Epson Printing too dark
 

Epson R800 that had previously printed perfectly has now started to print at least 3 to 4 stops darker than the monitor display.
Monitor calibrated with Spyder2Express.
Workspace is Adobe RGB. Paper has always been Epson Premium gloss or semigloss and Epson ink.
Print settings ICM, No colour adjustment.
Anybody any ideas why?

Pete

Hi Pete, I have the same set up except mine's the Spyder2 Suite which comes with PrintFix Pro, a software based Printer Calibrator. I use an LCD Screen and print to an Epson R1800 with Epson Inks and I have never had this problem. Could someone have altered your monitor settings after calibration, because depending on what they had done that could cause it I think. On the same lines have you checked your printer setting. I know the PrintFix creates a printer profile based upon the Monitor settings. I know I'm on Apple Mac but I understand that Spyder2 is the same for both PC and Mac. By the way try this link it might help: <http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/match_prints_to_screen.html>

Pete,

Can't help on your specific problem, but would advise against using Adobe RGB for output, a domestic inkjet can't cope with that gamut.

While I agree that the domestic inkjet printer can not render the full Adobe RGB gamut, I believe the using Adobe RGB as a workspace gamut is a good thing because more of the colour information is preserved while the image is being post processed. When the time come to print the image, the software will convert the workspace gamut to the printer gamut via a rendering intent - ususally 'relative colourmetric' although there are other options.

After all you've bought a upteen million pixel DSLR, high quality optics, you're shooting in RAW for maximum information capture (aren't you ;) ) so why would you want to through away colour information at an early stage in the post processing :confused:

For more on this see here <<<link>>>