[Stephen Starkman Participant Posts: 14]

Epson Printers

on: November 15, 2020 at 3:15 pm

Hi All,

Apologies if this info is already in the forum…..

Just purchased an Epson P900 and I’m lost as to how to setup a profile for Ilford Gold Fibre Silk (yes, I still have some). Of course, as the paper has been discontinued there is no ICC profile on the Ilford site for this printer.

Hoping Mark, Jeff, Jeremy or Kevin can chime in 🙂

Stephen

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Epson SC P900 – how to print Gold Fibre Silk?

Reply #1 on: November 15, 2020 at 3:32 pm

Hi Stephen,

When you say “set-up a profile”, I’m not clear on what you mean. Do you mean to select a Media Type and an Epson profile useful for this purpose, or just a Media Type so you can produce your own custom profile?

In either case, in the Epson driver’s profile options there is a generic one called “Baryta” which was put there to address this very situation, and there is a generic Baryta Media Type. So one option set would be to use this generic pair for printing with an Epson profile, or if you want to create your own profile, use “Baryta” as the Media Type off of which to key your custom profile. The other option set would be to use the Epson Legacy Baryta II Media Type and profile but for this one there are two caveats: (1) not clear how similar it is to the first generation Legacy Baryta which it replaces (I have it on hand to test, but haven’t gotten to it yet, as I’m prioritizing the completion of my SC-P900 review); if it’s similar enough that would be great because Legacy Baryta was very similar to Ilford GFS. (2) It’s not in the first round of profiles delivered with the P900 driver, unless Epson has updated the driver within the past few weeks. But you can obtain it using the Epson Media Installer software that comes with the P900.

Between the two option sets, I would recommend starting with the “Baryta” generic; I used it successfully for creating a good quality custom profile that I tested on Ilford GFS.

[Stephen Starkman Participant Posts: 14]

Re: Epson SC P900 – how to print Gold Fibre Silk?

Reply #2 on: November 15, 2020 at 4:06 pm

Hi Mark,

Thank you! I’ll test by using the generic pairs first.

I’ve been away from printing for quite some time now (until this weekend) so my terminology was off – apologies.

I *think* I understand how I can use Epson Media Installer to install an ICC profile from a download….

Do you know if there is a decent tutorial or sample wf published anywhere on the web? EMI and EPM are brand new to me (EPM seems simple enough….)

Stephen

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Epson SC P900 – how to print Gold Fibre Silk?

Reply #3 on: November 15, 2020 at 4:21 pm

Hi Stephen, Epson has not issued official instructions for the Media Installer yet. Nor, for that matter, is there yet a chapter in the User Guide for Printing from Mac OS. They are working on both.

I provided instructions in another thread for the Media installer for creating a new media from an existing one: viz, “You should enter the Media Installer profiles list, select the Epson Media that is closest to your Canson paper, create a copy of it with a new name, then go into the Edit function in the Media Installer, which allows you to make a number of adjustments to that copied profile, and at the bottom of that dialog box you should see a pane allowing you to fetch and associate any ICC profile of your choosing to that new media.” In your case rather than “Canson” it would be Ilford GFS. For the case of the new Baryta II, it’s easier still: you just need to find it through the list of Epson media in the Installer dialog and download it. It will do the rest.

Hope that works for you.

[Stephen Starkman Participant Posts: 14]

Re: Epson SC P900 – how to print Gold Fibre Silk?

Reply #4 on: November 17, 2020 at 12:19 am

Thank you Mark!

I printed Atkinson’s test file with both the Legacy and Legacy II profiles and really couldn’t see a difference in the output, but they both looked good.

Good to have you confirm that the EMI currently has no documentation – I couldn’t find any online!

I’m having two issues with the printer so far: upon feeding paper through the rear feeder there is a short squeak as the paper enters. I’m also getting ink splatter on test prints with Epson Velvet fine art paper, but none with other papers such as Ilford GFS. Hmmmm.

More investigation tomorrow.

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Epson SC P900 – how to print Gold Fibre Silk?

Reply #5 on: November 17, 2020 at 12:23 am

Hi Stephen, yes, the printer I’m testing here also produces a bit of a squeak as the paper gets taken-up from the top feed, so perhaps this is normal. As for the ink splatter, I haven’t tested it with VFA yet – I’ll drop a sheet into this printer tomorrow and see what happens.

[Stephen Starkman]

Re: Epson SC P900 – how to print Gold Fibre Silk?

Reply #6 on: November 17, 2020 at 10:55 pm

In regards to printing Velvet Fine Art, the issue was of my own making, not having selected the Media Type in EPL. Have now printed to lovely test images with both rear and front feed 🙂

I likely would not have missed this if I had just printed from PS instead of Epson Print Layout!

Stephen

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Stephen Starkman.

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Epson SC P900 – how to print Gold Fibre Silk?

