Yellow color too dark/orange on ET-2750

VikingPhotoGeek

Newbie to Printing
Joined
Apr 14, 2021
Messages
8
Reaction score
6
Points
5
Printer Model
Epson ET-2750
Hi all,

I just bought an Epson ET-2750, and was initially impressed with the ease of use and trouble free setup. But I soon noticed something was weird with the colors in my prints, especially on photos. I know it is not a photo printer, but still. After a lot of tinkering with settings and test prints, I have come to the conclusion that it is the yellow color which is the cause of the problems. The yellow color is not bright/saturated enough in my opinion, causing the blue color to dominate all photos.

See attached photo to see the difference of some yellow/green colors on screen and print. The photo doesnt do it full justice, but it is close enough. You can see the color on the monitor is both brighter and more vibrant than on the print, and it gets worse the closer to green we come. I have tested the colors on several monitors and my iPhone, and it looks great on all screens, but it sucks on the print.

Now, is this a common/expected thing on printers in this price range? Or is there something wrong with my printer or my settings?

I would love to see anyone else printing the same colors and showing the print, especially on the ET-2750!


2021-04-12 14.26.30.jpg
 

Ink stained Fingers

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2014
Messages
5,838
Reaction score
6,965
Points
363
Location
Germany
Printer Model
L805, WF2010, ET8550
There are a range of issues and questions about your way to judge colors, it is just not delivering correct results comparing print output to an uncalibrated monitor - the printer does not know how the colors look on the connected monitor, this all would require some adjustments in regards to color management. And it is not clear from your posting which driver settings you use - paper selection - and which paper you actually use - all parameters influencing the rendering of colors.
You may start with a simple test - using normal paper - and printing there your color patches or a test image and compare it to the monitor output, but please turn down the monitor brightness somewhat - the printed image is never as bright as a monitor.
 

VikingPhotoGeek

Newbie to Printing
Joined
Apr 14, 2021
Messages
8
Reaction score
6
Points
5
Printer Model
Epson ET-2750
Hi Ink Stained Fingers, and thank you for replying, I really appreciate it!

I avoided putting too much detail in my original post, but I am aware (or let's say I have become aware during testing) of the issues you mention.

There are things that speaks against my suspicion:
-My monitor is not calibrated, so I would definitely expect some distance between the colors on my monitor and on the print
-My monitor is too bright, so colors are brighter on my monitor than on print

However, I still belive something is not right, for several reasons:
-I have tried lots of different quality settings and lots of different paper. The biggest difference I get when printing on matte paper, which I suppose is expected. Printing on glossy paper (like the one I displayed) seems to give the most accurate result. As for quality settings, they seem to affect the saturation of the colors. But no matter which setting I use, I consistently get a yellow color that is more towards orange than it should (in my humble opinion)
-I have a photo which I took previously and have ordered print for from a printing company. This print looks almost exactly like on my monitor, except a little darker, which is expected since my monitor is too bright. But the balance between the colors is correct, and it has a lot of yellow tones, so it is a good example since it is yellow I am struggling with. On the ET-2750 version of the same print, the print is also darker than on the monitor. but in addition it has a blue cast that makes the whole photo look completely different
-I also tried printing the above color palette on my old Canon IP-2600, which is a ten year old printer of the cheapest type. Even on that print, the colors were MUCH closer to my monitor. The yellow was more yellow, and the lime green (which is almost dark green on the ET-2750) was nice and, well... lime.

So no matter what I do, I feel the yellow is consistently skewed towards orange, although you are completely correct in the things you mention which also has an effect on the printed colors and the perception of them.

I am now quite close to taking the printer back to the shop and returning it, or at least asking for assistance. But it would still be nice to see/hear if anybody else has any issues with yellow, or see how it looks compared to the screen.
 

PeterBJ

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2010
Messages
5,055
Reaction score
4,896
Points
373
Location
Copenhagen Denmark
Printer Model
Canon MP990
Unlikely, but could the yellow ink reservoir/channel be contaminated with magenta? That would explain the yellow turning orange and the lime turning olive green and the two other greens turning darker.
 

