• GracieAllenpanorama_fish_eye
    17 posts
    2 years ago

    Epson 3880, Cone Color Inks, Epson Premium Luster Paper

    Here's a jpg, low res, sRGB version of the image
    Here's a low res, sRGB version of the image. Plain, ordinary orange butterfly.

    The printer, the inks, the paper, the setup, EVERYTHING is exactly the same as it's been since I bought the printer a number of years ago. I've ALWAYS used the Cone Color Inks, I've always used the luster paper (or gloss sometimes). It's NOT a new box of paper, it's not a new batch of ink, it's not a new anything.

    I can’t print an orange butterfly. It comes out pale, maybe tinged slightly pink and orange-ish, but definitely not what it looks like on-screen.

    I've tried the print of the orange butter fly from Lightroom AND from Photoshop. It's exactly the same from either.

    The process hasn't changed, the workflow hasn't changed, the printer, inks, paper haven't changed. Photoshop and Lightroom have changed but I presume that wouldn't cause a printing problem.

    The printer paper profile is right - Epson 3880 Premium Luster
    The print settings are set to use Photoshop for the color management. And the printer is set to No Color in the dialogue. Exactly like for the last decade.
    I’ve done a nozzle check yesterday before starting printing – it was absolutely perfect. I pulled all the cartridges and gave each a couple shakes - when the printer sits for a couple weeks I was told to do that.
    I printed a half dozen 11 x 14s. They look normal, though a couple were black and white, so..

    I printed the butterfly and it looked lousy.
    Printed a nozzle check - looked fine.
    Increased the orange saturation in Lightroom to a value higher than it was and higher than I'd normally use.
    Printed again. Looks EXACTLY the same.
    Did a head cleaning and another nozzle check. The nozzle check is STILL perfect.

    In Photoshop, on the image of the butterfly I created a new layer with a rectangle of orange (RGB 255,165,0) and a rectangle of gradient orange. Printed that and a portion of the butterfly wing. They all look bad. The orange is some color I can't describe, but it's NOT orange... Maybe more pink and darker, but it's NOT orange.

    Did a SECOND head cleaning and ANOTHER nozzle check – STILL ABSOLUTELY PERFECT.

    Moved the rectangles to a new place on the image (I have the section of wing, the original orange rectangles and a new set of rectangles on the same piece of paper), and printed again. They look EXACTLY the same.

    This isn’t the first time I’ve printed something orange on the Epson, and I don’t recall EVER having this problem.

    I pulled the cartridges one at a time and checked to make sure all the cartridges still have ink. They DO.
    I even checked to make SURE I hadn’t switch any cartridges. They’re all where they’re supposed to be.

    The other prints I’ve made look fine… Green leaves, yellow beaks, brown feathers… But this orange butterfly is messing with me!

    HOPEFULLY, it's something stupid and I'm having a senior moment, but this is definitely not working.

  • Flashlightpanorama_fish_eye
    137 posts
    2 years ago

    If you use Cone inks I assume you use refillable cartridges? If so, could it be you filled a cartridge with the wrong color ink?

  • Stillstihlpanorama_fish_eye
    78 posts
    2 years ago

    Given your thorough ruling out of other things, Flashlight's ink point may hold water; do you have another orange cart you could try?

  • PaulWpanorama_fish_eye
    3 posts
    2 years ago

    This thread in dpreview discusses the problem. www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4248841
    TLDR: The issue is the ink pigment settling in the cartridges and lines. The problem was solved with replacing cartridges and doing cleanings - magenta and blacks seemed to be the main problem.

  • GracieAllenpanorama_fish_eye
    17 posts
    2 years ago

    Sorry to be so slow getting back, but I always mark posts to email me, and in some forums it doesn't appear to work...

    Last thing I did the other day was take the butterfly image and send it to Bay Photo for printing to make SURE I'm not having a senior moment or some other oddity. Came back today and it looks EXACTLY like it should - the ORANGE IS ORANGE! My test sheet is some ghastly pinkish, reddish, semi-orange dreck.

    ANYHOW - COULD I have put the wrong ink in the cartridge - yes, but it's reasonably unlikely. I WAS getting good prints up 'til this time, though the printer hasn't been used since January. I knew I was going to be gone so did several months of competition prints and submitted them early.

