I just purchased a new Epson Stylus 3800 printer and my prints are. Download and install the latest Epson driver (even if what you are. I use these settings on an Intel Mac Pro, CS2, 10.4.11. It was a trip I did of three photos on one letter sized sheet of Crane paper and let the printer control the job.
SarahPollock wrote: After years of printing successfully with my Epson 3800 from a PC, I recently switched to a Mac (Mac OS X 10.6). I am using Photoshop CS 5. Despite many iterations of monitor calibration trying different settings, my prints are consistently about 2 stops too dark. I'm very vexed. I've seen a history of problems under this theme, but most postings are from 1-2 years ago. What is the latest information about this and how do I resolve this? Same as always.
Adjust your monitor's brightness, softproof, and use consistent lighting for editing and viewing prints. I don't think this is good advice. A paper profile, is made from a chart you have printed on your printer which is the best way to have a profile done rather than using a generic profile down loaded. Therefore the only things involved in your profile are the printer and it's inks. It is not interested in what you see on the screen (apart from using soft printing, but this will only work if your screen is a A. A good one and B.
I hope that makes sense. Jules D3LBOY wrote: Due to changes in the way OSX 10.6.x and CS5 handles color, you will need to get new printer profiles.
This is not a fault of the Epson driver, it is an issue with ColorSync. If you re-profile your media it should fix the issue. Sarah, If you search on Epson 3800 and Snow Leopard, you'll find many reports of troubles that surfaced when Apple went from OS 10.5 to 10.6. It appears that something went wrong between Apple, Adobe, and Epson in the way color information is passed from Photoshop to the Epson drivers. I had heard it was fixed it CS5, so it's disappointing to hear that perhaps it's still an issue. The problem seems to be related to Gamma, rather than just being a flat one or two-stop lightness/ darkness issue. One workaround that may work is to change the output transfer curve.
Epson Pro 3880
In the Photoshop Print dialog box, select Output from the pull-down menu at the top of the pane, and click the button labeled Transfer. Click on the middle of the curve, and pull it downward to a lower value, like 41.5. Make a test print and see if that helps. Adjust as necessary. Once you find the value that makes you happy, you'll probably find that it works for all your prints.
JulesJ, I don't know where you get your information from. The issue is the PRINTS are different. The problem is an issue with color management engine between Adobe, Apple in Colorsync.
The Gamma has be changed to 2.2 from native 1.8 of the older Mac OS's. This is a problem with the Prints, there needs to be a change to the way the data is being reproduced. Using a Hardware device such as a Spyder will correct the way the monitor displays color.
A new profile will correct the issues with older profiles that have been created using older gamma curve information, color engines and possibly older software and OS's that produced them. Therefore the Soft proofing will be better and the color management engine and applications will be able to reproduce a better result. I know this as I have 6 Epson Printers of varying models, I updated the OS and Photoshop with the same darker images being created.
I re-profiled all my media on the different printers, now all is well. JulesJ wrote: I don't think this is good advice. A paper profile, is made from a chart you have printed on your printer which is the best way to have a profile done rather than using a generic profile down loaded. Therefore the only things involved in your profile are the printer and it's inks. It is not interested in what you see on the screen (apart from using soft printing, but this will only work if your screen is a A. A good one and B. I hope that makes sense.
Jules D3LBOY wrote: Due to changes in the way OSX 10.6.x and CS5 handles color, you will need to get new printer profiles. This is not a fault of the Epson driver, it is an issue with ColorSync. If you re-profile your media it should fix the issue. Hi all, this is an interesting discussion. Unfortunately, I have no solution for your problem, Sarah, but I can report that I had the same problem two years ago with OS 10.4.11, Photoshop CS and an Epson 3800. After hours of research in the Internet, various discussions and email traffic with the Epson support I could not solve the problem.
I tried everything. The best advice was from Epson support to calibrate the print profiles. OK, that was too expensive for me as a hobbyist and after intensive research I doubt that this would help. I have a friend at Adobe and he told me that the likely answer is that Adobe and Epson first update drivers for PC and that they do not regard OS enough. It was also no question of Gamma in my case.
Epson Pro 3800 Drivers
It was so frustrating that I sold my Mac and bought a PC. Since then, everything works well with the Epson. I have a calibrated Eizo monitor and the beast does what I tell him. It is interesting to hear that the same problem exists with OS 10.6 because I can hardly resist to buy a MacBookPro again and can not find a 'sexy' PC notebook. But if the problem still exists, it would be worthless. So I remain with my 2 year old ugly PC tower and put the money into ink and paper.
All the best to you. Regards, - Joaquin. Ray Ritchie wrote: Sarah, If you search on Epson 3800 and Snow Leopard, you'll find many reports of troubles that surfaced when Apple went from OS 10.5 to 10.6. It appears that something went wrong between Apple, Adobe, and Epson in the way color information is passed from Photoshop to the Epson drivers. I had heard it was fixed it CS5, so it's disappointing to hear that perhaps it's still an issue.
Was this just a problem with the 3800? I recently bought a 3880 that I'm using with OS 10.6, CS5, and a yet to be calibrated Apple 30' ACD (with brightness adjusted to lowest level). Using the Epson profiles and papers I'm getting uncannily perfect screen to print matches.
I've delayed buying display calibration gear until something changes for the worse, I don't want to mess up a good thing. Are there major differences between the 3800 and 3880 Epson drivers? Sorry I can't be very helpful on your question, Sal. I have a 3800, and that's what I paid attention to. I know that a lot of 3800 users reported they were getting beautiful prints and near-perfect screen to print matches from, say, Photoshop CS3 and Mac OS 10.5, but when they moved to Mac OS 10.6, they started getting dark prints. Some seem to have been able to solve the problem by downloading the latest Epson drivers. I did that, and it didn't help.
Perhaps the problem was more easily solved for those who used the 'Printer Manages Colors' option (I use 'Photoshop Manages Color'), or perhaps it was solved by using new profiles for the papers (I use a lot of InkjetArt Micro Ceramic Luster, and they haven't provided any recent updates to their profiles), or maybe there are some other solutions out there that I just haven't found. So far, the only thing that works for me is to change the Output transfer curve as I described above. I was hoping that if I updated from CS3 to CS5 that might fix the problem, but based on the OP's problem description, that hope may be in vain. The 3800 and 3880 definitely use different drivers, as the 3880 has an extra ink color. Here's a work around for this problem. In Photoshop use Convert to Profile to convert your image from its workspace to your paper's ICC profile.
When you print select No Color Management. This is different from Photoshop Manages Color or Printer Manages Color. Then in the Epson driver select Color Management Off. I've had a 3880 for about a month. Lots of problems with dark areas blocking up and dark prints. This has solved my problem.
Epson Stylus 3800 Driver
I use the latest version of Snow Leopard and CS3. I had the same problem with by HPB9180 after upgrading to Snow Leopard. But I didn't know about this work around.