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....

 

[W. Fisher]

This is maddening! No matter what I do the thing prints dark. Tried to print with Capture One and the print was dark and lacked color which was a new one verse PS. Then I tried the old Adobe Print Utility and it printed dark as well. Turning OFF in the printer driver preference also prints dark. Sometimes "Let the printer manage color" is better - sometimes. Making a profile is pointless using it.

Someplace in the Windows 11 food chain something is controlling the printing outcome over the software for the printing. Don't know if Epson driver is always present in printing being on or off, but something isn't right.

Wasted 3 boxes of $50 each Epson papers, both the glossy and luster, and cannot get a decent print. Most frustrating! Basically a $5K top-of-the-line laptop (Has the newest Nvidia 5090 GPU card too.) and is worthless for printing other than B&W. Don't know if it might be the 1000 nit screen as the brightness is high, but it sets itself down to 80 cd/m2 during the profiling so shouldn't affect that, but who knows. Stumped x-rite's support guy on Team Viewer too.

 

[thebestcpu]

Can you link the ICC profile so it can be examined by forum members?
John Wheeler

 

[thebestcpu]

Hi @W. Fisher

Here is some additional information.

I took your two images and plotted there Lab 3D gamut images shown below.

The first is for the problem image that you labeled messy:

And this one is Let Printer Manage Colors:

Very similar except the offset from black. That is an L offset of about ~15.

Any chance you did not turn on Black Point Compensation "BPE"

BPE needs to be off when creating the color targets yet it needs to be on when printing images.

The images above have all the hallmarks of BPE being off, leaving darker colors looking very muddy.

Of course, this may just be the difference in how you took the picture of the messy version as that seems to be a camera shot.


John Wheeler

 

[W. Fisher]

BPE hs been on for most of the time, and it is checked to being on in QImage Ultimate. I don't recall the BPE being used in ccStudio during the profile making stage. Will need to look. Been wondering about turning it off as it must play into the profiles or the prints somehow - and maybe not for the good either.

I was wondering whether or not to leave the "Let the app control..." (??)) checkbox that is shown when launching a profile color patch print in ccStudio. I've been playing with leaving "Epson( sRGB)" being selected in the print making part, too. and ignore the color switch to OFF and not much differenc eebetween the two being OFF or using the Epson (sRGB) for the profile. I did ifnd Windows 11 has a lot of other settings buried in it to let the app control the print, etc. Might be somehting there,

I have noted that when I set it to Landscape from the print app screen, the Epson driver settings/preferences may show it as still being in Portrait and not Landscape. Need to do it in both places.

If I make an Optimized prfile in ccStudi and use the ColroChecker 24 as the patch set, adn set it to make 24 patches in the app, the color printed page appears to show all of those colors somewhat close. However, once the Optimized icc is made, the print using it of the ColorChecker 24 comes out very dark, espcially the Green and Blue patches which are almsot black

I used some profile from last April prior to getting the new laptop and Windows 11 and it printed out a fine color patch of the ColorChecker 24. Since then nothing has been right unless I leave it set to "Let printer manage colors." An icc profile goes to dark, especially the greens and the blues.

Online I've been reading about other Windows 11 users having color printing issues. Might be similar to the old Mac color management matters a few years back - if they have ever straightened that mess out.

Just got back from buying 4th box of 50 sheets Epson Ultra Premium Glossy (I've been setting the Epson Preferences to Glossy and not Luster as that is the default in Preferences. So far, not one usable profile - unless I use one icc dated last April prior to this mess and it is pretty good on reproducing the ColorChecker colors. Fwiw, when I used the Epson Legacy pack of profiles their Glossy came out too light, while mine are way too dark. Bizarre!