Color management issue with ET8550 please help

[lev]

Guys,

I have third party photo papers until I get some genuine Epson photo papers so there is no proper paper profile to choose from.

When I'm printing on glossy paper using any of these profiles for glossy papers like Photo Glossy or Premium Glossy - prints are coming out reddish, but colors are more or less correct when I'm choosing Standard profile from this list. Does anybody know why this may happen? Do I need to download some, other "generic" profile for glossy papers?

EPSON ET-8550 L8180 Series Photo Glossy (Too much reds):

EPSON ET-8550 L8180 Series Standard (Almost exact color match with monitor):

Color management science is just another world :/

Thanks

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi Lev
I am not familiar with you particular Epson printer. I have the Epson SC P900
There are two important settings that may be influencing your result.
1) You need to set an Paper ICC profile which maps your editing color space color numbers into the color numbers of the printer profile (space)

2) The other is the paper type (which is what I think you were showing in your posted images). That is important too as it gives basic information on what and how much ink to put down for various types of paper. This is separate from the ICC profile.

You did not mention how you are printing yet let me show you how I do it in Photoshop. First here is the printer panel:

Note that I have it set for Photoshop to Manage Colors and also have included the paper color profile being for Ultra Premium Photo Paper.
Then, I go to the print settings near the top of the Print Panel and click on that for printer settings to adjust:

Lots of settings to consider yet the one of importance si the "Printer Settings" as shown in the next image:

From there, I would choose Ultra Premium Photo Paper Luster. Note that there often is not a one-to-one matching of ICC paper profiles to the Paper Choice in the printer settings. Epson says which one to choose on the box of paper when it is purchased.

When not using Epson papers, you do your best by picking something close in the Epson listings.
I suspect if you do that, you will not have color management as ideal if you were using Epson papers (or other companies that provide ICC profiles with their papers), yet you should get more consistent results.

This may not answer all your questions, but I hope you can try this and see if it helps.
You can always come back and ask more questions, of course

One alternative that may be simpler long term is to purchase the Qimage software, which is a little easier interface for printer settings than printer drivers, as I showed above.

John Wheeler

 

[pharmacist]

Notice that printer profiles are made with a standard media setting: when I make my profile with the media setting: Epson Premium Glossy setting with quality setting: standard and I print with the same media setting: Epsom Premium Glossy, BUT changing to quality: high, there will be a color cast (mostly a reddish glow on skin tones and greys). Unfortunately the standard Epson profiles does not tell me with which quality setting I have to use for which the profiles are valid for. Therefore I name my home profiles with a standard naming configuration: Name_of_Paper_Printer_Ink_set_Media_setting_Quality_option_patch_set.icm. For example: Ilford_Premium_Semigloss_ET-8550_Claria_ET_EPG_standard_quality_700_patch_target.icm, so I know this profile is valid for Ilford Premium Semigloss on the Epson ET-8550 using original Epson Claria ET Photographic ink using standard quality and the media setting EPG: Epson Premium Glossy in the driver setting and was made with 700 patches with my 11Profiler. So I know I should NOT use high quality mode or media setting Epson Semigloss or I will certainly have a color cast. Most profile names are rather cryptic and does not give me a clue which media setting/quality setting I should use.

 

[lev]

Thanks a lot guys for your help!!

Photoshop and printer settings are:

Strange is that there is no red color issue when I'm printing from Epson Print Layout software using glossy profiles! I just don't like it because it has kind of limited features compared to the native driver.

I'm lucky I don't have to print every time I change profiles thanks to print preview feature where this red color is already visible on display. This tells me that it doesn't matter if I print on genuine Epson paper, I will get inconsistent results anyway.

Reinstalling/updating drivers didn't help, the printer has the latest firmware installed.


pharmacist, I can only imagine how frustrating it can be seeing color changes when you change print quality because ideally this absolutely should not affect colors but details!

Unfortunately, I don't have any sort of hardware calibration device to make custom paper profile. I have to choose the best from already available profiles. So my question remains open do I have to continue searching for generic glossy paper profiles online or my only option is to use Epson's standard profile to avoid this red color shift?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

May I draw your attention to a flag in the driver which affects the handling of profile settings in application software e.g. PaintShop - and not in the driver.

It's in the extended settings on the maintenance tab of the ET-8550 driver

I'm using Qimage and cannot tell you which impact this flag has if you do parameter/profile/driver settings via PS or another similar program.


And another remark - completely off-topic - the last line of options gives you the option to substitute black with a mixture of colors with the ET-8550 - in case you are running out of black ink.

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi Lev
I suggest trying a different rendering intent than absolute colorimetric. Known to cause issues going from larger gamut to smaller gamut
https://www.xrite.com/service-support/renderingintentsperceptualvsabsolutecolorimetric

 

[lev]

Photoshop color space: ProPhoto RGB or SRGB:

Printer settings:

Print preview when I set Epson glossy profile:

Incorrect result, excessive magenta


Print preview when I set Epson SRGB profile:

This is closest to original



The colors are also close to original if I set photoshop to let printer manage colors

 

[pharmacist]

absolute colorimetric is NOT done: choose relative colorimetric or perceptual content with BPC: on

 

[lev]

Absolutely no effect what I will choose in Rendering Intent :/

 

[pharmacist]

Print preview is faking you: you can see a strange color cast if you load the profile. But it will print OK. I get this when print preview pops up:

This is the picture in PS

When I load my profile and start print preview:

The print preview gives me a reddish glow on the picture (skin tone of the lady):

In the end it prints perfectly OK: nothing to worry about this.