Printing with a Epson Photo printer

Hi all. I started a topic a week or so ago about printing with my Epson Photo 890 printer. Some of you might remember the topic. I was unable to get the same results on my paper that I would see on my screen in Photoshop. I got alot of great advice and tried them all but still was not happy with the results. Until I came across some golden information and I would like to share it with you. This is how I open my pictures now and work on them and then print. The first thing I assume all of you did is to go to Epsons website and download the PIM 2 plugin. Here is my workflow.

1. After starting up Photoshop, I click on FILE> IMPORT> PRINT IMAGE MACHING II.

2. I select the pic I want to work on and hit OK. ( You can only work on pics that were never saved yet. Original pics from camera only.)

3. When the pic opens it convert the colors to the Print matching version.

4. Work on picture and then clink on FILE> PRINT WITH PREVIEW.

5. Under COLOR MANAGEMENT, I choose Adobe RGB (1998) for Source Space and choose Epson Stylus Photo 890 Photo Paper for Print Space.

6. I also choose No Color Management in the printer custom properties.

To my surprise, the prints come out almost identical to what I see on screen. 10 times better than the method I did before. That is the reason Epson created the Print matching system.

I hope this method helps the people that like I were getting frustrated with printing.

According to the instructions that come with the PIMII plugin, you should choose as Source Epson RGB 2001, and the Intent should be Perceptual with Black Point compensation check marked. Check out the "Canon G3 Correct print Workflow" topic, which deals with Epson printing and the G3 and has some more details on the process.

For some reason I can't get the document source to say Epson RGB 2001. How do I get it to say that?? I dont see that option anywhere.

Hi Mark,

I suspect your Photoshop Color Settings automatically convert your pictures from Epson RGB 2001 to the preset working space, which seems in your case to be Adobe 1998. Change the Color Settings of Photoshop so that it asks you whether you want to work with the embedded profile or the working space profile. Stay with the embedded Epson profile.

Let me know if this helps, and is your trouble.

So if I select to work with embedded profile, the program automatically assumes it will be the Epson profile?? If that is the case, I can do that with all my pics, asssuming the prints come out better. Thanks

Hi Mark,
It's always better to preserve the embedded profile. This assure the original mapping between your habitual working space and the document space ( also the monitor profile adapt the result to your monitor), only in the case you want to transpose your document in another space for whatever reason (for exemple online printing profile) you need to do a convert .

Now...not all pics could be assigned this space! This space is assigned by the plugin process from an original jpeg image with the help of the camera parameters. If your document is already in sRGB space your colors are iremediably lost! You can't recover what you clipped before!

In short the only benefit is thru the plugin, and at this time you don't need to assign a space as the plugin assign the space for you, just "save as" to preserve the space!