How to Print – Basic Instructions for Epson

Basic Instructions for Printing Workflow

ICC output profiles characterize the colour gamut (range) for the combination of printer, ink and paper. By using colour management you can enable the optimum gamut transition from the monitor view (for example AdobeRGB), to the gamut your printer is able to print.

For: Epson | Canon Pixma | Canon iPF Printers

Please note: the output of the image will only be as good as the image itself.

Colour Settings:

First, we will set up your Creative Suite colour settings. In order to do this you will need to open Photoshop. Go to Edit>Colour Settings. The above window will open. Make all of the necessary changes to match up to the example.

Once this is complete you will have the ability to open images to be printed in the appropriate colour space and view them closely to what the initial output will be when it is printed.

Now that the colour settings have been changed you can open up the file in Photoshop. You may get a window asking if you would like to keep your colour space the same as the file OR if you would like to convert it to Adobe RGB (1998). Click the radio button to convert it to Adobe RGB (1998) and open the file. If you do not get this window when you open the file that means it is already in the correct working colour space to move on to the next step.

The following pages will give a step-by-step tutorial on printing with an Epson large format machine. In the example it is a driver for an Epson 9890 however the drivers for the most common Epson Printers have all of the same options.

Print Settings:

Once the file is opened and ready to print go to File>Print. The Photoshop print dialog window will open. This is where you will select the appropriate printer, in this case the Epson 9890.

Working your way from the top of the dialog box to the bottom is the easiest way to set up a file, so the next thing we will work with is the Print Settings.

Your Print Settings dialog box will open. These are the settings that are specific to the chosen printer. The main areas to be concerned with are the Media Type, Quality and Paper Configuration, Mode(this is the colour management area for the printer itself) and then of course the size of the image/paper.

For this example we will set the image up to print on William Turner.

Again, we will work from top to bottom in this area.

When you download the ICC profiles from our website a PDF file called Handling instructions also comes with it. This tells you the proper media setting and quality settings for a particular paper. In the case of William Turner it is “Velvet Fine Art” on the Epson.

Next is the Quality section. By Default the quality is set to 1440. Within this dropdown you can change it to
2880 which some of our gloss papers call for (referenced in the Handling Instructions). You can also turn off the High Speed printing and turn on Finest Detail.

For basic printing you can leave the defaults as they are. As you become more experienced with how certain image types will react in different ways on a given media with your printer you can try different settings.

You can now move on to the Paper Configuration area. For Epson printers, because you can’t easily make
custom media types, we have to use the media type selections that are given to us within the driver. The
Paper Configuration area is where you can make adjustments to make the papers run better. For our example of William Turner the Paper Thickness is already set to 5 and the platen is Auto (Wide is the default for this media type).

For our gloss papers and a few of our matte papers, some options in this area will need to be adjusted for the best outcome. On gloss papers you should change the thickness to “5” because the default will be at “3” and the Platen should be changed from Default to “Wide”. These simple changes will help eliminate a lot of
possible issues with head strikes and banding.

The last thing you need to do is choose the size of the paper/print you will be making along with the paper
source. For any printer that has a Manual, single sheet feed you will choose this option. These are both done in the “Paper Settings” section of the Print Settings dialog box.

When you are finished hit OK to go back to the Photoshop print dialog box.

After you have applied the previous steps, you have to turn off the Colour Management in the printer itself. This is very important so the image is not double profiled, which gives very unexpected and bad results.

On a Mac this will turn off automatically if you are using Photoshop OR Lightroom. On a PC you have to turn this off manually. To do this Click the “Custom” radio button and then in the dropdown below that go to “Off (No Colour Adjustment).

Last, pick the size of the print you will be making along with the paper size. These are both done in the “Paper Settings” section of the Print Settings dialog box.

When you are finished with this hit OK to go back to the Photoshop print dialog box.

Photoshop Colour Management:

Now that all of the printer specific settings are complete we need to tell Photoshop exactly how to handle this
file and what information it should send to the printer.

First, change the Colour Handling to “Photoshop Handles Colours” in the dropdown menu. There will be a message asking to make sure you’ve turned it off in the print dialog box. This will appear even if you have it turned off as a precaution, do not worry.

The next dropdown is where you finally choose your printer profile. The Hahnemühle profiles are all named by
Range (HFA, HAR, HFAPhoto), then the printer model, the black ink to use (Photo or Matte), and then finally
the name of the paper.

Here I’ve chosen the William Turner profile, which uses Matte Black ink, on the Epson 9890. William Turner is in the HFA Range.

After choosing your profile you will need to pick the “Rendering Intent”. There are four available but with our
profiles you will only be working with two of them.

You can choose either Perceptual OR Relative Colormetric. With Relative Colormetric you can either have Black Point Compensation on or off. This adjusts how some of the darker areas in the image will print. In
Perceptual, Black Point Compensation does absolutely nothing.

There is no “set-in-stone” way for anyone to tell you which rendering intent to use. It changes from image to
image based on the colours and relations of those colours. The only way to know is to test OR to soft proof with a calibrated monitor.

Before you print you can also check to see if any part of the image is outside of the Colour Gamut of the printer/
Profile directly from the Photoshop print dialog screen.
Once you have all settings made, select “Match Print Colours” below the thumbnail and then select “Gamut
Warning.” If any part of the image is outside of the colour range it will become highlighted in the thumbnail as
in the example above.

Once you have chosen your rendering intent you are now ready to hit “Print”.

The preceding document was designed to give someone the basic knowledge to open a file and print it properly
with good quality. There are many more adjustments that can be made to make the image look even better
and there are more ways to do more accurate soft proofing. It is recommended that a colour calibrated
monitor be used during these processes.

All ICC profiles and media handling instructions can be downloaded from: http://www.hahnemuehle.ca/icc-profile/