Epson 740 printing greenish?

  • Thread starter Thread starter psongman
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psongman

Hi, I am sure this question has been answered somewhere, but here goes
another inquiry. I was trying to print out some CD covers for my new
CD and all my pics in Microsoft Word came out greenish, though the
jpegs, show brownish hue ( some gates in Jerusalem). So, can this
tinting be fixed, or do I need to get a better color cartridge ( had
been using the cheapies, but they used to work fine, hmmm,). Anyway,
enough mentioned, oh, if anybody knows a person or place that prints
out covers, can make the booklets myself, your tips would be greatly
appreciated, IAT< Psongman
 
I was trying to print out some CD covers for my new CD and all my pics
in Microsoft Word came out greenish, though the jpegs, show brownish hue
Click to expand...

Word doesn't have a colour management system, so it's going to be very
difficult to achieve what you want using it.

You really need to calibrate your complete workflow - your scanner, if you
use one, monitor and printer/paper combination - and to use something like
Photoshop or (better still) QImage to print from. Only then can you be
sure of getting the result you want.

Even if you get someone else to print them for you, your system's lack of
calibration may mean that the files you provide won't print anything like
they appear on your system.

Jon.
 
First off, make sure your printer is working correctly (in that all the
heads and nozzles are firing). Run a nozzle test, and if many of the
steps (or all of them) are missing in one color (such as the magenta)
your printer needs a cleaning. Contact me in private mail and I'll send
you a free manual on how to clean it.

If the printer is working correctly, then quite honestly, trying to
print an image via MS Word, is a bit like trying to do word-processing
with a piece of game software, because it lets you type in your initial
for highest score.

I would strongly suggest you buy one of the simple image editing
programs. There are many selling well under $100. Jasc, Adobe, Corel,
even Microsoft make programs with various levels of complexity. Many are
provided free with scanners or some printers, and you can probably pick
up a legit copy on ebay for $25.

However, if your budget doesn't allow for spending any more money, you
will find the Epson printer driver for your printer has some advanced
features that allows for some color correction. You can usually alter
(via sliders in the advanced printing section of the driver) saturation
(the intensity of the ink colors) brightness (how light the inks print)
contrast (how smooth the colors go from dark to light) and slider
amounts for the cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks.

If your images are coming out too greenish, you probably need to lower
the yellow and cyan or increase the magenta, or both.

On some printers the type of paper you choose in the driver will alter
the color rendition as well.

Lastly, if you just need the color for the front and back, you may find
it cheaper to get them printer via a color laser or photocopier. You
will need a couple of quality and color corrected originals to start
with, however.

If you email me privately, I may be able to help you further.

Art
 
Jon,

Although everything you say is true, I suspect for the application this
person has, your solution is somewhat of an overkill, both financially
and technically.

Although I use Photoshop, it is over a $500 program. Even PS Elements
is about $100. Now as an Adobe stockholder, I love for people to buy
these, but they aren't required for someone who is making his own CD
album covers on an inkjet printer.

I also suspect that an outsider could produce a reasonable result for
him using his files even without calibration.

I'm not being critical of you, because in the professional world there
is an expectation of calibrated open loop systems. But I've worked in
color photo labs where we ran, among other things, one hour type lab
equipment, and although it was calibrated, and we used "channels" for
different film stocks, we were regularly having to deal with old film,
odd brands of film, heat damage, odd lighting, and such and we managed
to guess pretty closely a great deal of the time. Today, with the
ability digital allows for, even a non-calibrated system can produce
reasonable output as long as the person has some sense of color theory.

In fact, if this person has a scanner it probably came with some image
manipulation software for color correction. Even if the image looks
"wrong" on the screen, with a little experimentation, he can probably
get the image to print fairly correctly... in his case, since it prints
too green, bring down the cyan and yellow and bring the magenta up so
the image looks too magenta (pink) and it may print correctly.

It's not a perfect answer, by any means, but for someone on a very tight
budget, or who will only do something like this once or twice a year, it
can do.

Again, once one gets a couple if good prints it may be cheaper to take
those down to the color photocopy place and get a batch printed that way
on card stock, depending on cost of ink and paper for the inkjet.

Art
 
psongman said:
Hi, I am sure this question has been answered somewhere, but here goes
another inquiry. I was trying to print out some CD covers for my new
CD and all my pics in Microsoft Word came out greenish, though the
jpegs, show brownish hue ( some gates in Jerusalem). So, can this
tinting be fixed, or do I need to get a better color cartridge ( had
been using the cheapies, but they used to work fine, hmmm,). Anyway,
enough mentioned, oh, if anybody knows a person or place that prints
out covers, can make the booklets myself, your tips would be greatly
appreciated, IAT< Psongman
Click to expand...

If no colour profile is used, my Epson Stylus Photo 1290 printer (used in
Windows XP Pro) produces very greenish pictures; however in the automatic
mode the quality is good enough for CD covers and the like. In this case the
printer is using the EE139__1.ICM profile found in
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SPOOL\DRIVERS\COLOR or in the folder where your profiles
are stored. Maybe you might check if this file is damaged or missing?