    First thing I did was pull all the cartridges - one at a time 'cause I can ABSOLUTELY see me putting them in wrong! Shook everybody. BUT, thinking about how the printer works would it have shoved some settled ink into the lines? Possibly.

    SO, a couple options I was thinking of, but you buys have made it more reasonable - there's a cleaning for the 3880 that I believe refills all the lines - I'll have to find out what it is. I ALSO have a whole bunch of brand new ink in the bottles, and I can refill all the cartridges with NEW ink. I always make sure the ink is well shaken when I fill the cartridges, so filling everything, then clearing all the lines and heads and whatever will either work or not......

    If not, I'll have to figure out where to go next...

    SO, lots of shaking, filling, fiddling, testing and whatever coming up...

  • Gregpanorama_fish_eye
    518 posts
    2 years ago

    The Epson Stylus Pro 3880 was first introduced in 2006
    I don’t know how old your machine is, but it most likely could do with a good service from a competent shop / printer technician.

    There are plenty of servicing / troubleshooting websites out there, but unless you are mechanically minded and have worked on one before, I would leave it to the professionals.

    Printers are the work of the devil. lol

  • Gregpanorama_fish_eye
    518 posts
    2 years ago
  • GracieAllenpanorama_fish_eye
    17 posts
    2 years ago

    I don't think mine's quite that old, but it could probably use a little TLC. I did a disassembly and cleanup last winter - flushing parking pads, cleaning head unit, rollers, lots of fiddling... Probably not as thorough, but it worked well when I was done.

  • GracieAllenpanorama_fish_eye
    17 posts
    2 years ago

    I don't disagree that cleaning cycles are nasty... Wish they'd come up with a clog-proof photo printer that's wide, fast, efficient, clog-proof and cheap. But it hasn't happened so I've got nothing to lose by doing some kind of major power cleaning. It's either get the printer working or retire it.

  • Fussybobpanorama_fish_eye
    2 posts
    2 years ago

    There was a similar issue about a year or so on DPR. The user stated perfect nozzle checks until we forced him to post a picture of his nozzle check print. He was correct in saying he had perfect nozzle check patterns, no missing segments, but he had one ink color completely missing. You should have 8 colors showing in the nozzle check print.

    The Power Clean function will completely flush the ink feed lines, dampers, and print head. It’s worth the try.

    Bob P.

  • GracieAllenpanorama_fish_eye
    17 posts
    2 years ago

    <Laughing!> That's exactly the kind of thing I would do! No, all colors are there - all 8 of 'em.

    OK...... Filled all the cartridges with well-shook ink. Went into Maintenance and did a power clean. Worked fine.

    STILL have all 8 colors, still have perfect nozzle check.

    STILL HAVE NO ORANGE... I took my test sheet and did gradient rectangles of yellow (255,255,0), orange (255,165,0), and pink (255,192,203)... Yellow and pink look yellow and pink. Orange looks sort-of more orange-ish than it did, but that may be me WANTING it to look more orange...

    SO, I went to Windows 11 several months ago, and am thinking the next thing I SHOULD do is install the Windows 11 Driver, and any ICC profiles I can find for the Epson Gloss, semi-Gloss, and Lustre papers............

    For the life of me, I can't figure out how to pry and driver OR the profiles out of the Epson site. HOW HARD can it POSSIBLY be? So far, I keep getting dumped to some page that wants an email address and forces me to opt into "promotional materials"... This is just plain embarrassing...

    CAN SOMEBODY point me to a url that will actually let me download a Windows 11 Driver for a 3880 Pro (not any of the other 3880s, just a regular Pro), and ICC profiles - I found an old topic that said all the "stock" epson paper profiles are IN the Driver.

  • Stillstihlpanorama_fish_eye
    78 posts
    2 years ago

    That's how Epsom seem to do it now, pretty much all the ICC profiles for their own papers are included in the driver downloads and you can't seem to get them separately.

  • Gregpanorama_fish_eye
    518 posts
    2 years ago
    x.png

    PNG, 37.0 KB, uploaded by Greg 2 years ago.

  • GracieAllenpanorama_fish_eye
    17 posts
    2 years ago

    Yeah, that's the place I've been going all day. I can't get anywhere...

    And while I"m asking - is there a way to get images LOCALLY? WITHOUT having to go through the whole "image address", ftp, find the address junk?

