Standard color balance settings for Epson 3880?

[SkinnyWilbo]

On my old Epson 2200, I used color balance presets C -10 M -5. I don't remember where I came up with those, but they seemed to work very well. Now with the Stylus Pro 3880, I get some pretty crazy cyanish skies with Epson papers. Are there color balance settings commonly used that make sense on the 3880? Thanks in advance.

 

[pharmacist]

Did you ever heard about printer profiles ?

 

[boodaddy]

On my old Epson 2200, I used color balance presets C -10 M -5. I don't remember where I came up with those, but they seemed to work very well. Now with the Stylus Pro 3880, I get some pretty crazy cyanish skies with Epson papers. Are there color balance settings commonly used that make sense on the 3880? Thanks in advance.

If it's an Epson paper I am sure you are selecting the Epson paper under printer profiles, which is custom color calibrated to that printer. I would turn color management off because that usually causes the issue. Once color management is turned off and it still looks off, it is because your monitor calibration is off. If your monitor is to bright your prints will print darker. I have my monitor calibrated at 7% of a 100% brightness setting, and my prints look exactly as I see on the screen. I work in a darker environment which is why my brightness is a little low.

You can get something like SpyderPrintStudio SR for around $200 bucks from B&H which is what I use, and love it, because you can buy cheaper paper and make a custom profile for it. In PhotoShop I use "Proof Colors" and use my custom printer profile and apply it to my screen to see exactly what the print will look like, and then I can compensate for saturation etc...

Try turning color management off, and see what happens.

 

[boodaddy]

Did you ever heard about printer profiles ?

If he is using Epson paper I am sure he is selecting that for the profile.

 

[pharmacist]

Did you ever heard about printer profiles ?

If he is using Epson paper I am sure he is selecting that for the profile.

Is it ? Why putting C-10 and M-5 if there is a profile for it....so the profile is either not good, or it is a arbitrary setting to tune the overall colour. A profile will correct most of these colour casts and you will not need to do C-10 and M-5.

 

[lolopr1]

Did you ever heard about printer profiles ?

If he is using Epson paper I am sure he is selecting that for the profile.

Is it ? Why putting C-10 and M-5 if there is a profile for it....so the profile is either not good, or it is a arbitrary setting to tune the overall colour. A profile will correct most of these colour casts and you will not need to do C-10 and M-5.

Don't you think could be something alse like an uncalibrated monitor. He never mentioned or was asked if his monitor is calibrated.

 

[jtoolman]

SkinnyWilbo

If you are using OEM inks and Papers you should be able to send an image to that printer ( I own two of them ) and get pretty close to perfect results.

Now that will work if you are sending a standard Test Image made up of several smaller photos in color and B&W as well as standard color patches of specific KNOWN densities and hues and a step wedge from black to white.

Regardless of what the image looks like in your monitor, the printer will pretty much render it near perfectly.
Assuming you are letting the printer control color without you making any manual adjustments to the color.

Now if your monitor is NOT calibrated, it may be too bright, too dark, two red, too cyan, too yellow and the list goes on.
If you edit a good image to your liking for color, contrast and densities in that monitor, then your printer will not be able to reproduce it as seen on that monitor and it will be OFF by whatever the amount of error of your monitor display.

Calibrate the Monitor to a known standard. You need hardware to do that properly and accurately.

Once you are sure the monitor is displaying colors and densities correctly and assuming you are using the correct basic printer settings, if you let the printer control color, and remember, you cannot let the printer control color and at the same time also let your editing software you are printing from also control color. Results will be totally whacked! That's double profiling! So it is one or the other.

I find that do not have to do any manual adjustments with any of my 15 printers and you should not have to either.

Here are a few Standard Color Test Images.

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1916&page=5

Do not alter these in any way on your computer.
Send them to the printer letting it control color.
Other than choosing the correct paper type and DPI resolution, use the standard default color settings.
Chances are it will print perfectly well ( As long as you are using OEM ink and Epson Paper ) and them you will see that your monitor display of that image will probably not match the print in your hands.

 

[Tin Ho]

SkinnyWilbo

If you are using OEM inks and Papers you should be able to send an image to that printer ( I own two of them ) and get pretty close to perfect results.

This is very true on the R2880 that I use. R3880 and R2880 use the same K3 ink set. I can imagine that R3880 can be even better. Not only the colors are right on the greys are nearly perfect as well. This applies to Epson paper and some other generic paper that I use on Canon printers. Just my 2 cents...