Ebbe
 
[email protected] (Arthur said:
Although everything you say is true, I suspect for the application this
person has, your solution is somewhat of an overkill, both financially
and technically.
Click to expand...

I beg to differ. At $45, QImage is very reasonably priced and does a
superb job of printing. Even without serious system colour calibration, I
think it would make a big difference to the colour balance. /Any/ software
that supports colour profiles couldn't help but improve on Word!

For $79, DDI also sells Profile Prism which, though not as thorough as a
hardware/software combination, does a pretty good job of improving the
colour workflow at a much lower price. I had a lot of problems getting
consistently good colour balance on my scanned and digital images until I
used PP, when I realised that a large part of the problem was that I had
my monitor's colour temperature set at 9300K instead of 6500K. My pictures
looked fine to me on screen but print colour was all over the place.
I also suspect that an outsider could produce a reasonable result for
him using his files even without calibration.
Click to expand...

Depends on the source of the images. If they've been edited/tweaked on a
system with a badly adjusted monitor, it could be very difficult to
achieve the required result. (Note that I did say 'very difficult to
achieve what you want' in my original post, not 'impossible'). If they're
straight from a reasonably good digital camera, were well exposed and the
colour balance was correctly set (i.e. they weren't taken on a sunny day
with colour balance set to cloudy or visa versa), then they may come out
OK. However, I note that the original post said: "...all my pics in
Microsoft Word came out greenish, though the jpegs, show brownish hue...",
which makes me think that images from different sources have been combined
to create the cover and that some serious work will have to be done on the
artwork as a whole to achieve an acceptable balance.
I'm not being critical of you, because in the professional world there
is an expectation of calibrated open loop systems.
Click to expand...

I'm not a professional. I do sell prints, though, so call me a fussy
semi-pro!
In fact, if this person has a scanner it probably came with some image
manipulation software for color correction. Even if the image looks
"wrong" on the screen, with a little experimentation, he can probably
get the image to print fairly correctly... in his case, since it prints
too green, bring down the cyan and yellow and bring the magenta up so
the image looks too magenta (pink) and it may print correctly.
Click to expand...

Agreed. It may take a lot of trial and error but it may be possible. But I
still think that investing in QImage (which must be cheaper than getting
covers printed commercially) would pay dividends in the long run.

Jon.
 
...however in the automatic mode the quality is good enough for CD
covers and the like.
Click to expand...

For personal use covers, maybe, but I suspect that 'Psongman' may indicate
a singer making CDs for sale, which is a different matter.

Jon.
 
Hi, thanks for all the informative messages. I don't think using a pro
program is the problem, though I know they can be tweaked to make the
images come out in the proper colors...it must be my printer. I used
to print out color glossy photos of my MOM and the family, they came
out fantastic...but now, I followed some of your directions, but still
coming out actually very greenish now. So, next move, can I download
the covers to a floppy and take it in and have, let's say OfficeMax,
Staples, or Kinko's (only ones in this area) print out about 200
copies for me? I think I will have them do the CD Booklet (8 pager),
by printing one side, flipping over, doing the other side,then paper
cutting them to size, stapling into cover booklet. I welcome any
easier or more practical ways, to accomplish my aim, thanks again for
all your assistance. CD will be out soon, got to keep up the vision,
Psongman
 
...it must be my printer. I used to print out color glossy photos of my
MOM and the family, they came out fantastic...
Click to expand...

I doubt it's the printer, if you've had good results from it in the past.
I still think it has to do with lack of colour profiles.
So, next move, can I download the covers to a floppy and take it in and
have, let's say OfficeMax, Staples, or Kinko's (only ones in this area)
print out about 200 copies for me?
Click to expand...

Can't help there, I'm afraid, as a) I'm in the UK b) I've never used an
outside printer.

Best of luck with it.

Jon.
 
It sounds to me like your printer has either run out of magenta ink, or
has a major ink clog in the magenta head.

As I mentioned in my earlier message, did you do a nozzle test on the
printer? The printer driver should have a utility that allows you to
print a test nozzle pattern. If you do this, what do you see? You
should see a series of steplike colored dashes, I believe on the 740 it
is a set of two, with colors, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black.

If you don't see many or any magenta, you need to clear that head clog.

Email me privately and I will send you a copy of my Epson Cleaning
Manual at no charge. If there is no time to deal with this, or it you
decide to go with laser color, which may be cheaper in the big picture
and a lot faster, what I suggest you do is design your page to either
print two covers per page, or one front and one back cover per page.
The file might not fit on a floppy, however. You may need to place them
on a CD-R or Zip disk. Check with the printer in your area as to what
format he needs and what resolution (Jpeg, gif, tif, etc, 200, 250, 300
dpi). Some printer companies allow you to upload the images to them via
internet.

Have them produce one for you to proof it for color and quality before
getting 200 done.

Art
 
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