PREFACE

As mentioned in other reviews, the ways to get an acceptable print of any printer seems to be different from printer to printer. Writing articles to cover all printers is not a practical approach to solving this problem. When the introduction of the Epson R1800 printer with it came some instructions related to print quality. Epson gave some basic as well as ICM related dialog and it was interesting to read that they (Epson) made an effort to instruct rather than leaving it up to the buyer to find his/her ways to get the best print.

Basically it comes down to what has been said by many and what I have documented in my review of the Epson 2200 Stylus printer. This review is still attached to this website and available to anyone. Although the print setting suggested by Epson for basic printing were interesting and anyone can find them by going to their website (http://files.support.epson.com/pdf/r1800_/r1800_ug.pdf) of particular interest are the settings Epson suggests to manage color profiles using Photoshop as the image editor. For the Epson paper line, ICC paper profiles are a free download available from Epson web site. Just about most other major paper supplier have ICC profiles available or the paper they sell. ICC paper profile where installed when the Epson R1800 software was installed on you computer however, the downloaded profiles are the current ones. When the new profiles are installed the old ones will be over-written so, do not worry about it and just do it.

Experimenting with the Epson settings, a number of questions came about starting with the Photoshop "set the basic color setting" window where Epson suggested to select "U.S. Prepress Default or North American Prepress 2" and setting the RGB work space, to "Adobe RGB (1998)." This setting usually originates at camera level. Many cameras use sRGB* or Adobe (1998)* and many photographers like to carry the camera color space setting throughout the workflow. Therefore, if your camera color space is sRGB, then set the basic color setting to North America General Purpose. Either setting will produce the same settings in the rest of the window. To do the setting in Photoshop go Edit > Color Settings.

*Adobe (1998) has a wider color gamut than sRGB and is the preferred color space setting by most photographers although many cameras come from the factory with a sRGB setting. If sRGB is the only color space available for the camera or scanning device you are working with then, follow through with sRGB for there is no point processing with a color space which has a wider gamut such as Adobe (1998). Once an image is shot in sRGB, which has a narrower color gamut then Adobe (1998), the color gamut can not be widened by changing it to Adobe (1998).

Epson did not bother with some of the conversion options and we like to merely say that Blackpoint Compensation (at the risk of possible banding) should be checked (use it) as well as Dither.

Microsoft Window - Basic Color Setting

Printing the Image using ICC/ICM Paper Profiles

Assuming this image is print ready (all editing done) and no color space correction needed. If there is a color space difference, set the basic color space to the image or change the color space of the image to the Work Space. The difference is this; if the image has a Adobe RGB (1998) profile meaning a larger color gamut and Photoshop's basic Color Space is set to sRGB, some of the color information will be lost due to the smaller color gamut of the sRGB color space. On the other hand, if the image has a sRGB color space and the basic Photoshop color space is set to Adobe RGB (1998), then Photoshop is processing for color information that is not there. Is this a bad thing? Some say it is others say it does not matter. I agree with the latter. Processing something that is not here only wastes processing time. If you want or need to change the profile go Edit > Assign profile and select to be alike or you can experiment with a profile that has (to you) a more agreeable to you color.

Next, we do printer settings as follows, File > Page Setup. This window selects page orientation as well paper. You can set the values here or in a later window. It does not matter. Next, select File > Print with Preview.

Setting Summary 

• Color management - Yes

• Color Handling - Let Photoshop Determine Color

• Printer Profile - SPR1800 Premium Glossy (This is the Epson Glossy paper ICM, values can be down loaded from the Epson R1800 ICM download center)

• Rendering Intent - Relative Colorimetric

• Check - Black Point Compensation

Click on Print and make sure the proper printer is selected. press Properties for the final settings,

• Select Paper Quality -- Paper selection should be the same as selected in the Printer Profile window example (SPR1800 Premium Glossy) or the paper intended by the user.
• Select Photo Quality -- Photo, Better Photo or RPM Photo (There appears to be little difference between Photo and Best Photo however, there is a quality difference and increased ink usage between Photo and Photo RPM}
• Select Paper Size
• Orientation - Landscape or Portrait
• Deselect High Speed Print (I have seen little quality change between High Speed and No high Speed. I print most of my Photo prints at High Speed but deselect High Speed when printing Photo RPM)
• Check print Preview
• Color management - Select ICM and check (Off) No Color Management. (This is important because selecting ICM is indicative that a profile has been selected. (in the Printer Profile box SPR1800 Premium Gloss paper profile was selected meaning that the print is being printed according an Epson or other paper manufacturer software driver containing the instructions for best print on the selected paper)

Press OK for a good print..The above is, in broad terms, the same for a number of Photoshop products as well as for the iMac OS.  systems. If a setting is not available, look for a "work-around" or ignore it and see what you get. As a final statement I would like to mention the need for a monitor Gamma calibration either obtained through manual input or the use of a reliable calibration device such as Spider3.

