Anyone got the new P20000 64" printer? feedback appreciated

[deanwork]

These printers were based on the 11880 design which was the best "fine art" printer they ever made. The extra gray also improves gradients in all colors and reduces the metameric issues under different light sources. But primarily it would benefit monochrome tonal rendition ( if they do it right ). The benefits of having one printer that can do everything well is obvious. Not only because you can pick and choose the exact monochrome print color you want for a project on the fly, but also not waste all that ink when switching back and forth between PK and Mk all day long. As a "fine art" printmaker I care a lot more about that than I do the orange and green gamut ( or violet :-). They don't need that green. They couldn't have put a gray in all the other models it seems to me. But I've been saying that for a long time with the last series.

Probably the biggest concern for me would be how much of those big carts are wasted with head cleanings and pressure issues, as in the last series. We might not know the true answer for that for another year. But, there is a lot of potential there.

John

Exactly.  And a system which uses only 700ml carts seems odd unless Epson is specifically trying to keep this printer out of the hands of individuals and small shops interested in high quality fine art printing who typically are not printing continuously.  While I wish I was doing enough business to print continuously, it's not realistic for me.

[Wayne Fox]

Then why did they put an extra light gray in there? That makes no sense.

Maybe you misunderstood his post.  The printer has dedicated pk and mk nozzles. There is no ink swapping.

[shadowblade]

Maybe you misunderstood his post.  The printer has dedicated pk and mk nozzles. There is no ink swapping.

What's that got to do with the presence of three shades of grey in addition to PK and MK?

[shadowblade]

These printers were based on the 11880 design which was the best "fine art" printer they ever made. The extra gray also improves gradients in all colors and reduces the metameric issues under different light sources. But primarily it would benefit monochrome tonal rendition ( if they do it right ). The benefits of having one printer that can do everything well is obvious. Not only because you can pick and choose the exact monochrome print color you want for a project on the fly, but also not waste all that ink when switching back and forth between PK and Mk all day long. As a "fine art" printmaker I care a lot more about that than I do the orange and green gamut ( or violet :-). They don't need that green. They couldn't have put a gray in all the other models it seems to me. But I've been saying that for a long time with the last series.

Probably the biggest concern for me would be how much of those big carts are wasted with head cleanings and pressure issues, as in the last series. We might not know the true answer for that for another year. But, there is a lot of potential there.

John

Why would you not want greater gamut, particularly for nature and landscape photography? Green is common throughout nature, and reds are very prevalent in rocks and sunset/sunrise scenes. Both these colours are also notorious weak spots for CMYK inksets (as is brown - a dedicated brown ink can do a much better job of lighter and more vivid browns without looking muddy). I'd prefer an inkset that can deliver vivid, super-saturated colours, even on matte media, than one with an extra light grey that really doesn't help colour photos all that much.

Certainly, the extra grey would help black-and-white tonality, but, for fine art black-and-white printing, there really isn't a match for Piezography Carbon or MIS Eboni, and won't be until Epson/Canon/HP comes up with their own pure-carbon inkset. Their longevity and print quality are just on another planet. Run Piezography Carbon K7 with one or two long-life colour pigments for toning and you end up with a flexible black-and-white inkset that surpasses anything you can do using a full-colour inkset.

[datro]

... I'd prefer an inkset that can deliver vivid, super-saturated colours, even on matte media, than one with an extra light grey that really doesn't help colour photos all that much.

And therein lies the difference in your "sweet spot" and mine for what we want out of a printer system for doing fine art work.  You are right that there are benefits to dedicating a printer to B&W (e.g. Piezography), but what I need (and would fit into my budget) is a "universal" printer that can do either B&W or color, both with the best possible quality.  That is why the interest in the 4K setup in the P10000 (assuming the driver software will take advantage of it).  Gamut is still important, but the ability to do both high-quality B&W AND color is higher priority for me.

Dave

[Wayne Fox]

What's that got to do with the presence of three shades of grey in addition to PK and MK?

His question seemed to be directed at the previous post which discussed the pk/my switching.  A quick glance at that post might have been interpreted to imply the new printers were like the rest of the Epson line in that they have ink lines to the head, but not dedicated nozzles, as though Epson decided the extra gray was used instead of dedicated MK nozzles.

