getting ICC paper profile

den_s

I am having trouble printing images on an older Epson R200 printer. I'm using Lightroom 2 and am unable to pull the ICC paper profile to use for color mgt. I've not had trouble printing with this printer before, but this is a new computer and software. In the past I've known my prints would come out a bit dark so I'd lighten them prior to printing. I'm trying to get a better system than the by guess and by golly..... I'd love to buy a new printer but it's out of the question for now. I've read, and it makes good sense, that I'll get better prints if I allow Lightroom (or Photoshop CS4-I am using both) control the print color. I downloaded the profile for the premium glossy paper, but it's for the Epson 2200. I can't get the profile to show in the print module in lightroom, and I'm not sure it would work if I could. Any ideas?

den_s

I may be barking up the wrong tree. I'd seen a video tutorial which showed using the ICC paper profile and turning off the printer color mgt., allowing Lightroom to handle the color mgt, which makes sense. However, I don't have the print settings button shown on the video, nor can I bring up the paper profile from the print job section. I've got plenty of other profiles available, but not the one I thought I needed. I have not experimented with this aspect of the process (obviously) and wouldn't have except my prints are coming out very dark. I've used the printing resources SmugMug makes available, and they were excellent, but I need some prints quicker than I can get from them. Anyone have some tips on getting prints that look like my screen is showing? I'm using a Dell 2209WA monitor and Spyder3 calibration software so I'm pretty sure that's not the problem. Could it have anything to do with using the 64 bit version of LR? Any thoughts?

pathfinder

To start - What is your operating system? Windows or Mac?

You will really need the proper profile for your specific printer and paper. You can usually get this from Epson for and Epson printer and Epson paper.

I do not find specific profiles for the R200 on Epson's site. That is not unusual, as they do not provide profiles for their consumer printers.

Here is the manual for your printer - http://files.support.epson.com/pdf/r200__/r200__pb.pdf

I can not find anything in the manual about ICC profiles...

den_s

I'm running windows vista. I searched the Epson site for the printer profile but couldn't find anything. This model is not made any longer. I've used a lot of paper and ink trying to make this work and my prints come out too dark to see any detail. I've even adjusted the exposure on the image to no avail. The frustrating thing is I've used this printer in the past and had good results.

pathfinder

You can have custom profiles made for you by a variety of sources. As this is a consumer printer, I doubt there are OEM profiles available.

Andrew Rodney who drops in here from time to time is a reliable source for icc profiles as well -- http://digitaldog.net/services.html

http://www.cathysprofiles.com/ Is another reliable profile source.

The Color Munki offers a means of making your own profiles as well but will cost more than a couple custom profiles cost.