No Color Management is no more for making a print profile?

[W. Fisher]

Just to make sure we are clear, the settings from the FAQ that are being discussed are only for creating the color profiles and not the settings for regular prints. Here is an explanation from online that seemed to help and made sense yet its from AI so your mileage may vary. Since it mentions its trying to workaround a driver bug, you should check to see if the bug has been already corrected:

What's the Best Practice on Windows 11?​

If you're using an Epson printer, here's what to do:

A. In ccStudio​

• Select to print the test chart using “Let application manage color” (or whatever option disables color management from the printer driver).

B. In the Epson Driver (Windows)​

When you hit "Print Settings" or "Properties" in the print dialog:

• Set Media Type correctly.
• Set Quality appropriately (e.g., Highest or Photo RPM).
• Go to the Color taband:
  • Try “No Color Adjustment” first (ideal, if it works cleanly).
  • If “No Color Adjustment” causes problems (like banding), then:
    • Select “Color Controls”
    • Choose sRGB
    • Set Gamma = 2.2

This workaround (Color Controls + sRGB + Gamma 2.2) has been widely tested and is known to yield neutral output when the printer can’t be forced to truly turn off its own color tweaks.

The above made more sense to me that what was written in the FAQ
John Wheeler

Thanks for that info. I tried it today.

I found that doing it either with the "Let application manage color" or it being turned to OFF made no difference in the subsequent profile than one made using the "Epson (sRGB)" as the color control to make the profile. Both came out looking the same, i.e. too dark, especially the blues.

I found a ColorChecker image file in the Windows x-rite folder along with one of their larger ColorChecker SG cards. I used those as a standard test image to eliminate any input images from me. I hope they are close to a standard to use for a test image.

On the smaller 24 patch ColorChecker, the three diagonal blue patches on the left side show the lower blue patch to be almost black in color (Position A3 I think). It may have a blue tint to it, but may as well call it black.



Below I laid a small ColorChecker card over the print of a ColorChecker 24 patch and larger ColorChecker SG card taken with a Canon camera and made into a JPG in PS. You can see in the under lying print made with the ccStudio profile that the dark blue patch (A3) is far darker than the smaller CC card on top of them I circled them in red. The larger SG card blue patches are underneath, but the dark blue on is still far too dark as is the overall colors in the SG card. The sg card has some slight glare on it too near the bottom but it shows the overall darkness of the profile and muted colors.

I don't know if Windows 11 is causing this, some Epson thing since they do not show a driver only in their Support for the 3880 and just a bunch of network stuff so I used the Windows 10 driver. I did try the 3800 items off their page to start, but they weren't any better and I wanted just a plain generic printer driver so I switched to the Windows 10 version and deleted all the other Epson Windows 11 stuff. Not much difference made there either.

Here is one with the "Let printer manage colors" which seems somewhat close but still a bit dark. Blue is much closer than the profile made one.

Mystery....