The initial few paragraphs of this page are common to all three
Print Workflows described earlier. When you press the Print
button (i.e. bottom right hand corner of Photoshop Print dialog)
the "System" Print dialog as shown in Figure 5 should
appear. The System Print dialog might appear quite complicated in so
far as it includes menu options for many print setting that are better
set within Photoshop itself or the actual Print driver, and are
therefore best avoided. In particular, you should not need to access
options such as: Layout, Scheduler, Paper Handling, ColorSync, and
Cover Page. I really can't emphasise enough how important it is
that you configure the printer driver in the sequence that I
describe otherwise there is a good chance that one of the settings will
revert to the Epson default.
Figure 5 - "System" Print
dialog
Press the popup labelled Copies and Pages (shown in the
screenshot with a red asterisk). Choose Print Settings from the
list of options. When the Printer Settings panel (figure 6)
appears choose the type of Media (1)
that will be used. Next select the Advanced (2)
mode.
Figure 6 - Epson Printer
Dialog - Main Window
Choose Best Photo or Photo RPM for the highest
Print Quality (3) option
compatible with the printer/media combination that you require. Also,
for best quality High Speed (4)
should be disabled.
Return to the popup now labelled Print Settings (5)
and choose Color Management. The remainder of this page is
separated into two parts, the first deals with Print Workflow 1
and the second Print Workflow 2 and 3.
Print Workflow 1 (Contd. form page 1)
For Color Management (figure 7 below) we have three options
(radio buttons): Color Controls, ColorSync and OFF (No Color
Adjustment).
Figure 7 - Epson Print Driver:
Print Workflow 1
The first two options, and for this workflow we're only interested
in these two, are designed to automate the process of printer colour
management, and you have the choice of Color Controls or
ColorSync (6). I suggest that
you avoid choosing ColorSync as it has been known to produce
very unsatisfactory results with some printer models. Actually, I
believe that Color Controls is the best option for
novice users. Also, remember that when this setting is selected the
Photoshop Print dialog should be configured as shown in
Print Workflow 1.
With the latest Epson drivers for printers such as the Stylus Photo
R800, R1800, R2400 and Pro3800 you will see at least 3 modes. I don't
recommend the use of the Advanced Settings adjustment sliders
and suggest that Mode set to either Epson Standard or
Vivid. Lastly, unless you have good reason to choose differently I
also recommend leaving the Gamma setting at 1.8.
Print Workflow 2 and 3 (Contd.)
The third setting for color management is referred to as Off (No
Color Adjustment) (6a) and is
ONLY appropriate when you're using ICC media profiles in
Photoshop or printing the targets required for creating ICC media type
profiles. In other words you should only use this setting if you have
chosen to configure Photoshop Print dialog as shown in
Print Workflow 2 or
Print Workflow 3.
This setting is by far the best setting for advanced Photoshop users.
It's also worth mentioning that if you find your final prints are light
and magenta in appearance then there's a very good chance that you
chose one of the other two settings in error or that the sequence in
which you configured the print driver was not exactly as I described
above.
In the following screenshot you can see that choosing Off (No
Color Adjustment) (6a)
resulted in the Mode pop-up, Gamma and adjustment sliders
disappearing from the dialog; this is how it should be, so don't panic.
Figure 8 - Epson Print Driver:
Print Workflow 2 and 3
Once you have configured the driver for your preferred media, print
quality and color management settings it's a good idea to save them for
future use. This is achieved by opening the Presets (7)
popup and choosing "Save As" - do be sure to choose a meaningful
name. Next time you need to make a print you can simply choose this
media type from your list of Presets. In the example shown in figure 9
you can see that I have preset settings for Epson Enhanced Matte and
Semi Gloss media.
Figure 9 - Saving your settings as Presets
The next page deals with the Epson driver written for
Leopard.
Mac OSX 10.5 on Page 3
Page 2 of 4
