epson r300 colour accuracy

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ian lincoln

The strong blacks in my picture have a strong green cast. I tried printing
in with both the epson printing software and via photoshop cs. When
printing a colour picture are the blacks produced using the black cartridge
or is it the combo of colours?
 
Are you using Epson paper? Are you turning color management off in the
printer driver?
 
ian lincoln said:
The strong blacks in my picture have a strong green cast. I tried
printing in with both the epson printing software and via photoshop cs.
When printing a colour picture are the blacks produced using the black
cartridge or is it the combo of colours?
Click to expand...
If the conversion of RGB to CMYK results in only data in the K channel, then
the printer will only use the black cartridge. This is far from the usual
case.
However, most of the time, the conversion of RGB to CMYK results in some
data in the C, M, and Y channels and significant data in the K channel.
Hence when printed, you will usually see some kind of cast.

The solution is to alter the color content of the strong blacks. You will
usually find that the R, G, and B values are not identical in the instance
you cited.

If, however, you are printing a B & W image, just tell the printer driver to
use only black. You could also convert it to B & W in photoshop.
Jim
 
It is not clear if you are describing blacks in color images or blacks in
b&w images.
The apparent color cast is also affected by the ambient light with which you
view the print and the angle with which you view the print.
The paper surface finish can also be a factor.
If you do not already do so calibrating your monitor with an external device
may help. LCD panels do not really produce deep blacks and most CRTs, while
better, also do not really have as black a black as they are supposed to. It
is possible that, even if using color management, your eyes' concept of
monitor black and photoshop/epson printer driver vision of black are very
different.
 
Jim said:
If the conversion of RGB to CMYK results in only data in the K channel,
then the printer will only use the black cartridge. This is far from the
usual case.
However, most of the time, the conversion of RGB to CMYK results in some
data in the C, M, and Y channels and significant data in the K channel.
Hence when printed, you will usually see some kind of cast.

The solution is to alter the color content of the strong blacks. You will
usually find that the R, G, and B values are not identical in the instance
you cited.

If, however, you are printing a B & W image, just tell the printer driver
to use only black. You could also convert it to B & W in photoshop.
Jim
Click to expand...

i'm printing a black cat. i have since printed a creme wedding cake. On
screen the creme is quite strong. on printout from using my old canon the
creme is more delicate. Fortunately that is closer to the true colour. an
epson print has a slight greeny yellow to it. the white wall in the
background has a green cast, Its not much but i'm getting good at this and
noticed it immeditely.

As for my settings they are as follows
show more options is ticked.
i have selected colour management.

source space
document srgbiec61966-2.1

print space
profile printer color management

inside the epson driver
best photo
premium glossy photopaper

advanced box
highspeed is unticked

colour management is set to icm

no colour adjustment is not ticked.
 
birdman said:
It is not clear if you are describing blacks in color images or blacks in
b&w images.
The apparent color cast is also affected by the ambient light with which
you view the print and the angle with which you view the print.
The paper surface finish can also be a factor.
If you do not already do so calibrating your monitor with an external
device may help. LCD panels do not really produce deep blacks and most
CRTs, while better, also do not really have as black a black as they are
supposed to. It is possible that, even if using color management, your
eyes' concept of monitor black and photoshop/epson printer driver vision
of black are very different.
Click to expand...

I am viewing using natural light. I am printing colour photos. using my
canon printer I have a very close match.
 
ian lincoln said:
I am viewing using natural light. I am printing colour photos. using my
canon printer I have a very close match.
Click to expand...

I have tried using epson standard gamma 1.8. Everything was incredibly
green and incredibly dark. icm with no cokour adjustment checked is too dark
and very green.
 
Dan Margulis in his Photoshop, correcting images bible, Professional
Photoshop, covers colour casts in depth.
Blacks come in many shades, blue/black, green/black, red/black
and you can see this using the eyedropper on the blacks. Each
value for the primaries should be the same, likewise for the whites.
I often have to remove such casts from .jpg camera files that
clients send for web pages.
If you are lucky you can find a neutral white and black somewhere
in the image. Margulis cites vehicle tyres as black (being mostly
carbon black), road sign backgrounds for white. I sometimes have
to use a power socket or a piece of litter someone has dropped.
Shadows and specular highlights are not suitable.
As mentioned above ambient light is the main problem, outdoors
grass casts a green cast by reflection, some windows of offices
are tinted, artificial light a big source of casts, whatever the source.
Digi cameras can also have white balance errors.
 
