Adobe Illustrator for Windows - Printing Illustrator to Epson

Author

Printing Illustrator to Epson

Mark_Murphy@adobeforums.com

2006-08-22, 6:45 pm

I have a print color question when printing from Illustrator to the Epson R300 printer. I have already tried many times to get an answer from Epson and they either don't have a clue or are not talking:

I have an application that requires printing graphics with linked images from Illustrator to the Epson R300. I can't for the life of me figure out how to print a bright, nice looking RED using this printer and photo quality inkjet paper (a requirement). U
sing my old Epson 880 printer I was able to play around with the color values and get a nice deep/bright red to print. On the R300, no matter how I play with the cmyk settings, the epson printer options, or anything else, I can only get a weak faded looki
ng red to print on the R300.

I am trying to find out:

1) Is this a FEATURE due to an ink type choice by Epson?..... or,
2) .... does someone have a solution with color settings, printer settings, etc. that will print a nice bright non-faded red on photo quality inkjet paper on the r300 from illustrator .......... or
3) Recommendations for another printer that can print a great looking red using illustrator 8.0 or Illustrator CS?

Please help me get my RED back.

Thanks,

Mark

tim_d@adobeforums.com

2006-08-22, 10:37 pm

mayeb your OLD printer used DYE inks...and the new one uses PIGMENT (DuraBrite, waterproof) inks? I don't know ... but sure you could find out on the epson website.

DYE inks have a LARGE color gammut...meaning they can reach out farther and print brighter vibrant colors.... PIGMENT are more have better longevity, but a smaller color gamut...so a smaller pallete to pull from. It's basically a trade-off...PIGMENT inks
alos print nicer thans dyes on regular plain paper.

That could possibly be one of your problems...or your Color Management isn't connected correclty.... so printer isn't printing to it's optimum...but if you are just using standard default print settings...and you get only what you are getting...could be P
IGMENT inks. You may also have Illustrator set up to color manage...but the printer driver is also...so it's messing things up a bit?

Maybe you could make a NEW document in RGB mode....assign a object full max RED in RGB color (R=255, G=0, B=0) and try printing and see what u get?

Hope u get it figured out. If u have any Color Managment questions...go over to that forum for detailed info.

also checkout good reading here:
<http://www.computer-darkroom.com/>

LenHewitt@adobeforums.com

2006-08-23, 3:48 am

Mark,
[color=darkred]

That's probably the answer. As far as the computer is concerned, all
non-PostScript printers are RGB devices. The driver is incapable of
passing CMYK data and so Illustrator has to do an on-the-fly conversion
to RGB, send that data to the printer whose firmware then converts it
back to the CcMmYK (or whatever inks the particular printer uses)that
the print heads require. That double-conversion can often degrade colour
fidelity.

Far better to convert to RGB BEFORE sending to the printer.

Mark_Murphy@adobeforums.com

2006-08-23, 7:06 pm

Both the Epson 880 and the R300 are dye based printers. I will play around with making the document rgb, etc. see what I get.

Thanks,

Mark

TimHall@adobeforums.com

2006-08-24, 7:03 pm

Mark,

I've always had good experiencces with color on Epsons, and I think their canned profiles are generally not bad, but I only print proofs - I let a reprographics firm handle the final output. It may not be an issue with the printer or it's inks.

If you're going to be using this printer for precision work over and over, it pays to have a good custom profile. Your money may be better spent on a color management system than a new printer.

And as Len points out - with inkjet you definitely want to be printing from an RGB space. You may want to check out the user forum on Color Management.