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Epson 820, how to match colors....

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Joel41093

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Hi everybody,

I just bought an Epson 820 and I'm quite pleased with the results. One thing tough is that I have a problem getting accurate colors using Qimage pro.

Now, I have done a search trough this forum and gotten some good tips that I tried but I seem to have probably forgot one thing or another since I can't get good colors.

My monitor is a Sony calibrated with Adobe gamma, the camera is a Canon G2. All photos go trough Photoshop.

From the tips I gathered here, here are my settings: In the epson drivers, I choosed the right paper (premium glossy), I used custom setting and checked "no color adjustement", turned off high speed printing. Now, in qimage, I loaded up the picture, chose 8x10 sent the image to the printer and voilà, a wonderfully detailed image that's way to green!!!! (I now the part I'm missing is the color adjustement in Qimage, but I can't find the adjustements I need to do!)

Tried printing the same image directly in photoshop choosing the color management "SRGB" and the colours where much better (still not perfect tough) but I lost a lot of details in the image. So, I want to continue printing trough Qimage but I guess I need to make other adjustments to it.

Now, as you might have figured out already, this is my first color printer and my first time trying to print. I know myself extremely well around computers but printers, not very much. There are alot of adjustement possible in Qimage, but since I'm not to familiar with the program, I may need some guidance. I now there are profiles in Qimage, there is a monitor profile for the trinitron monitors and also a profile for the 820 printer, but there are alot of other profiles, so wich one should I choose? Also, I did not find a color adjustement option in Qimage but I admit that I maybe have just overlooked it.

So, I now these questions get asked over and over, and I don't want to sound like I did not do a search, I did, found messages that pointed me in the direction of the adjustements I did, but I don't get satisfactory results. So I'm asking you all who are way more knowlegable than me, can give this newbie some help.

Thanks to all for your time

--
Joel
http://www.pbase.com/joels/galleries
http://www.pbase.com/joels/my_favorites

'A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.'
 
Joel,

I also use an Epson 820 and Qimage. What you need to do is download the PIM plugin for Photoshop from the Epson website. Regardless of PIM, this plugin will install a set of very good profiles for all the different supported paper types for the 820. After that, set the printer profile in Qimage to one of the newly installed profiles to match the paper you are using. Leave the printer driver set to "no color adjustment" and you should then get very good color.

For your monitor profile (in Qimage) use the one that Adobe Gamma created. Your input profile for the G2 files should be set to sRGB.

Hope this helps.

Rich
Joel said:
Hi everybody,

I just bought an Epson 820 and I'm quite pleased with the results.
One thing tough is that I have a problem getting accurate colors
using Qimage pro.

Now, I have done a search trough this forum and gotten some good
tips that I tried but I seem to have probably forgot one thing or
another since I can't get good colors.

My monitor is a Sony calibrated with Adobe gamma, the camera is a
Canon G2. All photos go trough Photoshop.

From the tips I gathered here, here are my settings: In the epson
drivers, I choosed the right paper (premium glossy), I used custom
setting and checked "no color adjustement", turned off high speed
printing. Now, in qimage, I loaded up the picture, chose 8x10 sent
the image to the printer and voilà, a wonderfully detailed image
that's way to green!!!! (I now the part I'm missing is the color
adjustement in Qimage, but I can't find the adjustements I need to
do!)

Tried printing the same image directly in photoshop choosing the
color management "SRGB" and the colours where much better (still
not perfect tough) but I lost a lot of details in the image. So, I
want to continue printing trough Qimage but I guess I need to make
other adjustments to it.

Now, as you might have figured out already, this is my first color
printer and my first time trying to print. I know myself extremely
well around computers but printers, not very much. There are alot
of adjustement possible in Qimage, but since I'm not to familiar
with the program, I may need some guidance. I now there are
profiles in Qimage, there is a monitor profile for the trinitron
monitors and also a profile for the 820 printer, but there are alot
of other profiles, so wich one should I choose? Also, I did not
find a color adjustement option in Qimage but I admit that I maybe
have just overlooked it.

So, I now these questions get asked over and over, and I don't want
to sound like I did not do a search, I did, found messages that
pointed me in the direction of the adjustements I did, but I don't
get satisfactory results. So I'm asking you all who are way more
knowlegable than me, can give this newbie some help.