Another approach, W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G,

Another approach to get a nice print is with a calibrated screen profile created with a screen calibrating device such as Spider or the like. When the computer is started, the monitor color gamut is set to a color standard such as sRGB or Adobe 1998 or one that you created with a calibrating tool. The calibrated settings are saved in a ICM (Image Color matching) file and if selected, Photoshop uses this file as the base reference color setting. Therefore, the colors of the image on the monitor and further processing done with the same ICM settings should and can produce a print which is very close to what you see on the screen. Hers is how it is done.

For the sake of demonstration we call the ICM file created with our monitor calibrating device "SpiderMySetting.ICM". Start Photoshop or any other photo editor with color setting capabilities and load an image.

• Go to Edit > Color Settings and set the Working Spaces RGB to "SpiderMySetting.ICM" from a selection offered in the RGB drop-down box.

• Check the selected image for the current color profile and if the color space profile is different than the current monitor color space, change it to the current working RGB (SpiderMySetting.ICM) by clicking on he appropriate radio button. this changes the color space temporarily for this processing incident only. If you want to make the change permanent, make the color space change with the Convert to Profile available from the same drop-down menu.

• After final editing, go to File > Print with Preview.

• In the Print with Preview window, Document Profile should read "SpiderMySetting.ICM".

• The Options > Color Handling set to Let Photoshop Determine colors.

• Set Printer profile to "SpiderMySetting.ICM".

• Set Rendering to Relative Colorimetric.

• Press the print button revealing the Print window.

• Set the printer and click on Properties.

• Select Paper and size as well as orientation.

• Color management; Set to Color Controls.

• Set Gamma to your preference 1.8 or 2.2.

• Set Color Mode to Epson Standard.

• Check the "Gloss" button if the print requires it.

• Select or de-select High Speed at your option (de-selecting high speed supposed to produce a better print by printing in one direction only. My observation here is I see little difference between either setting.

• At your options you can save the settings in a file for future use.

• Hit the print button and evaluate the print (for orientation) in the Preview window.

The above printing method produces a print very close to the image on the monitor.

Black & White Printing

Black & White printing is, as expected, not mentioned in the R1800 manual.

The R1800 is an "eight-cartridge" printer delivering better color control and because of the presence of a flat-black ink cartridge, the B&W print is of better quality then print coming of the Epson 2200. As mentioned before, this machine also has a "Clear ink Cartridge". If you check the Gloss check box, a thin layer of  this clear ink is used to "top-coat" the print much like a clear coat on a automobile paint job thus providing for a uniform print finish.

In my Epson 2200 B&W print review, I documented one way to get a B&W print and there are probably many more however, personally I have never been able to get a "good" B&W print from the Epson 2200. The R1800 seems to do a better job. The following are the fruits of my experiments.

• If your monitor is device calibrated, Go to Edit > Color Settings and set the Working Spaces RGB to "SpiderMySetting.ICM" from a selection offered in the RGB drop-down box. If not, set it to sRGB IEC 61966-2.1. Set the Gray Scale value to sGray.

• Go to Image > Mode and set to Grayscale.

• Click on Edit > Assign Profile and check the current profile which should be sGray. If the color space profile is different than the above, change it to the current working sGray.

• After final editing, go to File > Print with Preview.

• In the Print with Preview window, color management > Document Profile should read "sGray".

• The Options > Color Handling set to Let Photoshop Determine colors.

• Set Printer profile to Paper ICC.

• Set Rendering to Relative Colorimetric and check Black Point Compensation.

• Press the print button revealing the Print window.

• Set the printer and click on Properties.

• Select Paper and size as well as orientation.

• Set Color management to ICM.

• Set Color Adjustment to OFF.

• Check the "Gloss" button if the print requires it.

• Select or de-select High Speed at your option (de-selecting high speed supposed to produce a better print by printing in one direction only. My observation here is, I see little difference between either setting.

• At your options you can save the settings in a file for future use.

• Hit the print button and evaluate the print (for orientation) in the Preview window.

The above printing method produces a well balanced B&W print.

Epson R1800 print example