Patient folks: Help with an Epson r2400

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I recently bought an Epson r2400 (secondand) mainly based on the reports of Epson performance and particularly the capabilities of this printer for mono.

However, I am at a loss for setting it up to print what I see on screen. I use PS CS4 and have a Samsung 2433 monitor calibrated with a Spyder Pro 3 (120cdm2/Gamma 2.2 etc.). I shoot in aRGB and typically convert to sRGB in CS4. At the moment, if I send a file to the lab (DSCL) images come back almost the same and my images on screen at home, uploaded to websites and projected elsewhere all seem to be fine in close colour and lightness.

I have installed the r2400 and the prints are dark and magenta using the installation software - no profiles appeared in CS5 after installation. Hence I downloaded profiles from the Epson ftp server (all seemed to be from 2005) and I think I have set them correctly in CS5. My images now when loaded have a warning the profile is being changed on screen and go distinctly darker with a strong yellow cast. However, when I print, the yellow has gone and facial tones particualrly have a magenta cast!

The inks supplied with the printer are not Epson, the paper is not Epson (both on order). However, is anyone able to help from the top with what I should be setting in CS4, and then what should be set when sending to print? From the above description you can see even without printing in print preview I am heading for the wrong colours. Also I can't see it is right that I should have to edit up a picture for a lab and screen one way, and then have to set up another picture corrected from a significant yellow cast for the Epson ICC driver, the difference isn't subtle its a big difference. I seem to be in a bit of a pickle with this and so many variables. :bonk:

Thanks for any help - please
 
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If your prints from the lab are as on screen then what you are seeing on screen is correct, You would need to get a paper & ink profile for things to print correctly as you cannot use a random Epsom one, if you are using proper Epsom ink & paper when it arrives then you will be fine to use the matching Epson profiles in your software (clean the printhead before use).
Regarding the argb/srgb it sounds like you have set up p/s to work in srgb (default) you could change your camera to shoot in srgb then there will be no nasty surprise colours :) when viewing or printing. Hope that helps
 
Thanks Lush... but I am seeing the complete colour change when I look at the print preview. So if I take one of my images already previously edited on screen in the past and printed at DSCL without issue, and then I load it into CS5 with the Epson 2400 glossy paper profile... the print preview image has gone to yellow cast and darker before I have printed? There is a significant difference. Once printed, the paper image seems dark and magenta cast! I can understand that I need genuine ink and paper for the profile, but even the predictd print is significantly different.

POAH, yes, looked at that and may choose that route but I'd like to think I can understand some of this before investing another £150-200.
 
take a new image with camera set to srgb, set up cs5 to work with srgb, in the print dialogue box make sure it is set to photoshop to manage colour management, how does print preview look now? of course it will never print on your epson correctly till you got proper profiles sorted.
 
lushuk said:
take a new image with camera set to srgb, set up cs5 to work with srgb, in the print dialogue box make sure it is set to photoshop to manage colour management, how does print preview look now? of course it will never print on your epson correctly till you got proper profiles sorted.
Click to expand...

Having your camera shoot srgb isn't really a good idea unless you will only ever print srgb. The gamut from srgb is quite a bit smaller than argb and you will end up clipping if you want to work with argb. You might as well always shoot Adobe RGB with the extra range, for all the time it takes to convert inside photoshop and keep wider chromaticity. If you don't think it makes a difference to the final image shoot two photos each with a different gamut then show gamut clipping in cs5. You will notice a big difference between the two, exp if theres a lot of deep blues and reds!
 
iirc the R2400 only prints about 60% of RGB so you'd see muted colours compared to your screen which is unlikely to show RGB anyway.
 
Chris Primadona said:
Having your camera shoot srgb isn't really a good idea unless you will only ever print srgb. The gamut from srgb is quite a bit smaller than argb and you will end up clipping if you want to work with argb. You might as well always shoot Adobe RGB with the extra range, for all the time it takes to convert inside photoshop and keep wider chromaticity. If you don't think it makes a difference to the final image shoot two photos each with a different gamut then show gamut clipping in cs5. You will notice a big difference between the two, exp if theres a lot of deep blues and reds!
Click to expand...

As above, we are trying to sort the op issues so trying to narrow down the op possible discrepancies by shooting in a narrower gamut that their printer is capable of printing, + most labs (loxleys etc) only print in srgb!
 
Hi guys, unlikely I will get around to sorting this until the weekend... i have been wasting ink and paper trying different profiles which make quite a difference but still not come up with a corker of a print or anything that looks any better than my prints of years gone by with lesser printers yet. In fact my best prints so far are in mono using a piece of software called QTR. Will try later in the week when I have the proper Epson stuff.

(Ps yes Chris P. I did get advised a few years ag to shoot in aRGBto capture the colour even if in PS I ended up using a reduced sRGB range).
 
It is very unlikly will ever make a good print without a custom profile so you will just waste more ink and paper, wait till you epson stuff arrives and start from scratch and see the difference :)
 
Hi guys, I just wanted to say I have this almost sorted now. As I said in the first post I bought this printer secondhand. I think some of the inks had dried, and after lots of messing around, test prints, running the self test I realised that there was an issue with possibly dried ink (even though there were some new 3rd party cartridges). Anyway, after finally today a new light light black cartridge arriving (the only one I didn't have available to change), a quick test shows it to be 'not far off' and that is on a mix of Epson and Think cartridges. I really can't afford to waste lots of genuine ink sorting the issue, but will soon run it off Epson or CSS, but just for the record, the Think ones are giving perfectly acceptable results with colours really only a shade off screen. That is printing straight from Nero Photosnap with the printr driver managing colours. Haven't even tried doing a 'proper' managed print yet but essentially I can now see it is workingand the nozzles are clear. Hopefully just a case of subtle colour managing now. Thanks for the helpful advice earlier.
 
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Glad you have sorted it, enjoy!
 
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