Epson R2400 Printing Too Dark (Check image for me Please)

redhed17

redhed17

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Hello. :)

Let me just say I'm new to printing as I've never had a printer before. A few weeks ago friend gave me an Epson R2400 which 'wasn't printing well', which he'd been given. A few of the inks were empty and I think he was just printing a sheet of A4 which did print out badly because of too much ink.

Anyway, I wasn't sure whether the printer was kaput, or just needed inks and paper. I bought 30 A4 Glossy sheets from Curry's, and bought a set of Compatible Pigment inks from t'internet. Even though there was ink remaining in the inks in the machine, I replaced them all with the new set. After a bit of messing about, I finally got some prints out which colour wise looked pretty good, but for this pic especially, it has printed out very dark.

I've set the type of paper to Premium Glossy/Semigloss Photo Paper as it said in the literature with the paper.

Is there a way to set this printer up to get better prints, as in what I'm seeing on the screen, or is it as simple as moving the Brightness slider in the Printer Defaults?


I recently bought a monitor calibrator so I'm pretty sure the brightness and colours on the monitor are OK, but I'm open to suggestions as like I said, I have minimal Printer experience.
 
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POAH said:
turn your brightness down to around 90-100cm2
Click to expand...

Thanks for replying. :)

I've set the monitor Brightness level to 120 cd/m2, as the Spyder3 says that is the correct level. I understand that if the monitor is too bright then I may be ending up with images overly dark as a consequence. But if the Spyder is saying that is the right Brightness level, why override that? Surely I should match the printer to the screen.

And darkening the screen won't help me print out the images I have ready to print. :shrug:

Is there a better way, or a downside to changing the Brightness setting in the Printers Preferences? Being such a dark image I'm trying to get right, I down want to stab in the dark to try and correct the problem, and waste an awful lot of ink trying things if there is an easier way to correct the problem. :shrug:
 
If your using the latest version of Spyder software from their site it has a section to set brightness and contrast setting as part of the profiling routine.

I too use a Spyder 3pro.
 
Just out of interest are you happy with the colour but it's just the prints are too dark?

it's quite a frequently raised issue with Epson, Google Epson dark prints.
 
Another thing is make sure you use the correct profile when printing. Selecting the paper type is one part. The profile is just as important.
 
The brightness you set the screen to depends on your working enviroment. Think about looking at it in a brightly lit office, then at might with the lights off... In both situations a monitor set at 120cm/m2 will appear to show quite different brighnesses! Also the amount of light illuminating the print has an effect - the ICRC standard is for much more light on the print than you find under normal domestic environments which is, of course, where most of your clients will look at the prints anyway.

You need to adjust your screen to match the printer and never the other way round, as if you send files elsewhere to print, and they have a profiled printer the brightnesses won't match.

The reason why people have asked which spyder you are using is that the spyder 2 does not correct the brightness of the screen.
 
Davd I thnk the Spder2 Pro didadjust the screen brightness (I had one). Profiling bth monitor and printer should be the fist port of call. that meas spyder then a custom ofile for the printer.
 
David is right about adjusting the brightness of the screen. Every enviroment is different, for example my screen is set to 130 cd/m2 to get a good match from screen to print, the 120cd/m2 is just a "standard" starting point.

Try setting the brightness to say 100 cd/m2 . Adjust the image so that it looks good on the screen and then do a small test print. Is it still to dark or to light. If it's to dark you may need to drop the brightness even more. However if it is now to light bring the brightness upt to say 110Cd/m2.

I wouldn't recommend going below this 100 cd/m2 setting as it can result in the monitor not calibrating correctly
 
Mine is set to 80 under a normal home bedroom light. Calibrates perfectly
 
Thanks for the replies. :)

My room is pretty consistent for light levels, and what I see on the screen looks right, and that is of course what I bought the Spyder3 for. ;)

I've had a look about double profiling, which is quite confusing, so I'm going to continue looking to see what the best information is to see if it is the problem.

I printed out another image with the Brightness value in the Printer Preferences set to 12, and that got close to what I see on the screen. I think another 2 or 3 will get me pretty close I think. I'm reluctant to print this image too much because of the amount of ink it uses. :eek: :( :lol:

This is the image I'm printing out;
itf5299aeditresize2.jpg


Is there detail on the left hand side of the Bridge? On my monitor I can see two poles in the water below the bridge, though I can just barely see the one closest to the edge of the frame. Does anyone see more or less detail?
 
There are three poles on the bottom left. Two visible, as you describe them, but can just make out a third by tilting my screen.
That said, I've not run any hardware monitor calibration.
 
I have two calibrated monitors and can see 3 poles as Andy says. The third though is just visible though.

If you set a black point in the image it becomes a tad clearer.

One thing I'll say though is that the image is pretty dark on the left side and my printer also prints it quite dark. Glossy type papers are quite contrasty so it may be the paper you are printing on too.
 
How are you setting your printer up?

Here's generally how mine is set upo.

Ps.jpg
 
Thanks for confirming that the 'three' poles can be seen in the image I posted. I said two poles as I was looking at the image I cropped to A4 to print, rather than the image I'd earlier posted on the internet, and re-posted yesterday. :bonk:

I'm happy that my monitor is how I want it to be.

As for the printing. :shrug:

I printed with CS5 and with the Win Vista Explorer. I set the printer to be in control of the printing as I want consistent images with whatever program I print with.

Thanks Jim for going to so much trouble to show me what settings you use. I've read so many different opinions as to what are the settings to use. And there can be so many settings to change. :shake: I'll try your settings to see if it makes a difference, though I think I may have tried something similar before.

I tried the ICM setting, I also used both Photoshop controlling the printing, and the Printer controlling the printing. There was not much, if any difference, between the settings. Again, changing things in response to different information on the Internet.

I want a big default setting somewhere, in CS5 and the Printer, as there are so many settings I don't know what should be what straight out of the box as a starting point. :lol:
 
remember that your screen can show more DMAX than the paper - the paper/ink might not be able to reproduce the DMAX you want so the shadows might be a bit darker.

If you tilt your screen does it match your image?
 
redhed17 said:
Thanks for confirming that the 'three' poles can be seen in the image I posted. I said two poles as I was looking at the image I cropped to A4 to print, rather than the image I'd earlier posted on the internet, and re-posted yesterday. :bonk:

I'm happy that my monitor is how I want it to be.

As for the printing. :shrug:

I printed with CS5 and with the Win Vista Explorer. I set the printer to be in control of the printing as I want consistent images with whatever program I print with.

Thanks Jim for going to so much trouble to show me what settings you use. I've read so many different opinions as to what are the settings to use. And there can be so many settings to change. :shake: I'll try your settings to see if it makes a difference, though I think I may have tried something similar before.

I tried the ICM setting, I also used both Photoshop controlling the printing, and the Printer controlling the printing. There was not much, if any difference, between the settings. Again, changing things in response to different information on the Internet.

I want a big default setting somewhere, in CS5 and the Printer, as there are so many settings I don't know what should be what straight out of the box as a starting point. :lol:
Click to expand...

If you are printing withiout use of the proper profile and leaving the printer to manage the colour you will probably get varying results depending on the image.

Using a colour managed suite like CS5 should provide more consistency.

Also now that the small print I made has had time to dry properly I can see all the poles - pretty dim but they are there and PAOH makes a good point about the screen/paper difference.
 
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