VikingPhotoGeek

Newbie to Printing
Joined
Apr 14, 2021
Messages
8
Reaction score
6
Points
5
Printer Model
Epson ET-2750
That would certainly explain it, but I don't see how. I have just bought the printer, and only filled ink once. Each time I was quite careful, I inserted the ink bottle, filled up the tank and then continued to the next one. The yellow is the second tank after black, and the lid would have been closed both when filling black, and when filling the next tank which is magenta. I also see no visual signs of external contamination.

A theoretical possibility would be that the ink was contaminated in production. Seems unlikely, but I do have a small amount of ink left in the bottle, so it would be possible to find out if requested by the refund process (if I end up asking for a refund).
 

Ink stained Fingers

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2014
Messages
5,838
Reaction score
6,965
Points
363
Location
Germany
Printer Model
L805, WF2010, ET8550
I still don't think that you have a printer problem - did you ever use the ICM-option in the extended color settings - together with the Epson sample papers which came with the printer ? Any non-Epson paper would require some color tuning or a icm color profile to standardize its output. And it is not typical that colors are more off on matte papers than on glossy papers
 

VikingPhotoGeek

Newbie to Printing
Joined
Apr 14, 2021
Messages
8
Reaction score
6
Points
5
Printer Model
Epson ET-2750
I didn't try ICM. It was set to PhotoEnhance by default, but I switched to "no color adjustment" in the print settings by recommendation from various forums, since I was using the color management in Lightroom and Photoshop.

I tried just now, and it gave a slightly different result, but the yellow did not improve.

Starting to believe there must be something with the ink...
 

The Hat

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2010
Messages
15,618
Reaction score
8,691
Points
453
Location
Residing in Wicklow Ireland
Printer Model
Canon/3D, CR-10, CR-10S, KP-3
I tried just now, and it gave a slightly different result, but the yellow did not improve.
It’s more likely you made a balls of your refilling and one or more of your cartridges are leaking, and secondly 3rd party ink will never print the same as OEM inks, finally when you use OEM and 3rd party ink to produce a patch, they will always give you odd shades of the original colour, use one or the other ink, never both..

P.S. When your print different colour patches, like yellow, red, and cyan, the printer never uses just the one colour to produce the patch, in fact it mixes several other colours too…
 

VikingPhotoGeek

Newbie to Printing
Joined
Apr 14, 2021
Messages
8
Reaction score
6
Points
5
Printer Model
Epson ET-2750
I didn't spill a drop when refilling, and the ink bottles came with the printer, which I bought just one week ago.

If anyone would do me a favor, please print patch of pure yellow, and compare it to the yellow color on the ink bottle or cartridge, and tell me if the colors match.

When I do this on my stone age cheap canon IP-2600, there is almost a 100% match, while the ET-2750 is completely off.

I also went to the store and talked to them, but they could only offer me to send the printer to Epson for check, with the risk of having to pay if they did not find anything wrong. So I will probably not do that, instead I will suffer defeat and use the printer for document printing, and shell out some bucks for a real photo printer.

But it still sucks, and I am really disappointed :/
 

PeterBJ

Printer VIP
Platinum Printer Member
Joined
Nov 27, 2010
Messages
5,055
Reaction score
4,896
Points
373
Location
Copenhagen Denmark
Printer Model
Canon MP990
Here is a nozzle check from a Canon MP800. After printing it I touched a Q-tip to the ink outlet of the yellow cartridge. After having wiped off most of the ink in the Q-tip I made a marking close to the yellow stripe in the nozzle check. Notice that the colour match is very good. Click to enlarge:

MP800 Y.jpg

I don't know much about Epson printers but when Canon printheads get old an internal leak can cause cross contamination. Often the yellow is contaminated with black. Cross contamination can also happen when the print head is parked on the purge unit/parking station. If a cartridge is leaking the ink will pool under the nozzle plate and leaked ink might be wicked up in nozzle sets for other colours and cause cross contamination.

If nothing went wrong when filling the printer with ink, then I think something must be wrong with the printer or the yellow ink. Could you make a nozzle check and compare the yellow print to the yellow ink in the tank and the yellow ink in the bottle?

Even if the printer is not a photo printer but intended for office use I think the colour error is not acceptable.
 
Last edited:
Top