Printing from Affinity Photo to an Epson ET-7700 Printer

[Andrew_L]

I have an Epson ET-7700 ecotank printer on which I would like to print astro-photographs  using Affinity Photo.  

So far results have been disappointing.  The photos look dull and somewhat lack lustre and, although I appreciate they will not look as good as on screen, I feel they could be better. 

These photos are not for exhibition. They are just for pasting into my notebook or sticking up on the wall occasionally. This is not a question about how or where to get photos printed professionally. 

Does anyone have any advice?

Some background info: 

All images are opened in Affinity Photo as tif 16 bit unsigned integer.

I usually do a bit of resizing, changing DPI to 300 etc in Affinity and save as afphoto format.

I am printing onto Epson Premium Glossy PhotoPaper which I can select within the printing menu.

I have the drivers for this printer installed. They are updated. I use the printer for everyday printing, no problem. 

I have watched lots of YouTube videos on how to print in Affinity Photo including about ICC paper profiles, Soft Proofing blar blar blar but absolutely none of them have been any help whatsoever.  

Does anyone know:

# Whether one should select ColorSync or Epson Color Control in the Color Matching menu?  I’ve tried both without much effect. 

# Within the Color Sync menu there doesn’t seem to be a profile for the Epson Glossy Paper. Should there be?

# If adding a soft proofing layer should one be able to select Epson glossy paper. The profile simply isn’t there in my case.

I can boost the exposure a bit which helps. But I feel there should be a more systematic approach.

Any thoughts/advice appreciated. 

[RichardMH]

Obvious question is whether your monitor is calibrated.

[Andrew_L]

Hello Richard. I should have said.  My screen is not calibrated.   It is a 13.3-inch MacBook Pro (mid-2014). Built-in Retina display. The display profile is “Colour LCD”.  The space is listed as RGB.  I think this is the standard Apple display profile. Whatever that is. I have no idea how that relates to Adobe or sRGB or anything. It cannot changed in preferences.

I realise of course that for best results screens should be calibrated and prints. But at this stage I’m hoping to just make an iterative step closer to better print performance. I might get into calibrating at a later point. 

[RichardMH]

My experience is that without a calibrated monitor printing is incredibly frustrating. Basically test prints and tweaking settings. Plenty of test prints available e.g.

https://www.lapseoftheshutter.com/printer-test-image/

 

[RichardMH]

PS One thing I did was to print a test print at a department store and compare that to my printer. Their printers aren't perfect but it gives an idea of where the problem is.

[Andrew_L]

OK. I’ll have a go with those test images. Thanks. Nice explanation on that site I notice.

So do you think I’m barking up the wrong tree with trying to soft proof or trying to find my paper’s icc profile*?  

* With regard to Epson and paper profiles I read somewhere that they don’t provide profiles as such but that they’re included in the printer driver in some form. It’s not obvious that the profiles are in the Library/Printers folder on my hard drive. There are four files in there but they’re not icc files nor are they named anything simple like Epson Premium Glossy photopaper. 

[RichardMH]

To see where you are, get something printed commercially where they'll have the right profiles. 4X6 doesn't cost much. Then you'll have an idea wher ethe problem is. 

[Andrew_L]

@RichardMH OK.  I’ll look into that. In the mean time I’ve been trying a few things including something that I find improves the print.  Following this video I have assigned the document the ICC profile sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (Linear).  This makes the image look blown out on the screen. 

I now open Color Matching in the Print dialogue. Unfortunately, when I choose Color Sync, to allow my MacBook to control the colour, I find that there is no profile for Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper. I find that a bit odd since I can choose this paper in the Media Type drop down in the Print Settings menu. So instead I just chose Color LCD, which is the default profile of my screen.  Is that the correct thing to do? 

Nevertheless, doing all that improves the print considerably. Incidentally it makes no difference visually to the print whether I choose Color Sync or Epson Color Controls.

I have no idea whether I’m doing the right things, but at least I’m heading in the right direction.   
 

[Dan C]

Hi @Andrew_L,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

17 hours ago, Andrew_L said:

# Whether one should select ColorSync or Epson Color Control in the Color Matching menu?  I’ve tried both without much effect. 

ColorSync uses the macOS colour matching to print your document, Epson Colour Control uses your printer driver - neither is an 'incorrect' option, but I'd recommend using your printer driver at every stage possible.

17 hours ago, Andrew_L said:

# Within the Color Sync menu there doesn’t seem to be a profile for the Epson Glossy Paper. Should there be?

These will need to be downloaded and installed into your Colour Profiles folder, before they can be selected within Affinity.

17 hours ago, Andrew_L said:

# If adding a soft proofing layer should one be able to select Epson glossy paper. The profile simply isn’t there in my case.

As above, these need to be installed before they can be used, using File > Import ICC Profile to import your ICC profile into the app.

Please also ensure you disable the Soft Proofing layer before printing.

I hope this helps!

[Andrew_L]

Thank you, @Dan C.  Your post triggered me to go and look for the Epson paper profiles because it’s not altogether obvious where they are. It turn out they’re locked up inside the Epson Printer Driver.  For those interested this video entitled How to access Epson’s ICC profiles for Lightroom for Mac works just the same for Affinity Photo.

So, great! I can now see Epson’s paper profiles from within Affinity Photo both for soft proofing and within the Color Sync in Color Matching Printer menu.

OK so how does the print look? Much better now but only when I select Color Sync with my paper’s (Premium Glossy) profile.

I think I could marginally improve the image again by boosting the brightness and adding a subtle  S curve beneath the soft proofing adjustment layer.