Darks suddenly come out lighter in prints

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davidh
Posts: 836
Joined: June 9th, 2009, 2:16 am

Darks suddenly come out lighter in prints

Post by davidh »

All of a sudden middle and dark colors come much lighter and/or brighter in prints then they are on the monitor. This is very strange, because previously I even have to lighten them by applying the Printer curves. Now the darks print lighter without any Printer curves. In fact I will have to use the Printer Curves to darken them. The lighter tones do not seem to change. The same image printed before and now differs in middle and dark colors considerably.

I have not change any settings anywhere in Windows 7 64, PWP 7.0.17, printer (Epson Stylus Photo R2880), nor LCD display. I have not installed anything. It is an unpleasant complication because now the colors in prints are way off from what is on the monitor.

Has anybody an idea of what might be behind this mystery? It looks like a color management problem, but as I have mentioned, there were no changes in any settings Thanks.

David
Dieter Mayr
Posts: 453
Joined: April 24th, 2009, 11:47 am
What is the make/model of your primary camera?: Nikon D700
Location: Salzburg / Austria

Re: Darks suddenly come out lighter in prints

Post by Dieter Mayr »

David,

Did you change paper or ink ?
If you have changed inks, are you sure you put them in corretly (no, nothing to laugh, been there, done that ...)
Do you use the correct profile ?
If you do not change nothing, the results should be the same, so I guess we need to find out what you did change
Dieter Mayr
davidh
Posts: 836
Joined: June 9th, 2009, 2:16 am

Re: Darks suddenly come out lighter in prints

Post by davidh »

Dieter,

thank you for your idea about ink replacement. You have just suported my growing suspicion about the printer. What if the printer might not add enough black ink to darken other tones even though it is able to print black as black and even though the nozzle check shows no clogging.
So I replaced the black and light gray inks which were already low, but without any warning yet, and it helped.
No mystery, just another useful piece of experience.

David
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