Very strange aperture print problem

I've got a really bizarre printing problem with colour using Aperture.


I'm using 10.8.2 and Aperture 3.4.3


Printing to an Epson R3000 printer using the latest driver (9.04)


The problem ONLY occurs when printing directly from Aperture. If I print from Lightroom (trying the test drive demo) it's fine - more bizarrly if I print to PDF from Aperture and then print it's fine.... One more bizarre issue - it's only when I print something using phot black ink - matt black settings don't seem affected.


The problem is the prints are very dull, reds are dark and skin colour looks terrible (like a deathly shade), but as I say, using Lightroom, or print to pdf first is fine.


I've checked color profiles, etc, including the ones in the print driver and all look ok. The preview image in the print dialog look fine, as does using soft proofing.


I've tried:


reinstalling aperture
resetting printing system
reinstalling printer profiles
reinstalling printer
repairing colorsync profiles
repairing disk permissions
ditching aperture user prefs

and now I'm stuck!


Hope someone can give me other ideas to try!


Thanks,


Kevin

Aperture 3, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 3.4.3

Thanks for the suggestion - ink levels are fine, and, as I say, it prints fine from LR and also going from aperture to print to PDF to print....