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If you have any questions that arise from these tutorials, or you want to catch up on the latest photoshop & printing tips from the author, visit his new website:
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Bair Art Edition's Tutorial on:
Epson Professional Printing Workflow
How to Use ICC Profiles to Print
You should have ICC profiles installed in your system before you can use them in Photoshop. If you us a Macintosh, Epson's profiles were (or should have been) automatically installed on your system. If you use a PC, you will have to copy them off manually.
If this is the case, insert the CD and search for ".icm" or ".icc" (as the extension) to find them on the disk. Once found, place them in the following folders (depending on your system):
| Mac OS 9.2.2 |
System Folder / ColorSync Profiles |
| Mac OS X |
Library / ColorSync / Profiles |
| Windows 98 & Me |
Windows / System / Color |
| Windows NT, 2000, & XP |
Winnt / System32 / Spool / Drivers / Color |
Sometimes, however, I've found that the "Windows 98" location above, works for XP and 2000 as well.
Once installed, the profiles won't show up in Photoshop until you close it down and restart it (there are ways to get around this, but we'll keep it simple).
Access the profile you want to use when you are in Photoshop's Print Preview Window. The window has a box in the lower-left hand corner labeled Show More Options. Click on that, and you'll get the following menu:
In the above graphic, you'll notice that the pull down menu that defaults to Output has been changed to Color Management. This is where you need to be.
Source Space should be set to Document
The Profile is the ICC profile you are going to be using. In this case I'm using a very nice one designed for the 9600/7600 printers when using Premium Luster Photo paper and Photo Black inks. You can download this and other profiles designed by Bill Atkinson from Epson Support.
A well-named ICC profile tells you the printer, inks, and paper it is designed for. Many Epson profiles will look like this: Pro 7600 Photo Semigloss_PK.
As far as Intent goes, you'll want Perceptual most of the time, especially if you print rich, vibrant colors. Perceptual takes in account the fact that CcMmYKk printing can't reach the color gamut expressed in an RGB colorspace.
If you print a vibrant image on Relative Colormetric, it will try to print exact colors, and when the printer gets to regions that aren't within the color gamut, posterization will occur. Perceptual compresses the color gamut in prints slightly so that all the color is within CcMmYKk color gamut.
This color compression is unfortunate, but it will happen anyway, simply due to the fact that your printer can't print all the colors you can see, or even all the colors your monitor can display. With Perceptual you are choosing even gradients in your image, instead of true color to an extent, only to hit a color gamut "wall" and begin poterizing.
If you have your settings right, go on to Epson Printer Driver Settings
The Other Sections of this Module:
All images ©2003 Bair Art Editions
Copying is Prohibited
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Also, feel free to link to this site, and use any information for personal and/or commercial use. However, any reproduction of the information in this tutorial, including electronic publication, is prohibited without proper notification and citation of this site. This includes crediting our site and a link to this page in a conspicuous position relative to the copied information.
- Stephen Bair, Printing Technician
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Phone: 801-484-1028 Fax: 801-467-2729
E-Mail: heath@masterlabdigital.com
Mail: BAE c/o MasterLab, 2992 South Main Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84115
© 2007 Bair Art Editions
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