Not so sure about the quality

**ignatiusjk** · 11-Jul-2008, 18:23

I just purchased an Epson 3800 printer and I'm not crazy about the quality of the prints. The B&W's tend to look like they were made on a standard copier,they don't look like typical B&W prints. The color prints seem better but they still look like a cheap imitation of an original photograph.I'm new to scanning/printing so I'm chalking it up to that. Any help any of you can give is GREATLY appreciated.

**Joanna Carter** · 12-Jul-2008, 00:35

Have you profiled the printer/paper/ink combinaton? This is almost the most important step in obtaining high quality prints.

**Haris** · 12-Jul-2008, 08:35

Yes, you have to calibrate your equipment. That means next:

1. To find icc (colour) profiles for your printer/ink/paper combination. For example I use(d) HP printer with original ink and Ilford Galerie papers, and on Ilford's web site I found icc profiles for mine printer/ink/paper combination (also with instruction how to install them and how to set imaging sotware)

2. To calibrate your scanner/monitor/printer. That means to use some calibration hardware/software which will provide to you that colours/shades of gray you see on monitor will be colours/shades of gray you will get on paper when print image. There are several products, I remember for example Spyder from Datacolor, or hueyPRO from Pantone calibration tools, or... Not that I recommend any of them (or not recommend), I just remembered those as example.

**Brian Ellis** · 12-Jul-2008, 09:15

The 3800 is a great printer, if your photographs look like cheap imitations of something or like they came from a copier it almost certainly isn't the printer's fault, it's yours. Sorry to be so blunt but there's a lot more to making excellent prints than buying a good printer.

Unfortunately you don't provide enough information for anyone to be very specific in providing help. First, what editing software are you using (Photoshop CS3, Elements, etc.)? How are you making your b&w prints - using Epson Advanced B&W, using Roy Harrington's QTR, etc.? What are your settings for b&w and color printing in Photoshop or whatever other editing software you're using and in the 3800's printing dialogue window? What papers and paper profiles are you using? Epson provides profiles for its own papers, other paper manufacturers usually provide downloadable profiles and printer settings for their papers on their web sites.

If you can provide that kind of information people here may be able to help but if you haven't done so already you really need to spend some time studying digital color and b&w printing in order to obtain the kind of quality your printer is capable of delivering.