New Epson Drivers for Lion, No Abbreviations

[Dano Steinhardt]

Epson America recently posted new Mac drivers for the 900 and 880 series printers at www.proimaging.epson.com 

While the drivers were updated for Lion, they are fully backward compatible with Snow Leopard and Leopard.

Based on feedback, including some lively posts in this forum   the new drivers spell out the names of all the paper profiles vs. abbreviations.

For example, CPBWFAP MK v1 is now Cold_Press_Bright_MK_V1

There is one difference in the profile names to note:

If the full name of the printer is listed before the profile such as:
Epson Stylus Pro 9900_7900 PremiumLusterPhotoPaper260
This is a profile produced at Epson’s offices in Japan on papers that are designed for worldwide use. These profiles will be found on drivers throughout the world and in multiple languages.

If the name of the printer is shortened such as:
Epson SP7900_9900_Hot_Press_Natural_MK_V1
This is a profile generated at Epson America’s offices in California for papers that are designed and managed by Epson America. 

Attached is a screen-grab showing, in this case, all the profiles for the Stylus Pro 7900/9900.  I highlighted the Epson America generated profiles.

In addition, all the papers are now listed in the Media Type section of the driver.  Attached is a screen-grab with one example showing Hot Press Bright selected as the Media Type. In drivers that do not have the name Hot Press Bright, the recommendation is to use the UltraSmooth Fine Art setting.  While the UltraSmooth Fine Art Media Type setting works for Hot Press Bright, we felt that listing all the papers would help minimize confusion.

One other note, the Common Updater for many printers (with the latest OSX versions) will no longer be required.  Over time, they will be removed from the driver support web pages.

Finally, be sure to remove the older driver before installing the new version.  Driver installation does not automatically remove existing profiles and its possible to then have increased clutter with both the full names and the abbreviated names for the same profile.

I have to admit that I liked the abbreviations (or for some acronyms) but I was certainly in the minority on this one 

We hope the full names of the profiles and having all the papers available in the Media Type section will make the workflow a bit more intuitive.

Dan (Dano) Steinhardt
Marketing Manager, Professional Imaging
Epson America, Inc.

[Mike Guilbault]

Hey Dano... are the Epson America profiles also good for Canada or should we use the other ones?

[Dano Steinhardt]

They can certainly be used in Canada if you don't mind "color" vs "colour".

Dan (Dano) Steinhardt
Marketing Manager, Professional Imaging
Epson America, Inc.

[digitaldog]

They can certainly be used in Canada if you don't mind "color" vs "colour".

What about grey versus gray?

Good work on the new profile and media naming.

[JimGoshorn]

On OSX, if I remove the Epson Folder from HD/Library/Printers and then delete the printer from the Print/Fax control panel, is that a total removal of the driver?

Jim

[digitaldog]

Jim, that’s the full strength Epson (printer driver) enema. Be careful if you have more than one Epson Printer however and don’t want to toss everything.

[Dano Steinhardt]

Since neither gray or grey are found in paper names, we're probably OK on that one.

But its fair to point out Luster vs Lustre 

Dan (Dano) Steinhardt
Marketing Manager, Professional Imaging
Epson America, Inc.

[neile]

And Fiber/Fibre. I love Ilford

Neil

[JimGoshorn]

Andrew,

If I just want to remove just the 7900 then, what is the proper way to do it?

Thanks!

Jim

[digitaldog]

If I just want to remove just the 7900 then, what is the proper way to do it?

Well you could go into the User Library>Printers and in that folder see the individual drivers to trash, then you need to deal with the profiles which (for some reason) live in a package. That package of all profiles resides in the main Library. For example:

HFS Path: Mac HD:Library:Printers:EPSON:InkjetPrinter:ICCProfiles:Pro3880.profiles (for the 3880 in this example).

[francois]

…
HFS Path: Mac HD:Library:Printers:EPSON:InkjetPrinter:ICCProfiles:Pro3880.profiles (for the 3880 in this example).

On my Mac (10.7, installed from a freshly formatted drive), the InkjetPrinter folder is InkjetPrinter2. Not a change that should confuse a normal user but who knows.

[digitaldog]

On my Mac (10.7, installed from a freshly formatted drive), the InkjetPrinter folder is InkjetPrinter2. Not a change that should confuse a normal user but who knows.

I think you’ll find that sometimes there are two such Inkjet folders (hence the InkjetPrinter2). I don’t know this is ‘normal’ or a really clean install or not but it works. If you see two such folders, check inside to see if one contains the files you want to delete or not.

Another thing that is unnerving is that if you run multiple Epson printers (certainly of a certain vintage) and delete them all, then reinstall them, you have to install them in order or you can get screwed up and have issues printing all over again (and that alone may be the cause of the two InkJetPrinter folders, not sure.

It be nice if we had actual un-installers per printer and if we could install in any order necessary.

[JohnHeerema]

Epson America recently posted new Mac drivers for the 900 and 880 series printers at www.proimaging.epson.com

While the drivers were updated for Lion, they are fully backward compatible with Snow Leopard and Leopard.

Based on feedback, including some lively posts in this forum Smiley  the new drivers spell out the names of all the paper profiles vs. abbreviations.

For example, CPBWFAP MK v1 is now Cold_Press_Bright_MK_V1

Thanks Dano!

I've always been a bit acronym-challenged, so I appreciate the longer names.

[Jan Morales]

Finally, be sure to remove the older driver before installing the new version.  Driver installation does not automatically remove existing profiles and its possible to then have increased clutter with both the full names and the abbreviated names for the same profile.

Dan, since presumably this naming convention will carry forward, can the next driver update be installed without removing this version? Or should we always be removing older versions when installing new versions?

Thanks,
Jan

[TonyBar]

Now October and no 7900 firmware update on the Epson UK site since April, Can the US update be safely used in Europe? or will that cause its own problems . . .

Tony

[digitaldog]

It be nice if we had actual un-installers per printer and if we could install in any order necessary.

I stand corrected, one can uninstall from the driver installers (so keep those installers around for such a task).

If you have multiple Epson printer drivers, the earlier driver enema is going to be faster, and reinstalling in the proper order is still necessary at least for some printers. Last time I had to install all my printers, I had to install the older 4800 driver before I could install the newer 3880.

[Farmer]

Tony - you can do an "auto" firmware update through the remote panel software.  Otherwise, I'd recommend contacting Epson UK before proceeding.  Although the firmware should be common globally, there may be a particular reason that the UK hasn't published an update.