Scanning and printing photos

[nilagin]

Why when scanning and printing photos does the print come out dark and discoloured. My mate tried this on his computer with no luck and asked if I could try and I got bad results too. What is going wrong, (the preview looks fine) is there anything I can do to get an exact colour match.

 

[Steve]

We need a lot more information than you have given, scanner, pc, software you are using, printer you are using, paper you are using, are you using custom paper profiles, what colours space you have your software set to, does the full size scan look fine on screen or is that dark as well as the print...you get the idea

 

[nilagin]

Epson Perfection 2480 Photo Scanner
Epson Stylus Photo R200 printer. Printer set to Best quality photograph and premium glossy paper, doesn't matter whether I use Fuji paper or Epson paper still get the same result. I scanned the photo to my pc then printed from 'my pictures'. A couple of my ink cartidges are getting low but never caused this problem before on other photos I've scanned then printed.

My mate has a HP printer and HP scanner, not sure what paper he was using other than glossy but he got bad results too. Although his was not so much coming out dark as being red.
My mate scanned directly to his printer.

 

[noah]

i get very bad results from printing just through windows, try printing them through photoshop or similar. as to the rest, well... there are many people that are knowledgeable about printing round here (sadly im not yet) that will help out im sure.

 

[Fangman]

Sometimes you are better turning off all the scanner controls - giving no colour correction and work from Photoshop or the like and import image. Even the "auto levels" can do a better job than some scanning software.

 

[nilagin]

Turned out a couple of cartridges were 'running on fumes' Still had to brighten the picture first to get a colour match though. Now I just need to wait for my mate to come back off holiday so I can sort out his other photos now. Thanks all for your help.