I certainly may have misunderstood his reply ("Then why did they put an extra light gray in there? That makes no sense.") but I didn't see any other reason for that response based on the previous post which it seemed directed towards.

[LGeb]

I'm battling with a stubborn Green channel in my 7900 at the moment (just about to waste a lot of ink and do a full INIT to see if the suction will solve it) and if it ends up I have a bad head then I'm going to have to seriously consider the P10000.  I've already replaced the head in my 7900 once and I don't think I could justify doing it a second time.

I just bought a 7900 with a clogged orange channel with the intention to run it as a piezography printer, or simply use QTR with it. However I found if I install the 7890 driver it bypasses the orange and green inks. With the auto cleaning (I'm sure that's what killed the head for the previous owner) turned off it hasn't caused me any issues. I do color pair cleanings in maintenance mode and it seems to work well. All the 7890 profiles seem to print as well as factory profiles ever do. I bought Orange and Green empty carts from inkjetmall and put piezoflush in them as a way of keeping the cost down.

[narikin]

From what I saw coming out of the p20000 at a trade show, the quality seems to be on par with the p6000/p8000.  closer examination and testing may even show the extra grey offers some quality gains.  The increased speed has been achieved in two ways, first by lowering the nozzle density, so this printer operates at similar resolution to Canon and HP now (300dpi instead of 360 dpi).  The head is also huge (2.6 inches vs 1 inch, 800 nozzles per channel at 300nozzles/inch vs 360 nozzles at 360 nozzles per inch) so it's covering 260% more paper in each pass. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtsitb5qHwU )

Strange that for Fine Art Aqueous machines Epson would prioritize speed in the new generation. I don't know anyone who was saying "my printer's too slow'. Yes maybe in commercial signage or solvent machines, but not in fine art. Odd. 

Everyone wants more gamut, more longevity, less bronzing (where's the gloss overcoat option, a la Canon?). Nothing wrong with getting a print faster of course, but really they have fixed a 'problem' that did not exist for most people here.

Still I commercial labs will be happy I guess, and some of them do use Aqueous machines, so... good for them!

(Personally I'd still like an XL wide printer option - 80" or so, but that seems to be a dream)

[deanwork]

A whole lot of these companies that the printer companies are marketing to are cranking out a lot of large canvas painting reproductions and stuff like that, or lots of multi print editions of the same image. So, they make their money in volume as apposed to single image ultra-fine image quality for an exhibition or portfolio.

For most of the work I do it's like one print at a time or a couple at a time. That's not an easy way to make a living of course.

When I do make large editions of paintings and art reproductions, like 50 - hundreds of copies, I often use bi-directional 16 bit printing on my Canon and the quality is surprisingly good. And it is a far cry from what bi-directional printing used to be. But many people want even faster output for large prints. I guess I can understand where they are coming from.

john

Strange that for Fine Art Aqueous machines Epson would prioritize speed in the new generation. I don't know anyone who was saying "my printer's too slow'. Yes maybe in commercial signage or solvent machines, but not in fine art. Odd. 

Everyone wants more gamut, more longevity, less bronzing (where's the gloss overcoat option, a la Canon?). Nothing wrong with getting a print faster of course, but really they have fixed a 'problem' that did not exist for most people here.

Still I commercial labs will be happy I guess, and some of them do use Aqueous machines, so... good for them!

(Personally I'd still like an XL wide printer option - 80" or so, but that seems to be a dream)

[shadowblade]

If you're churning out lots and lots of el-cheapo canvas prints, solvent or UV would work even better. The inks are cheaper and you don't need to bother with spraying and laminating them afterwards, saving on time and manpower.

If you're after quality, you'd want the extra gamut in a lot of cases.

[narikin]

Yes, I too noted the new 300dpi head figure, a change from the old 360dpi Epson standard.

This means I guess that for XL prints -which is exactly what the new 64" P20000 machine is designed for- you can work at 150dpi, which was the old 180dpi.

Personally I've made very acceptable prints on the 11880 by sending it files at 120dpi. Surprising how well those come out. (no up-sampling by me, though of course the printer driver does its own thing)