a semipro photographer and I had the same problem until I used my spyder print 3 to create a custom icc profile. Now my prints look better than ever.

Ed,
How did you get the sign-in panel to stand still so you could enter password? My attempts to put in password failed. It kept flashing. I'm not explaining this very well, but it boils down to the fact that I could not input my adm. password. Did you have this problem and how did you overcome?

In case someone else is having the problem I had getting password into new v.8.12 epson drivers, when form flashes up, immediately type in a letter. After that you're home free. Thanks to Ed, where I got the idea for how to do this. Bless you Ed.