2nd September 2002

Question: I have an Epson Stylus 600 printer and for some reason the color translation from my monitor to my printout is awful. My photos look great on my monitor, but when I print them out at 1440 dpi they look terrible. Do you have any tips to offer on making the printed colors better match what is on the monitor or do I need to buy a new printer?

Answer: I did some searching on Epson's web site, just to get some background on the printer and I must say that for an older printer it sounds pretty nice. First of all, if you are printing at 1440 dpi then you need to be printing on Glossy or Epson "Coated" paper, as using regular paper will result in the colors bleeding together, which could be part of your color problem. If you need to print on regular paper, I would suggest for you to set the printer at about 600 dpi. Also, you need to understand that there will always be a slight difference between the colors on your monitor and the colors on your printouts. You could try to curb this by using a different color profile (ICM setting), but setting this depends on your operating system so I will refer you to the help files. Last but certainly not least, I suggest that you run a Nozzle Check and Cleaning on your printer, in fact you may want to do this no matter what. You can find the exact steps for this in your printer manual but on most Epsons this option is under Start|Settings|Printers. Once in the Printers folder, right-click your Epson printer and choose Properties. The option to run a Nozzle Check and Cleaning should be on the Utilities tab.