Yes, I totally agree, colour management is a big art – or pehaps rather science – in itself.

I do think using Epson inks for Epson printers is important over third party inks as well as using the printer driver that ships with the printer.

As for papers I do get good results with Epson papers, but equally I have had no problems using other papers as long as you use their specific paper profile for proof and printing.

I’m not a printing expert, but calibrating your monitor is absolutely crucial to get good results with your prints. I used to use a simple Colorvision Spyder for this together with a Dell monitor (software calibration) and it provided me some very fine prints that I was happy with.

However I have since upgraded to an Eizo ColorEdge CE210W monitor (hardware calibration) which is a very nice (and expensive) monitor. I bought it as I wanted the best colours I could get for my fine art prints, but I do think you can actually achieve some very fine results with a basic monitor calibration device and a reasonably good monitor.

Thomas

I’ve always struggled to get the colour management 100% right though – it’s a bit of an art in itself, I think. I’ve only ever managed to be successful using an Epson printer + Epson inks + Epson paper + Epson printer driver, which makes sense, as the whole print path is calibrated.

I did once use some cheaper inks in my printer, and regretted it. I didn’t manage to get one good (photographic) print out of the set of cartridges.

I’ve seen some great monochrome prints on paper with a high fibre content come out of home printers – I might try these myself.