Publisher: Printing Features Dialog for Epson R3000

[rmazzi]

I am a bit confused by the Printer Features section of the Print dialog box.  This may be specific to the Epson print driver for the R3000.  I want to properly color manage the print and use the ICC profile.  I noticed that the Media Type option is in three different places.  I would like to understand which options need to be selected for the media type.  I have set it in all three places and it seems to work fine, but I would like to know if this is necessary?  Thanks for any insight.

[rmazzi]

Maybe to simplify my question:  How do you do color management for printing on a home printer using ICC proviles?  What dialog boxes need to be set?  

[stokerg]

Hi rmazzi and Welcome to the Forums,

The advice this link when it comes to colour profiles for print should help:

https://affinityspotlight.com/article/designing-for-professional-printing/

Are you printing on Mac or Windows?  On Mac hook into the print service provided by the OS which should use the settings from your drivers.  I'm not sure if we do the same on Windows but can find that out.

[rmazzi]

Thank you.  The article does not cover much on home printer color management.    I did learn that I can soft proof, which I did not know prior to reading the link.  I am printing a small booklet on a home printer.My difficulty is that the printer dialog boxes in publisher are different that affinity photo.  The latter uses a dialog box that i am familiar with and is the same as in Lightroom.  In publisher the printer feature tab, show a long list of options that i cannot quite correlate to the dialog in AP.  Some of the options seem straight forward, and i assume other are not used if certain options are selected.  For example, if i select color management off then the epson color control options are irrelevant.  But i don't know if i should turn color management off (which is true in lightroom) or pick Colorsync (which is selected on a different drop down box as well).  I am used to the concept of turning off color management, use the paper ICC profile, and select a media type once.  I attached screen shots of the print feature drop down (five parts since it scrolls for a while).  As far as i know, it is not in any tutorial, blog, or in the help files.  Since there is no manual, i am at a loss on how to understand this better to have confidence in my output.  I have filled a waste can with my attempts so far, some have been successful, some a bust.  

Publisher is ideal for my needs since this is a hobby (a serious one, but a hobby nonetheless).  I just think the information on the output side of the software could be a little bit more clear.

Thank you in advance for any further assistance.

[rmazzi]

After additional research, assistance form other members (thank you Stokberg, R C-R and Walt.farrell), and more thinking, I have an approach to solve my problem that I would appreciate any Validation from the more experienced and knowledgeable members.

To restate the problem, I have a small booklet of prints that is laid out in Publisher.  I want to Print the booklet on an Epson R3000 using Inkpress Matte Double Sided Paper.  Inkpress provides an ICC profile for the printer/paper combo.  To print it, i need to enable the printer output to color manage based on the ICC profile and also select the correct media type for the paper.  My steps that need validation or clarification:

 

1. For this document, choose the Inkpress ICC profile in File/Document Setup/Color.  This is based on the blog article linked by Stokberg.
2. In File/Print select the paper size and feed - in this case Letter and Fine Art Front Feed (Retain Size)
3. In File/Print/Color Matching choose Colorsync and Inkpress ICC Profile
4. In File/Print/Printer Features select the following options (this is where it gets confusing)
   1. Page Setup:  Fine Art Front Feed (Retain Size)  This seems redundant to step 2
   2. Paper Size to Letter (redundant setting)
   3. Print Settings Selection ID: Basic  This setting seems irrelevant since all the options are provided in Printer Features
   4. Media Type:  Epson Ultra Premium Matte (Recommended by paper manufacturer)
   5. Ink:  Matte (this is fixed in the printer so an error message would probably result if it doesn't match what is active in the printer)
   6. Media Type:  Same as above again redundant?  but what if it is a mismatch
5. I assume at this point, most of the options are disabled since they are related to colors management if managed by the printer, which should be off at this point.  However there are a few areas of concern:
   1. Color Controls:  Should this be Colorsync or off or does it not matter
   2. Color Matching:  Should this be Colorsync or does it not matter
   3. Epson Profile:  This looks like another redundant media setting, but i cannot decipher this based on the Epson printer documentation
   4. Media Type:  Again, is this ignored or need to be set matching the other settings.

I hope someone can give me confidence in this approach and identify anything I have wrong or have overlooked.

[dasigna]

Hmmm ... still relevant or not?

IMHO - 'color manage the print' via printer (driver) settings isnt possible at all in any satisfying way. at least as long as you're within cymk.
the only way is to go over a  dedicated rip and profiled paper, assumed you want to achieve correct cmyk simulation.

any other attempt via standard printer driver settings is simply trial and error with no chance at all to get proper results ever.

this whole thing is some science of its own and not at all simple done :)

[walt.farrell]

34 minutes ago, dasigna said:

IMHO - 'color manage the print' via printer (driver) settings isnt possible at all in any satisfying way. at least as long as you're within cymk.
the only way is to go over a  dedicated rip and profiled paper, assumed you want to achieve correct cmyk simulation.

In my experience, for home printing, one will generally want to use RGB documents not CMYK, as most home printers I'm familiar with require RGB input not CMYK.

 

35 minutes ago, dasigna said:

any other attempt via standard printer driver settings is simply trial and error with no chance at all to get proper results ever.

Soft Proof adjustment layers are supposed to help with that.

[rmazzi]

5 hours ago, dasigna said:

Hmmm ... still relevant or not?

IMHO - 'color manage the print' via printer (driver) settings isnt possible at all in any satisfying way. at least as long as you're within cymk.
the only way is to go over a  dedicated rip and profiled paper, assumed you want to achieve correct cmyk simulation.

any other attempt via standard printer driver settings is simply trial and error with no chance at all to get proper results ever.

this whole thing is some science of its own and not at all simple done :)

This is still relevant to me.  I would image that many if not most users would be sending Publisher files to a printer.  I am trying to take advantage of the flexible layout features of publisher to customize some photographic layouts.  I have had good consistent results without a RIP from LR and PS.  I have also stumbled into good output with Affinity Publisher and Photo through more trial and error.  I haven't quite documented my flow enough.  I still think the Affinity PUblisher implementation of the print driver interface was done as an afterthought,  The implementation in Affinity Photo is essentially identical to Lightroom and straightforward.  I have posted in the feature request and elsewhere on this forum on this matter.  I haven't seen any response of any depth form anyone in Serif Tech Support.  I am going to tackle this again and will share what i think are the right settings so other that encounter this (if anyone cares) will have something to work with.