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Printing B&W on Sihl Baryta paper with Epson R2400

carstenw

Active member
I am trying to print out a photo I have scanned from a B&W negative on my R2400, and having little luck. I have a MacBook Pro 15" Unibody with the screen calibrated by a Huey Pro. While this isn't the best device in the world, it ought to at least get me close, I think.

First I tried printing directly from Lightroom 2, but the photo wasn't even centered on the page, and ran off one edge. I was also unable to find out how I choose the ICC profile, so eventually I switched to Photoshop CS4, where I was at least able to get the photo centered. However, both prints are way too light, not even reaching middle grey in the darkest areas. The image as scanned and viewed has everything from pure white to pure black.

I have been using the rear feed (Manual Single Sheet, I believe it is called). I have kept most of the Epson driver's settings more or less standard, except that I chose greyscale instead of RGB, and Best Colour Precision and Best Print Quality. I used Premium Semigloss paper as instructed.

I have chosen "Photoshop Manages Colours", along with the ICC profile for my paper. The instruction call for Photo Black, so that is what I am using. I set "Relative Colorimetric". The photo happens to be in ProPhoto RGB, but since Photoshop knows this, I don't suppose it should be a problem.

Is there anyone here who can spot where I am going wrong?

FWIW, this is the image:

 
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bensonga

Well-known member
I do all my B&W printing on the 2400 using the ABW settings and it works very well....any reason why you don't want to go that route? If you do, I can give you some specific settings that have worked well for me when I'm printing on Baryta type papers.

Gary
Alaska
 

carstenw

Active member
Gary, what does ABW mean, Advanced B&W? I will try it, if you give me the settings. I haven't gone this route before, so I don't know where to start.

John, I can try that, but I am a little skeptical. Why would printing as greyscale make the photo so light? The printer's inkset is meant for colour as well as greyscale, after all.
 
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carstenw

Active member
I am beginning to think that my cartridges are borked, or at least some of them. Specifically, I printed a page with colour squares of black, cyan, magenta, yellow, 33% opaque cyan, magenta and black, and 10% opaque black. This gets me reasonably close to the native colours, at least in theory. Only the yellow looked super saturated. The magenta and cyan look somewhat saturated, but not like the yellow. A little washed out. The light cyan and light magenta look okay, but I don't have a reference. The light grey and light light grey likewise. The black is off. Way off. If I print in colour, it is brown. WTF? If I print in greyscale, it is medium to dark grey.

Might I have some wrong settings somewhere? It is as if the printer isn't really stretching its legs, and I wonder if I have a sabotage setting somewhere.

It was off for a long time. Really off, not plugged in. I thought that if the cartridges would start printing at all, they would print right, but this, at least superficially, doesn't seem to be the case.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Carsten,

It sounds like a bad paper profile... But it could be a nozzle clog causing it too, so I would confirm it isn't a nozzle clog anyway. Print the manual nozzle check and confirm there are no broken diagonals, even down in the corners. Yellow is the toughest to see, so use a loupe if you have one. Even one dash missing anywhere in any pattern can screw up output colors, especially when printing B&W using a color profile.
 

Don Libby

Well-known member
Here's a couple suggestions in no particular order -

Make sure your printer isn't clogged. Run a cleaning cycle

Do you soft proof before printing? [View - Proof Setup - Custom - Look into the pull down "Device to Simulate"

Also try Perceptual

And don't forget the Gamut Warning

My bet is a clogged nozzle..

Don

I could see the image either on Baryta or Bamboo...
 
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carstenw

Active member
Thanks for the additional answers. I have run several cleaning cycles, which I had to to bring the heads back on line. They are all running now, but the colours of some are questionable, and the black is very off in colour mode.

I have tried perceptual, and two others, except absolute. I have tried with and without gamut adjustments. I have an ICC profile for this paper on this printer, so I presume it is good. It specifies Photo Black, which is what I am using. I have tried soft proofing, and it looked fine. I will try again and look for that menu...

My bet is also on one or more busted cartridges. I should have turned the printer on once in a while, but since we moved in January I didn't get it installed anywhere properly. What a waste of ink. I am vaguely considering a continuous ink system. These cartridges are expensive.

I think I will run some non-photo-paper tests of some small images, and see if replacing the Photo Black fixes them, or if I also need to replace the Cyan and Magenta, and maybe even some of the light variants. Ouch. €€€
 

carstenw

Active member
Just a thought: does the pigment in these ink cartridges settle with time? Maybe if I shake them a bit, not too wildly?
 

Don Libby

Well-known member
Just a thought: does the pigment in these ink cartridges settle with time? Maybe if I shake them a bit, not too wildly?
Can't hurt! Just use a jentle rolling/rocking motion the run a nozzle check again as well as a cleaning if needed. How old is the ink?

Sounds like this is all printer related.

Don
 
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