My printout has incorrect or missing colors. What should I do?

  • The problem could be due to a software setting, the product's condition, or the paper you're using. Check the following:
    • Print a nozzle check pattern. If there are gaps or the pattern is faint, clean the print head.
    • Epson inks, specialty papers, and printers are designed to work together. For the best results, use genuine Epson ink and paper.
    • Your product is designed to print from RGB files. If you saved your images in CMYK format, you should convert the files to RGB before printing them.
    • Make sure the following settings are set correctly in the Windows, Mac OS X 10.5/10.6, or Mac OS X 10.4 printer driver:
      • Print Quality or Quality Option: Select an appropriate print quality setting (do not select Draft, Economy, or Fast Economy).
      • Type or Media Type: Select a Type or Media Type setting that matches the paper you loaded.
      • Black/Grayscale or Grayscale: Make sure this setting is deselected.

        Note:
        This setting is not recommended for printing black-and-white photos.
      • Off (No Color Adjustment): The printer driver is set by default to control how the colors in your printout look. However, some applications (such as Adobe Photoshop) can also be set to color manage your printouts. You can see unexpected results if the application and the printer driver are both set to color manage your printouts. If you're printing from an application that supports color management and you've set the application to control the color management of the printed output, be sure to select Off (No Color Adjustment) to turn off color management in the printer driver.

      For finer control of the colors in your printouts, you can try adjusting the color management settings. (These settings affect only your printouts. They do not change your original images.) To access these settings in the printer driver, click the Advanced tab in Windows, select Color Options or Color Matching from the printer options pop-up menu in Mac OS X 10.5/10.6, or select Color Options from the printer options pop-up menu in Mac OS X 10.4.
      • Color Controls (Windows) or Manual Settings (Mac OS X): This setting lets you select color matching and image-enhancement features such as the option to adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and individual cyan, magenta, and yellow color tones.
      • Fix Photo (not available in Mac OS X 10.4): This setting is ideal for printing images captured using a video camera, digital camera, or scanner. This feature produces sharper images and more vivid colors by automatically adjusting the contrast, saturation, and brightness of the original image data. When you select this setting, additional image-correction settings become available.

        Note:
        Fix Photo uses a sophisticated face recognition technology to optimize photos that include faces. For this to work, both eyes and the nose must be visible in the subject's face (without sunglasses). If your photo includes a face with an intentional color cast, such as a statue, you may not want to select this setting to retain the special color effects. Fix Photo also corrects scenery (landscapes) and night shots. Some photos may show more correction than others.
      • ICM (Windows) or ColorSync (Mac OS X): This setting uses your operating system's color matching method to automatically adjust your printout's colors to match the colors on your screen.

        Note:
        Your monitor and the product use different technologies to represent colors, so your printed colors can't match your screen colors exactly. Also the ambient light and the age, quality, and settings of the monitor can affect the quality of your color matching.
    • Check the ink cartridge status. If any ink cartridge is low, you may need to replace it to improve print quality.
Published:  Jan 7, 2011 Was this helpful?​ Thank you for the feedback!
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