Thanks to all for your time

--
Joel
http://www.pbase.com/joels/galleries
http://www.pbase.com/joels/my_favorites
'A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools.'
Click to expand...
 
Joel, the difficulty in getting printed colors to match the colors you see on-screen is like one of the digital imaging industry's dirty little secrets. They will be quick to tell you how sharp and colorful your prints will look, but they don't tell you that the color won't necessarily be accurate. This is something that professionals have known about since the beginning, but that consumers don't know until they're told. (Sorry, had to rant a little.) Epson knows all about this, and has been pushing for a technology called "Print Image Matching". Read this Popular Photography article for more about that: http://www.popphoto.com/HowTo/ArticleDisplay.asp?ArticleID=173 . Unfortunately for you, while PIM only works on certain Epson printers including the 820, you use a Canon G2, and it doesn't support PIM. (Why would Canon want to give you a reason to buy an Epson printer?) It also looks like PIM was one of those great ideas that just didn't gather enough momentum.

Now onto your question. I honestly have never worked with Qimage, but have worked a lot with Photoshop and have tried, like you, very hard to get prints to match what I saw on screen. I will answer with regards to Photoshop, and hopefully you can apply some of these concepts to Qimage.

There are a few technical reason why getting prints to match colors on screen is difficult. Among them (1) You are visually calibrating your monitor using Adobe Gamma and human perception of color is inherently subjective. It's best to do this using a calibration device. (2) The driver that Epson provides with the printer does not show you on-screen the colors you can expect based on which paper you are printing to. For example, your colors and image contrast will look different if you print them on heavyweight matte paper versus glossy photo paper. (3) Epson provides you with a printer drivers for the 820 built using certain assumptions (e.g., you are using genuine Epson ink), (4) Printed images like photographs can have a large color "gamut" than than most monitors. English translation: there are some colors that can be printed that can't be shown on your monitor because of physical limitations. There are possibly others (e.g., I don't know if Qimage is a color-managed appliation).

OK, that's all fine, but what can you do about it? For (1) Adobe Gamma is good enough if you want your colors to turn out, well, good enough. Professional calibration devices cost anywhere from $250 and up if you're interested. Check out the websites of Color Vision, Monaco Systems and GretagMacbeth for more info.

For (2) If you don't already have them, obtain the icc color profiles for your 820. I don't know if Qimage supports a feature that Photoshop has called "soft-proofing" (read about it here: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps6_softproof/ps6_softproof_1.htm ), but you must understand that you're not just printing to a printer, but to a printer/paper combination. There's no way your program can anticipate which paper you're going to use. You must tell it to simulate on the paper screen the effects of printing to your particular paper. Epson ships the separate icc profiles for the printer with their Mac driver, but not their PC driver. So if you're using the PC, download the Epson PIM plug-in at http://support.epson.com/hardware/printer/inkjet/pho820/index.html . Even if you're not using Print Image Matching, this is the only way I know of to get the icc profiles. Just install the plug-in, and the icc profiles will be put onto your hard drive. I don't have a Mac, but on a PC they'll be put into a Color subdirectory under the main Windows directory. Read that article on soft-proofing to learn how to use them. Then read this article on how to print using the profiles from Photoshop: http://www.computer-darkroom.com/ps7_print/ps7_print_mac.htm

For (3) Use Epson ink if you use their printer driver. Or, if you choose to use 3rd party ink, some of those companies will provide you with icc color profiles for your printer.

Color management is a huge topic. Here are some excellent background materials you should read.
Sorry for the super long answer, but I was (and still am in) the same boat, so I hope this helps.
 
Hi lpdc,

Wow, what an answer. This is great, I have learned more on color management in an hour than I tought possible. Thanks you very much for taking the time to write this answer, I'll bookmark it for future reference. Thanks again.

--
Joel
http://www.pbase.com/joels/galleries
http://www.pbase.com/joels/my_favorites

'A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.'
 
I have the 820 and I used Adobe gamma to adjust my monitor and I feel like I get accurate colors without the expensive calibrating. I don't enable any color profiles in Qimage, on my 820 I select which paper I need then, custom, advanced, ICM, 1440, high speed off and print. I am very happy with my prints and I use Nectron ink from http://www.tylermartin.com for $7 and change. Pam
 
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