Has anyone else experienced problems with a colour cast when printing with an Epson R1800? Whatever I do I see to end up with a magenta or cyan colour cast. I have tried original and remanufactured cartridges, printing straight to the printer and via Power-Rip X and PrintFab from different programs but nothing seems to work. If anyone has any ideas please could you let me know.
GDB Supported by
Subscribe to our Free Newsletter
About
Hi, this is Tara, I am a freelance graphic designer based in Northamptonshire UK. I have nearly 20 years design experience and I write this graphic design blog. Please take a look at my portfolio or contact me for more information
Ideas Uploaded Blog
Check out my other blog www.ideasuploaded.com
Twitter
RSS
Facebook
17 Comments
You went wrong by using re manufactured cartridges. I had the same problem on my old canon printer with it printing with a magenta colour cast. The heads were damaged by using non genuine cartridges. I learnt my lesson.
I haven’t had problems with magenta or cyan casts to my print-outs, but I have had problems with the green shades on my R1800. Instead of a mellow green/dark green/olive green, I always end up with a neon green. Any suggestions?
Hi Jacob, thanks for the advice I’ll stick to originals in future. Although if I do a print test (the pattern of lines) all seems to be ok.
HI Gail, let me know if you get to the bottom of it
I haven’t used the exact printer you’re talking about, Tara, but I have the Epson 2200 (very high end photo printer, 7 inks) and I have a similar problem. It print a green hue with everything; very nasty!
The problem? PHOTOSHOP!
I only get this problem went trying to print from CS2, so I have to keep CS1 installed just for printing. Lame. Epson won’t release new drivers to deal with it and Adobe won’t bother with compatibility.
Here are a couple of things to try:
1. Print with CS instead of CS2 (not sure about CS3)
2. Select Color Enhance (something like that) and check the box for Digital Camera Correction in the print preferences. Do this even if is a vector graphic you created in Illustrator. Sounds weird, but it helps.
3. Clean the print heads really well via their maintenance program, especially if you haven’t used it in a while.
Not sure about the remanufactured cartridges; I always use the Epson ones.
HI Lauren,
Thanks, I will give it a go. I am using CS3 but I will try the color enhance and digital correction you suggested and see if that helps.
Hi Lauren,
Just looked in Pshop CS3 ad I can’t find any settings like colour enhance in the colour settings (am I looking in the right place?) there is an option for relative colorithmic?
I can’t see the digital camera colour correction when I go to print either. hmmm… puzzled..
You’ll find those options in the Print dialog (Cmd+P). They are under the Advanced settings for the Epson printers. Sorry if I confused you the first time!
Thanks Lauren. I think CS3 must have changed from CS1 and 2 as I don’t seem to have those options
It has to do with your printer drivers, not Photoshop–for the options anyway. I’m not sure how they interact to actually print the piece!
Did you select the printer first? Then click preferences. Then find the advanced tab or button. There should be color options on the left hand side. They have been radio buttons, but it may be a drop down, too.
Hi Lauren, yes tried that nothing there, I’ll experiment
Hi Tara, I too have an R1800 complete with magenta colour cast. A while ago I came accross the following site, used its suggestions with a measure of success. I have not persevered with further tweaking, but you may consider it worth a try. http://www.colourcasts.20m.com/
Relative to compatible ink. The R1800 as you doubtless know uses pigment based ink as distinct from dye based ink, and ne’er the twain should meet! Most of the compatibles for R1800 and the R800 are dye based. Hence there could be problems with their use.
I have found one compatible ink manufacturer that supplies pigment based ink, I use them and have had no trouble whatsoever.
If any one has had success or remedy with the cast problem out side of profiling, it would be good to know.
I came across this site by chance – but I’ll be keeping an eye on it now!
All the best to you all.
HI Shakey
Thanks for the link I will take a look at that, I will look into he pigment based ink too. I have to admit I got so annoyed with trying to get prints out that I bought a Canon Pixma ix4000 (only 4 colour inks – great!) which worked fine straight away. Most of the inkets seem to be targeted at photographers and I wonder if 4 colour inks rather than the current standard 6-8 works better for general graphics.
Tara,
Thanks for your comment. As for targeting, the full title of the R1800 in particular is Epson Stylus PHOTO R1800!! I’m into photography and Photoshop and all that jazz, hence the R1800.
With your Canon Pixma is there no colourcast at all? I have not really explored Canon that much – maybe I should. Even the blurb for Canon models is heavily slanted toward producing photographs but it does include ‘graphics’ in their agenda for the Pixma range.
I’ll be interested to hear more.
I didn’t really get a cast, or if there was it was very slight. It is probably not as good for photos because there only being 4 inks – basic CMYK (one cartidge for each). I have only had the printer a week so its early days
Hi Tara,greetings from México, I was printing in cs3 but
the usual problem with epson stylus r1800 ”muddy and dark prints” so I switched to cs2 and everything ok.
the work flow you are loking for in epson stylus r 1800
with no color casts is this, first go to mode there click grayscale, then go to edit, there click us prepress defaults with dot gain 20 percent, in print with previu set no color managment and done everything ok no color cast belive me. Jésus.
Hi Tara,greetings from México, I was printing in cs3 but
the usual problem with epson stylus r1800 ”muddy and dark prints” so I switched to cs2 and everything ok.
the work flow you are loking for in epson stylus r 1800
with no color casts is this, first go to mode there click grayscale, then go to edit, there click us prepress defaults with dot gain 20 percent, in print with previu set no color managment and done everything ok no color cast belive me. Jésus. of course i think
you are talking of BW prints with color casts.
Thank you for the suggestion jesus. Unfortunately I haven’t got CS2 on this machine though