Reply #7 on: November 17, 2020 at 11:35 pm

Glad you got it resolved.

[George Stark Participant Posts: 72]

Re: Epson SC P900 – how to print Gold Fibre Silk?

Reply #8 on: November 19, 2020 at 7:56 pm

Hope you guys don’t mind I add on to this thread but my issue relates to paper profiles other than Epson…

It was I that Mark helped in a previous thread to get a Canson Fiber Rag profile loaded into the media Installer successfully …. When I go thru paper types on the P900 menu I see that the profile is listed…. BUT….ha

For some strange reason I’m having a terrible time trying to print to the Canson Platine Fiber Rag from Lightroom…. Today I had a file I wanted to try on several paper types… I ran prints on Premium Luster, Velvet Fine Art, Hotpress Bright, and Canson Platine Fiber Rag…. The only one I have issues with is the Canson Platine Fiber Rag… I wasted a lot of that expensive paper (for me) today… they just seem to come out as if they are printing with the wrong profile?…  Usually I run test prints on Premium Luster for cost saving before using the CFR. I have found that when the print looks good on Premium Luster I don’t have to make very much of  change to print on CFR but this not the case right now…

Canson recommends the Premium Luster media setting  which I use…. and I have the latest P900 ICC profile for said paper in Lightroom…. I notice that when Lightroom sends the printing data to the printer it recognizes the paper as Premium Luster … Not the Canson Profile ? … though I’m not sure thats the issue….  Not sure why the printer won’t select the Canson Profile as it does all others…. Any thoughts as to what my issue might be?…

cheers

George

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Epson SC P900 – how to print Gold Fibre Silk?

Reply #9 on: November 19, 2020 at 8:45 pm

When printing from Lightroom, start with “Print Settings” bottom left button beside “Page Setup”. That opens the Epson driver. Migrate to Printer Settings in that panel, and for Media Type select the correct Media type for the paper you are using. If the Canson profile is keyed to Premium Luster Photo Paper, use that as the Media Type. Click Save, exit that dialog and go to the bottom right of the Lightroom Print interface, where you can choose your profile. Select your Canson profile from those listed in the profile selection pane. If it does not show, you need to Click “Other” at the bottom of the list. It opens the profiles list on your hard drive. Place a check mark beside the Canson profile. It will then load into Lightroom and be the selected profile for this print. Then at the very bottom right in Lightroom Print interface, click the “Printer” button. This again pulls up the Epson driver. Migrate to printer settings and make sure the correct Media Type is still selected. If so, click Print and Lightroom will instruct the Color Management System to process the data using the correct profiles.

If you have not printed with the Canson Platine Fibre Rag profile before, it could be that you are doing all the above correctly as stated, but the profile is not great – I don’t whether it is or not because I haven’t tested it – just saying it’s possible.  To run a check on that possibility, use the Epson profile for Epson Legacy Platine and see whether the results improve.

[George Stark Participant Posts: 72]

Re: Epson SC P900 – how to print Gold Fibre Silk?

Reply #10 on: November 20, 2020 at 12:11 am

I was doing all the above correctly… and I have printed with Canson Platine fibre Rag profile previously on a 3880 with good results…

I did run a print using the Legacy Platine and it was better than the mess I ran into earlier…but I’ll have to work on making adjustments for the profile..I ran one more print with Canson’s profile and it was quite close to the Legacy profile… so obviously  something else must have gone haywire earlier….I have to make some better adjustments within my work flow it seems. I did check to make sure I printed on the right side of the paper….

Thanks as always for your input…. I would like to clarify one thing if I could….. When I print from lightroom am I correct in assuming that as long as I use the correct ICC profile under the color management tab (lower right side of Print module) that it does not really matter if the P900 has the profile in its system or not?…

I noticed that in the Epson media settings that you can choose a Legacy Platine paper… but since Canson recommended the Premium Luster  media setting I did not try that.

I have now run out of Canson Platine Fiber Rag and no one seems to have it in stock… so  I’ll have to wait…

 

Thanks and Cheers

 

George

[Mark D Segal Silver Member Posts: 951]

Re: Epson SC P900 – how to print Gold Fibre Silk?

Reply #11 on: November 20, 2020 at 8:58 am

Hi George – I figured you probably were doing all the steps correctly, but I wanted to lay it out anyhow because sometimes the obvious befuddles us and it’s good to make sure we’re all on the same understanding re the procedures that produced the poor results. It very often boils down to profiles. Premium Luster Photo Paper is full of OBAs and has a feint cold cast, so I normally avoid it completely. But, if the profile provider has keyed their profile to that product, then it should be used because the profile will not perform as calculated if it is keyed on one media type in its making and another in its use. Even so, it can still be a poor profile. The question you raise about whether it matters that between the printer and the application there are different media types for the same profile is a good one. I frankly don’t know the answer to it, but I shall try to find out and revert here with an answer if I get one.

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