Printer Calibration, Am I expecting too much

[Paul-H]

Hi all

First off please excuse this numpty question, I am rather new to Printer calibration and was starting to wonder if I was expecting too much.

so here is my situation, I have two Printers and old Epson R360 and a New Epson 1500W, both are fitted with a CIS system and are both filled with ink from the same batch of ink.

For profiling I use both Profile Prism, using VueScan and my Epson 4490 scanner and also the SpyderPrint4 System.

Now to the problem, if I make profiles for the same batch of paper for both printer using both profiling system and print images using both profiles on both printers and then compare the results also both prints from the same printer using one of each profile looks the same and show a good profile the photos when compared between the printers are not the same, they are very close but there are subtle differences, which are mainly in the grays and in monochrome images.

So am I expecting too much or should the correct profiles from the same system on the same paper produce identical images or is the subtle difference acceptable given any limitations working with this type of kit can produce.

Thanks for any help with this, before I pull all my hair out.

Paul

 

[Pookeyhead]

but there are subtle differences, which are mainly in the grays and in monochrome images.

That's not uncommon. Are you printing black and white from RGB colour files, using colour inks? Printing black and white images on lower end 6 colour ink printers with only one black will always be a pain in the ass. If they are close, then be happy I'm assuming you're more happy with your colour images?

A decent high end printer will have Photo black (both matte and gloss), light black, and light, light black inks to play with, and this helps massively, as it has to rely less on making up "grey" from the CMYK set.

 

[Paul-H]

Thanks for the reply

Yes the colour images are quite a good match, I suspected I was expecting too much from the low end printers.

I shall stick to B&W on the 1500 as that's the one that is producing the better mono images.

Thanks again

Paul