Problem...Printing with a pink cast

Hi all,

I'm a bit lost on this one and hope one of you experts can guide me to an answer.

After using my Epson 1280 and Adobe PS 7 for 2 years, I'm suddenly having a problem with a pink cast to everything, which never occurred before.

Running Windows XP Home, my monitor is calibrated using a spyder, printer driver is up to date and while editing in PS everything appears normal. When I go to print from PS using the Epson, the preview shows a pink cast which is the way the picture prints. To see if this was an Epson problem, I connected a Canon 560 with the same results

If I open the file using "Windows Picture & Fax Viewer", the colors appear true in the Epson preview and it prints correctly.

The fact that both the Canon & Epson print with the pink cast leads me to believe that its not the printer software, but that there's a PS setting mucking up the works, however I can't find anything that changes this.

I appreciate any thoughts.

I had this problem on a Canon s9000. Not sure if the solution applies to your setup...

Make sure that only ONE program is handling color management. If Color Management is turned on in PS, then it must be set to off in the printer driver. I had both set to "ON" and that was causing my prints to have a magenta cast.

I would bet that "Windows Picture & Fax Viewer" does not support or apply color management. Thus, only your printer driver is doing it and your prints look good.

I know in PSCS, color management is activated/deactivated in the "Print with Preview" dialog. Not sure about PS7. After that, when I choose "Print" the print dialog has a drop down menu where printer driver color management options are selected - this is on a Mac, I am sure that PCs work in a similar fashion.

Hope this helps.

SOLVED.....Problem Printing with a pink cast

As I've said before, Windows is an amazing thing. One never knows what or why it will do what it does. Usually malevolent things , but occasionally benevolent .

Previously, I've tried all the fixes that folks have suggested, and NOTHING worked. I changed printer color management to "Adobe RGB (1998)" to match PS & tried changing the printer to "same as source", turned off color management in the printer software & when that didn't work, also turned it off in PS, just to see what would happen, which was nothing in any of the trials. I eventually uninstalled PS, the Epson 1280 printer, and the Canon 560, then reinstalled each one at a time, making the appropriate settings, but everything still came up pink.

Today, while trying some other stuff, I must have corrupted something in the OS, as I kept getting error messages and programs froze when trying to access my JPEG files. No viruses or spy/adware found. Tried XP restore, but no help. Fortunately, I also have Norton Systemworks installed, and used GoBack to restore my system to a safe point at the beginning of the today, a week AFTER my pink problem started. After that restore was done, my system behaved properly, with no error messages and NO PINK! It works as long as I set the printer color management to off, or "same as source", or Adobe RGB (1998). If I set it to "glossy photo paper" or other setting which cause a double color management, it goes back to pink.

I don't know why it works now, and didn't before, but I'm glad it does. Like religion, there's some things you just have to accept and not question why.

I've got a good idea what's going on.

Is the cast magenta, rather than pink?

If so, it is typically the result of applying the printer profile twice.

If you sepcify an ICC profile in Photoshop for the image, make sure the Epson driver is set to not apply any color management at all.

Either Photoshop or the printer driver should manage the color. NOT BOTH.

Cheers,

Mitch