Mac OS X

When you press the Print button (i.e. top right hand corner of Print with Preview dialog) the "System" Print dialog as shown in Figure 7 should appear. It is important that you configure the printer driver in the sequence that I show otherwise there is a good chance that one of the settings will revert to the Epson default.

 

Figure 7 - "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 8) appears choose the type of Media (1) that will be used. Next select the Advanced (2) mode.

 

Figure 8 - 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. For Colour Management (figure 9 below) we have three options (radio buttons): Color Controls, ColorSync and OFF (No Color Adjustment).

 

Figure 9 - Epson Print Driver - Advanced Settings

 

The first two options 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. I believe that Color Controls is the best option for most  novice users. Remember that the Photoshop Print with Preview dialog should be configured as shown in figure 5 on the previous page.  With the latest drivers for printers such as the Stylus Photo R800, R1800 and 2400 you will see 3 modes. When not using ICC media profiles my personal preference and recommendation would be Color Controls with the Mode set to Epson Vivid. Lastly, unless you have good reason to choose differently I recommend leaving the Gamma setting at 1.8.

The third setting for colour management is referred to as Off (No Color Adjustment) (6a) and is ONLY appropriate when you're using ICC media type profiles. In other words you should only use this setting if you have chosen to configure Photoshop Print with Preview dialog as shown in figure 6 (previous page). 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 describe above.

In the following screenshot you can see that choosing Off (No Color Adjustment)  (6a) resulted in the Mode popup, Gamma and slider controls being removed from the print dialog; this is how it should be so don't panic when they disappear.

 

Figure 10 - Saving your settings as Presets

 

Once you have configured the driver for your preferred media, print quality and colour 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 10 you can see that I have preset settings for Epson Enhanced Matte and Semi Gloss media.