photoshop cs3 and an epson printer

[caslau]

Hi all
This is my first post ever so goodness knows where this might end up but here goes. I have an Epson RX510 and recently purchased PS CS3. I am having problems printing from photoshop, the photos turn out much darker than on the screen. I have used the colour calibration, have set the ICC profile in the "print function" in photoshop but still too dark. However if I save the composition and the open up in picassa it prints perfectly!!! Any thoughts.

[amica999]

Caslau, welcome to RetouchPro. Have a wonderful time here. Sorry I never print anything in house, so please be patient until someone comes up to provie some information for you.

[jagerman]

This might help you out. It is for the 3800 but they all work about the same.

http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/3800PrintingSM.mov

[Janet Petty]

Ahhh, those of us with an epson printer feel your pain. It took me months to get my printer/monitor/photoshop calibrated right. Reading about it just didn't work, IMHO.

First, make sure you have downloaded from the epson site the ICC profiles for their paper. Make sure you get all you think you might ever need!!! Those profiles must be used, not the ones that come with the computer.

Second, regardless of the paper you are using, make sure in Photoshop's print box that you check "Photoshop manages color". Otherwise, epson's printer will take over your color space.

As an aside, my camera, the printer, and Photoshop all have the Abobe RGB 1998 color profile. That seems to work best. When the color spaces get fouled up, is when you begin to have troubles.

When the epson dialog box pops up, make sure you check NO COLOR MANAGEMENT. You already checked in the Photoshop dialog box that Photoshop manages color. If you have both boxes checked, then you get ugly prints.

Another aside, Photoshop continually surprises me by changing my preset color space to sRGB. This will also affect your prints. sRGB is used for the web, usually not prints. Check to make sure Photoshop color preset is Adobe 1998.

Lastly, beg, borrow, or steal (not really steal), a professional color calibrator for your monitor; and don't use Adobe Gamma, which is good but not great. This last hint will make all the difference in the world.

Good Luck!!! I hope this helped.

Janet

[pixelzombie]

good advice, but most photo labs recommend and use sRGB...

[caslau]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, will give them a go. Its so very nice to know that it is not my inadequancy and that others do share my pain!

[Littlecoo]

Caslau, at the risk of causing howls of righteous indignation from other folks here I can suggest a simple, somewhat ham-fisted workaround for you if your images are just printing out too dark but look okay otherwise (colour, contrast etc is consistent with what you started with in photoshop). Open your image in Photoshop, flatten it if it is not flattened, make a duplicate layer of it (ctrl-J), change the blending mode of the duplicate to 'screen' and drop the opacity of this layer to around 20% (depends on how dark your print was- play around) be careful not to bump the opacity up too much or you will ruin your shadows- what you basically want to do is mostly brighten up the midtones in your image. initially you'll have to test print, what you see onscreen/ softproof is of course going to look washed out but hopefully your prints will turn out better than they were. Print out as the others in this thread have suggested.
I had to do this myself some time back with a very newly acquired Epson Stylus Photo R800 (yep, same prob as you...meh! it's an Epson thing) I was in a situation where I quite literally had to print and run.

[Janet Petty]

Originally Posted by pixelzombie

good advice, but most photo labs recommend and use sRGB...

Quite True. However, this person specifically asks for help using his/her own printer. That is what I based my answer on.

Janet