Mike Chaney's Tech Corner

For the past several days I've been making prints which were an excellent match to the appearance of images on the calibrated monitor. Suddenly, this afternoon, prints from these same images are **very** dark, muddy, with colors slewed way over to the "warm" side. It looks a lot like double profiling, but I don't see how this is occurring. The newly awful prints occur in QU, but not in PSCC - so it's something which has changed in Q.

Ink levels are good. Nozzles are clear. Print heads are aligned. Printer properties are the same as they were when prints were excellent.

The printer profile is a professionally made one, which was excellent until this afternoon. The monitor is calibrated.

I tried to delete all thumbs and cache using the QU utilities, but after I close and then reopen QU, the thumbnail images still appear without reloading.

Next step - uninstall QU and try reinstalling?

Any other suggestions?

Bill Hansen

Sorry you are having a color problem.
From what you tell us, you have a marked and wild change in color only when you are p0rinting from Qimage .
Nozzles check out clean.
Prints fine in PS
The answer is clear. You have messed up your settings, most likely in the driver when using Qimage... Remember, Bill, Qimage remembers the previous driver setting.
So a miss step in there, and it will stay messed up.

So let's do this the easy way.
See the screen snaps attached here.
Click the HELP menu in Qimage, and click RESET PRINTER
Next, make sure your JOB Properties area looks like my screen snap.
Last, make sure the driver settings are like mine shown in last screen snap... i.e proper paper, and No color Correction..

That will fix it.

Fred

Did you install a new printer driver? A recall from the logs may not work properly with the new driver. Switching the driver setting in QU to another printer and back could solve that. I have some issues with old log files too that I migrated from Vista to W7 which had a newer HP Z3200 driver installed. There are also profile issues, the same profile is there but is not found and I have to force its acceptance through some loops outside QU.

Check also whether the printer default settings pop up after you made new settings, it could cause double profiling. Make your default settings in the driver more similar to your usual printer settings and save them as shortcuts. That can be be done in Windows printers devices etc configure menu.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
December 2014 update, 700+ inkjet media white spectral plots

Ernst - I have not installed a new printer driver, or a new printer profile. I'm uncertain what is meant by  "Check also whether the printer default settings pop up after you made new settings,". This does seem like it's double profiling, but printer default settings do not appear. The printer settings which appear are the ones I choose, both in the printer driver and in QU.

Fred - I had already tried to reset the printer using the Help/Reset utility, as I mentioned in my initial note, though I didn't express myself very well then. I tried that again this morning. I also went through all the printer settings again, to be sure that paper type is correct, and that other settings are unchanged from the time when I was getting good prints - "max dpi, high speed, ICM OFF" Unfortunately, once again this morning, none of that helped. A test print is still incredibly dark and muddy, shifted far to the warm tones.

I also notice that the printer's "status monitor" indicates that the printer is using up ink much faster than this printer usually does. The printer is laying down excessive amounts of ink. Could it be that my printer itself has suddenly gone way out of spec?

I'll wait for your further thoughts. It's beginning to look like I need to uninstall/reinstall. The installation file I have saved is "qu15-109" but I'm currently using QU 2015.120. I'm assuming that  I can install from the 109 version and upgrade to the 120 version.

Hi Bill.
What Ernst was trying to explain to you was that sometimes when installing a new driver, it assumes the name of COPY 1. You previously saved setups will not recognize the new name for the printer. Sometimes, these old previously saved printer setups  contain profiles that are bad or belong to an earlier setup.

Frankly, uninstalling Qimage and Reinstalling for reasons of color aberrations is futile.
Nothing has been altered with regard to printing.
If you wish to try anyway, nothing to lose except some time.

There was a discussion recently where an image could have an embedded profile which was corrupt, and PS will ignore it, and Qimage might use it.
Do your images contain any embedded profiles in the images?
When hovering over a thumbnail, look at the HotBar at the bottom  and see if the .icc has asterisks before and after the profile.

Can't think of any more at the moment.

Fred

PROBLEM SOLVED - but we'll never know exactly what the problem was. I wasted a huge amount of ink and paper trying different things, and after everything else failed, I did a System Restore, to a time previous to the appearance of the awful printing problem. Everything's back to normal now, and I'm happy but still slightly anxious about how it all went wrong.


Bill

Bill,
So now if you recheck the driver settings, can you see any differences; the profile used; the driver version; paper selection... was there any software, new or upgrade that you added between the date of this restore and today?

Fred

Printer driver settings have been the same, before the bad prints, during the bad prints, and now. No new software was installed during this time. The only change I see is one "critical update" from Microsoft.A single print I made before reinstalling the update was a good print.  I reinstalled that update, and prints are now unacceptable in the same way they were. I guess it's the MS update which causes this. I don't think it's safe to go without the critical update, since the computer is online via a router all the time.

