Troubleshooting Photos –
Print Colors Are Washed Out, Muddy Or DisappointingÂ
Problem
The print suffers from
- washed out color;
- muddy color; or
- disappointing color (no 'pop').
These very different-looking prints are treated separately in the Search page, but their causes are variations on the same mistake, so they are treated together.
Despite their visual differences, the first two buttons washedout and muddy, show two aspects of the same problem, which is making poor choices in the printer dialog. washedout is a mistaken choice in the printer's color management settings and muddy is the wrong choice of paper type in the printer's print settings. no 'pop' represents a deeper problem, the inability of ink on paper to match the visual impact of the photo's color on a monitor, shown in original.
What should you look for?
These photos all started out from the same original JPEG file, yet printed differently. There was no detective work here – muddy was a deliberate experiment, while washedout was recognized as operator error the moment Print was clicked and the deficiencies of the third print are well understood as an unavoidable issue in printing.
To achieve roughly similar colors on coated (non-absorbent) photo paper and uncoated (absorbent) paper, a printer needs to lay down much more ink on the uncoated paper. Therefore, to find out what would happen if the printer laid down too much ink on glossy photo paper, a uncoated matte paper was deliberately chosen in the print dialog. muddy was the result. On OSX, pull down the Print dialog's Copies & Pages menu to the Print Settings page to make a paper selection.
muddy was the first example off the printer, a deliberate test print. The goal was to find out what would happen if the wrong type of paper was specified in the printer dialog. An uncoated, very absorbent paper was chosen in the dialog, but the printer was loaded with coated (hence, not very absorbent) premium photo paper. The result was that the printer laid down a lot of ink, expecting it to be absorbed into the paper. Instead, the ink sat up on top of the paper in a heavy film that made the colors dull and muddy.
Clicking too fast, thinking too little... Once muddy was printed, a good print was needed for comparison, but the fingers were moving faster than the brain so OK was clicked before No Color Adjustment was selected so the printer used its Photo-realistic setting. In OSX, pull down the Print dialog's Copies & Pages menu to the Print Settings page to make a paper selection.
washedout started as an attempt to print an ideal print, the best response to muddy. Haste made waste and instead of No Color Adjustment, the Photo-realistic setting was selected. This appears to de-saturate colors (presumably Epson colors are eye-poppingly vivid by default) so washedout was the result.
The issues behind disappointing color – the no-'pop' picture – are far more complex than the excess ink and wrong paper choices of the other two prints. Color on your monitor – additive color – and color on paper – subtractive color – are very different modes of reproduction, each with its strengths and weaknesses. They are dealt with more fully in About Color Reproduction.
How do you fix it?
The problems of the first two pictures are readily remedied by reprinting while paying careful attention to the printer settings you use – getting these right is crucial to achieving the prints you want. It may help to read your printer documentation. In addition, read the information that comes with your paper (while the idea of reading instructions that come with paper may seem absurd, this may be the difference between success and a so-so print). Among other things, the instructions may tell you how to describe the paper to a printer – glossy and semi-gloss photo paper may look different to you but not to a printer driver.
As to the difference between a picture on your monitor and a picture on paper, you have to think of the differences between the two as characteristics, not flaws. Again, this is dealt with more fully in About Color Reproduction.