    Anyhow, here the screenshot... Notice that the Operating system is MISSING! I don't know what I've got set in Firefox, but once I went to the address in Chrome, it FOUND Windows 11.

    dperezphoto.com/x.jpg

    OK - I may be having an exceptionally stupid day, but I DON'T see a printer driver. I see Utilities with a Net Config utility, Firmware with a couple firmware updates, ICC profiles with a whole bunch of stuff in there, and Admin Tools with the same Net Config utility. Is there someplace where there's an obvious Windows 11 printer driver that I'm missing?

    I TOLD it I had windows 10 and it provided a driver for that - looks like the 3880 is using the OLD driver?

  • Gregpanorama_fish_eye
    518 posts
    2 years ago

    If the page is not rendering correctly, it may be because you are running an Add or Script blocker?
    Anyway, here are direct downloads for the whole shebang.

    Attention: Your operating system may not be detected below. It's important that you manually select your OS in the Operating System drop-down menu below to ensure you're viewing only compatible files.

    These are all for Windows 11

    Drivers

    Printer Driver v6.62
    • 04/01/16
    • 36.28 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/epson17589.exe

  • Gregpanorama_fish_eye
    518 posts
    2 years ago
  • Gregpanorama_fish_eye
    518 posts
    2 years ago
  • Gregpanorama_fish_eye
    518 posts
    2 years ago

    ICC Profiles

    Legacy Textured Profile 
    • 06/26/19
    • 1.96 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/Epson_SP3880_LegacyTextured_MK.zip

    Legacy 
    • 12/05/16
    • 8.48 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson18373.exe

    Legacy Fibre 
    • 01/29/16
    • 2.60 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson_sp3880_legacy_fibre_mk_v1.zip

    Legacy Baryta 
    • 01/29/16
    • 2.60 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson_sp3880_legacy_baryta_pk_v1.zip

    Legacy Platine 
    • 01/29/16
    • 2.60 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson_sp3880_legacy_platine_pk_v1.zip

    Legacy Etching 
    • 01/29/16
    • 2.60 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson_sp3880_legacy_etching_mk_v1.zip

    Metallic Photo Paper Luster 
    • 03/11/14
    • 2.00 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson_sp3880_metallic_photo_luster_pk_v1.zip

    Metallic Photo Paper Glossy 
    • 03/11/14
    • 2.00 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson_sp3880_metallic_photo_glossy_pk_v1.zip

    Exhibition Watercolor Paper Textured 
    • 12/19/13
    • 2.0 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson_sp3880_exhibition_watercolor_paper_textured_v1.zip

    Exhibition Canvas Matte 
    • 04/19/11
    • 0.85 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/sp3880_exhibition_canvas_matte_v1.zip

    Exhibition Fiber Paper 
    • 02/02/11
    • 0.95 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/sp3880_exhibition_fiber_paper_v1.zip

    Cold Press Natural Paper 
    • 03/08/10
    • 2.94 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson_stylus_pro_3880_cold_press_natural_white.zip

    Cold Press Bright White 
    • 03/08/10
    • 2.94 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson_stylus_pro_3880_cold_press_bright_white.zip

    Hot Press Bright Paper 
    • 03/08/10
    • 2.94 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson_stylus_pro_3880_hot_press_bright_white.zip

    Hot Press Natural Paper 
    • 03/08/10
    • 2.94 MB
    ftp.epson.com/drivers/icc/stypro3880/epson_stylus_pro_3880_hot_press_natural_white.zip

  • Gregpanorama_fish_eye
    518 posts
    2 years ago
  • nightowlhelp_outline
    2 years ago

    You mean into a post on the forum?

    Yes, you can upload images (up to 4 megabytes each), the details are available at this link to the FAQ.

  • GracieAllenpanorama_fish_eye
    17 posts
    2 years ago

    Yes. I wanted to embed the image of the page in the text of the post, and most of the forums I'm using just have you grab the image from your computer.

    Either way, not the biggest problem of the day.........

    ON THE OTHER HAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Houston, we HAVE ORANGE!!!!!!!!!!!

    I don't know if it was the driver or the profile was messed up, or the power clean, or some combination of any of the three, but I now have a test print with a very much orange(er) than the bizarre color I WAS getting...