I'm stuck. I think I'm sunk, as far as printing goes.

Please supply the identity of the update in question.
Good detective work, Bill

The only update at about that time was "optional" number 3035583.
It looks fairly innocuous! See: -
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3035583?wa=wsignin1.0 (https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3035583?wa=wsignin1.0)

Terry

Doubtful. I just got that one this morning, an hour ago
Fred

My update history shows it was installed on the 2nd April. It was an optional one so not automatically installed unless you look for it.
Terry

Mine says recommended, not optional. I don't install optional updates. But I believe that Bill's problems were prior to April 2, looks like April 1, according to Bill's post.

If one of the updates is the culprit, he can uninstall it, and then mark it as HIDDEN.  I've done that in the past. Hidden tells widows not to pester you with this again.
Fred

Well, as I often do, I spoke too soon. I got two additional good prints after I sent my last post, and then nothing but garbage, no matter what adjustments I made - really awful garbage.

After loading some images, profiles, and a copy of Lightroom onto it, I was able to make a few prints on my inexpensive little all-in-one printer, and those prints are very good, considering that it's only a 4 ink printer. My problem was the printer all along! Too bad - it had been doing an excellent job, for a while. It's only 3 months old, and it's probably a brick.

I have to decide whether to risk the time or  money for shipping the Epson 1430 to a service center. The nearest one to me is a four hour drive away, and they won't accept the printer if it's shipped. Labor and parts will probably come to a cost of $200 or more, and then there's the cost of gasoline for two 4 hour drives to and from the service center - total of 16 hours of driving. Ugh! Of course there's no guarantee that they could repair it.

BTW - regarding Windows updates. I always omit the optional ones, only installing the "critical" or "recommended" ones. But I now realize that the update wasn't the problem at all.

Bill,
I don't understand the logic here - why use Lightroom and have you really got profiles for the all-in-one printer? You could print from QU to that printer and set QU with "let driver manage colour".
Surely the printer is still under warranty, send or take it back to the supplier. I assume you have consumer rights in these matters in your part of the world.
Terry

I much prefer to print from QU, for many reasons.

However, for me, editing images in LR or PS is much easier than editing in Q or QU. Since I didn't have a custom printer profile for the all-in-one, I wanted to edit the images a little. That's why I loaded Lightroom.    As it turned out, the printer drivers supplied by Epson for the all-in-one are pretty good. Editing the images made the resulting prints a little better. 

But you're right - just for testing purposes, I could have used the drivers for the all-in-one and printed with QU.

The last time I phoned Epson about the original 1430, I was told that they do not offer support beyond the 30 day return period. If that information was incorrect, somebody please tell me, (and tell me the correct person to contact at Epson) because I surely would return the 1430.

As for consumer rights - this is America, where corporations, in addition to being "people", have all the power.

Bill,

This link should help you (it should be in your printer documentation):

https://files.support.epson.com/pdf/art1430/art1430no.pdf#page=4

Good luck!

Glenn

Thanks, Glen. That was very helpful for everyone who has an Epson.

Bill.
The above statement disturbs us.
As Glen points out, Epson is a long standing honorable company.
What did you leave out?   What about, "The Original 1430"?
Is this a replacement unit that you already exchanged months ago?

I would like to cite an similar possibility...  I have a hot water heater in my garage with a 10 year warrantee.
It leaked after 7 years. The company replaced it, but I do not get a fresh new 10 years to work from.
I get the remainder of the original warrantee.

Any chance that's where you are with the printer?>
Best to you.
Fred

Tried to reply to Terrys questions yesterday but apparently the reply didn't go through. Trying again -

I much prefer to print from QU, for many reasons. But it's much easier for me to edit from LR or PS than it is from QU. This time, not having a custom printer profile (though actually the printer profile for the all-in-one is pretty good) I wanted to edit the images a little - so I loaded LR. 

As for whether I can return the printer, ~3 months after purchase, I was told by an Epson support person that they do not offer any support beyond the 30 day return period. I'm certainly going to phone them again, hoping to get a different answer.

Terry, Fred, and others - A fourth phone call to Epson support brought a different sort of reply. After running me through all the obligatory things to try (which I had already tried, of course) he agreed to send a replacement unit, a refurb. It arrived on April 9, and it worked perfectly "right out of the box". Even the printer profile supplied with the Epson driver is quite good. A few adjustments brought it up to an "essentially perfect" match between print and calibrated monitor. So - it's early days, but this third copy of the Epson 1430 looks like the charm.

Many thanks for all of your attempts to help, and especially to Terry, who nudged me into making the third and fourth phone calls to Epson support.

Bill Hansen