Re: Profiling an Epson R2880

[Graeme Gill <graeme2 argyllcms com>]

Pedro Côrte-Real wrote:
> I've been trying to get decent color out of my Epson R2880 when
> printing with a specific paper. I'm using Gutenprint and the developer
> has told me the only real solution is to profile the printer. I was
> looking at this:
>
> http://blogs.gnome.org/hughsie/2009/12/16/advances-of-freedom/
>
> and wondering how close we are from being able to use one of these
> targets to profile a normal scanner and then print out the same target
> with the printer and profile the printer.

People have attempted to profile printers in this way, but generally
the results are a little disappointing. If the printer is way out,
it can be an improvement, but often the neutral balance is
sufficiently "off" that it's not entirely satisfactory.

This is primarily because most affordable scanners "see" color
quite differently to how we do, so the product of
the scanner response, the reference chart and the
printer output doesn't work so well together.

If you're keen on trying this out, you can start looking here:
<http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/Scenarios.html#PP4>

Anyone serious about color should probably buy a color
instrument, and the best value for print and other general profiling
currently is probably the X-Rite ColorMunki.

Graeme Gill.