Roy said:
Can't have you failing to get True Blacks.

I presume you are using Epson Inks, otherwise the Epson Profiles will not
be accurate, and that you have also Calibrated your monitor.

Having read your workflow, you seem to be Colour Managing twice. Once in
Photoshop and once again in the Epson Driver. This will produce incorect
colours.

"Print Space --- Profile printer colour management". This should be the
Printer / Paper profile for the paper you are using. (something like Epson
Premium glossy R300)


"Colour Management is set to ICM" The choice in this section should be
No Colour Management.

This might work a bit better.
Click to expand...

Best result thus far is to download picture to cf card. Then place in
reader slot. select print enhancement to none.

Setting colour management to none resulted in an incredibly dark print that
was very dark green. I also tried photoenhance but it seemed to crank up
the brightness to the point almost all detail was lost, it also seemed to
oversharpen. The picture was very 'noisy' too.

With photoshop changing printer colour management to the specific r300/310
driver seems to have done the job.

As for monitor calibration it is set to default srgb. That was more than
adequate for my canon. I also used the auto calibrate of my dedicated dvd
card. I have checked online sites that have ever increasing squares of
black. Things were very close to my canon. Colour balance was neutral but
brightness on the monitor was slightly higher than

No i am not using the epson carts. I was advised that epson warranty is
invalid with compats so i was told to leave originals in box and use compats
from the getgo. Should i need to return then i would simply insert the
original carts.

Thanks for all the info so far.
 
However, most of the time, the conversion of RGB to CMYK results in some
data in the C, M, and Y channels and significant data in the K channel.
Hence when printed, you will usually see some kind of cast.

The solution is to alter the color content of the strong blacks. You will
usually find that the R, G, and B values are not identical in the instance
you cited.
Click to expand...

The green parts are where the cat has a white sheen on very black areas.

using the eye dropper i get
R=56
G=60
B=62

Elsewhere the white bits of the cat are white. As i have exposed for the
cat the surrounding pavement is almost washed out. There is no cast there.
 
Roy said:
Can't have you failing to get True Blacks.

I presume you are using Epson Inks, otherwise the Epson Profiles will not
be accurate, and that you have also Calibrated your monitor.

Having read your workflow, you seem to be Colour Managing twice. Once in
Photoshop and once again in the Epson Driver. This will produce incorect
colours.

"Print Space --- Profile printer colour management". This should be the
Printer / Paper profile for the paper you are using. (something like Epson
Premium glossy R300)


"Colour Management is set to ICM" The choice in this section should be
No Colour Management.

This might work a bit better.
Click to expand...

My monitor itself has been set to 6500K for image mangement.

I also have "original panel colour"
9300K for cad/cam
sRGB preset
user preset.

Also to rule out the colour calibration i selected 'auto colour' The print
result now matches the canon picture.

To rule out erroneous driver or photoshop settings i saved to a cf card and
printed from the buiilt in card reader. The cat still has green but it
isn't pronounced. Also bright sunlight shows up green more than shaded.
Also if there is alot of reflected light going through the paper the green
is more pronounced. The cat has white poors and whiskas and they are white.
As i exposed for a black cat the surrounding are washed out. The delicately
coloured paving stone matches the screen. So basically if ther is a green
black my monitor isn't displaying it.

using the eye dropper
R=59
G=60
B=66
I think it is reasonable to assume that somewhere in the driver the canon
software has its own version of 'auto colour'. Most reviews say canon is
better out of the box but those who know how to calibrate will get a final
better image with epson.
 
ian lincoln said:
[..]
No i am not using the epson carts.
Click to expand...

That's likely to be 90% of your problem.

All the 3rd party inks for my R200 I've used so far suffer from a tendency
towards green on the mid/dark greys.

Using a paper ICM profile gets rid of it to a large extent, but on black and
white images its still noticeable in daylight.
 
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