Problems with Mac 10.5.7, CS4, and Epson Printers

I did find when I ran the colorsync profile first aid it found 20 out of 135 profiles that were incorrect tag sizes and couldn't repair them..

What you are saying is that if you are runing CS4 or LT 2.4 and OSX 10.5.7 the only wat to print color is to let the printer manage the color? If you leave "Let Photoshop manage color" ON it will not double profile?

Why is this happening?

Does this problem effect B&W prints done with the 3800's ABW ?

I can leave "let photoshop manage colors" on or off because it doesn't matter when you either select colorsync or Epson Standard gamma 1.8 in the color settings part of the printer driver (along with picking the correct paper).. If I turn off the color settings in the printer driver and only let photoshop mange the colors the results are muddled, dark, inaccurate colors..

When I use Aperture and let the system manage the colors it is fine when you turn the color control off in the printer driver selection..

To that end for the time being I am uninstalling CS4 and Elements and will use Aperture.. I am shopping around for a copy of CS3 to try as it appears to get along with 10.5.7 and Epson printers...

The puzzling thing in the whole scenario is my 5 year old Windows XP machine with CS2 using photoshop to manage colors and shutting off the printer driver color setting superb results come from my R800, R1900, and now 3800 stylus pro printers..

Epson said today they do have a number of calls regarding very dark prints with CS4 on the Mac. That seemed to cover at least the three printers I have when I asked. I spoke to both their consumer printer department (800 and 1900) and their pro printer department (3800).. They said people that were complaining had trouble with the standard downloadable profiles as well as ones they had created..

Try reading this
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readflat.asp?forum=1003&thread=31085537

Tony--
NNL33543

I tried that and followed the instructions. It still didn't make any difference with the R1900 and 3800. Oddly enough the profiles for the R800 (which should have been part of 10.5.7 with the driver) were corrupted and the end result for that printer was all the options were lined out in the printer driver. So essentially the suggestions didn't work for two of the printers and permanently wrecked the R800. I removed the R800 printer and gave up after several times of trying to restore it and reinstall it with the disk and upgrade file.. Since the printer was starting to have problems loading paper I think I will just retire it..

I'm tired of beating my head against the wall over the obviously poorly tested software, system, and printers when it comes to Macs. I have basically wasted $700 and $100 on the Photoshop products.. At least Aperture and i-Photo (dopey program) work correctly.. Heck even my Canon all in one produces better prints than any of the Epsons and it is wireless to boot..

I guess as far as a photo printing tool the Mac system is a flop needing to have tons of work arounds just to barely function.. I always thought that was the shortcoming of Windows..

So for the time being I am shelving my Mac Equipment (13 MacBook Pro, 17 MacBook Pro with matte screen, 24 inch LED monitor, CS4) as a bad experiment and will hope someone sees fit to release fixes.. By the way it is hilarious listening to Adobe, Epson, Apple all blaming each other..

So back to my 5 year old Windows XP machine with CS2 and my Windows Vista laptops with CS3 to produce beautiful looking prints of all sizes with the printers.. What a bummer... After being a Mac devotee from 1984 through 2005 I sure have lost that now false impression.. Oh well at least nobody cares enough to write destructive viruses for the Mac...

Thanks everyone for your suggestions..

This driver available from Epson UK on May 28th supposedly deals with the"no color" and AWB issues with Mac OSX.

http://www.epson.co.uk/...323704&defaultOSId=15&DRV_CATEGORY_CODE=DRV

I would try it but Epson USA says they won't support that driver so proceed at your own risk.. Since my mess with the R800 being permanently disabled with multiple reinstalls I might pass right now..

Switched completely back to Windows XP and Vista with Photoshop CS2 and CS3 respectively... Absolutely stunning results.. Why I ever ventured back to Apple is a mystery to me given I already had the makings for wonderful results. Oh well lesson learned, my only regret was wasting the money on all this Mac equipment and CS4 and not buying some more Nikon and Canon glass.

John -

Your sad situation has proved my personal case: I've stuck with Tiger on a 2004 PowerMac and have been have zero probs printing to a 3800 or 1400 from PS CS3 or Lightroom. I watched the 'New' epson driver beta sit on the site with a release date of "2Q 2008" and see it go thru "2Q of 2009 and STILL sitting at beta level. For that very reason (and other horror stories like yours) I've stuck with Tiger (10.4.11) and all has been well.

At least I can pretty much match what I see on the Dell 27" LCD to what comes out of the printer. The 1400 is running the Piezeography inkset, uses the Quadtone rip for the driver. I still have that sweet Mac simplicity and ease of use. So sad they've driven you back to Windoze!

I think I may be sticking with Tiger and my 'old' G5 for a lotta more years...

John said:

I did that with no apparent result.. I also ran colorsync utility that "found" 21 bad profiles out of 45. It repaired them again with no apparent result..

The absolute closest thing to acceptable (after running virtually every combination in the book) was to pick the default printer in photoshop, let photoshop determine the colors, use 1998 Adobe RGB, and then in the Epson printer settings select Epson Standard 1.8 gamma and the correct paper.. Second best is to do the same with photoshop only this time pick colorsync in the Epson printer settings and the correct paper.. Those at least produce a non dark non muddled looking print. The colors are still slightly off.. Under no circumstances can you select no color correction in the Epson print settings menu (instantly dark, muddled, bad color if you do).. This is where it is entirely different and nonsensical compared to windows. This was the result of about 60 prints varying everything possible (many made no sense to do but at this point it was all I could do as Apple, Epson, and Adobe are about as useless as you could imagine----let the user validate I guess)... I guess the disappointing thing in all of this was the image Mac has had of being easier and better than Windows.. That had been my experience from 1984 to 2005.. The 4 year hiatus has been meant with utter disgust. It is a very nice system in all respects but photography usefulness. The video is only slightly better but not as robust as the Windows programs...

Click to expand...

--
Who was Ansel Adams' Ansel Adams?

I use a macbook pro and CS4 and NX2 and Preview and Safari and Firefox and print to an Epson 3800.

All color are rendered perfectly - Did you:

calibrate your monitor
set your color profile in your camera, CS4, ... to sRGB
did you set you paper profile in CS4 ( epson premium luster, red river, .... )

Finally, are you letting CS4 control color to the printer -
NEVER let the printer control the color!!!!

If you did then you should get consistent color across all your applications

I was having some problems with terrible prints on a R800.

Mine came good when I made the R800 the default printer in CUPS. It was showing as default on the Sytem Prefs.
127.0.0.1:631/printers.