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Author Topic: Epson ABW least colour ink  (Read 4416 times)

Paull

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Epson ABW least colour ink
« on: July 06, 2016, 06:03:59 pm »

HI

Am I correct in assuming that the Epson ABW setting « warm »  uses the least amount of colour ink? 
thanks

Paul
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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW least colour ink
« Reply #1 on: July 07, 2016, 07:01:15 am »

I don't know the answer here but you might want to look at the stability testing on the Aardenburg web site:  http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/  I worked with Mark to look at all the possible settings of the Epson ABW driver with Hahnemuhle Photo Rag Ultra Smooth.  Although it's a matte paper, the results should give you some idea about the stability of the various settings.

Alan
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Paull

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Re: Epson ABW least colour ink
« Reply #2 on: July 07, 2016, 11:51:27 am »

Thanks for the reference. I couldn’t find anything there about ABW ink usage. The QTR curve creation tool is what is giving me the impression that “warm” doesn’t use colour ink, these windows are blank in the supplied “warm” curves. However when I compare an ABW “warm” print on the P800 with a black ink only print from the 3800 (black ink only is not available on the P800) the black ink only is more yellow, the ABW “warm” print is more red.  This could be a difference with the HDR inks.

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Alan Goldhammer

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Re: Epson ABW least colour ink
« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2016, 01:28:47 pm »

Your are right that there is nothing there about usage though it's clear that the sepia tone will use more colored ink that the neutral (probably yellow).  I just pointed you to the test set as you can see what the stability of the various shades of gray are for the different settings.  I print ABW on my 3880 and use a QTR generated profile with it.  One can still do this under WinOS but not MacOS.

Alan
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deanwork

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Re: Epson ABW least colour ink
« Reply #4 on: July 15, 2016, 07:09:12 pm »

You should probably ask this question on the QTR yahoo user group. In past conversations with Roy, the inventor of QTR, he has said they he has tried to eliminate the use of yellow in "warm" curves with Epson Ultrachrome ink, since it was the weakest link, but also mentioned that the sepia setting did use quite a bit of yellow. QTR warm and neutral settings use as little color toning pigment as possible. ABW uses a lot more color ink, but still has pretty good test results as long as the prints are not using a lot of yellow.

Now with the new Epson inkset the yellow channel has been improved significantly, so it seems this should help even sepia prints a lot. The new P10K and P20K printers also have an additional light gray so hopefully even less color inks are needed for composite grays. Epson has said almost nothing about this inkset in a practical way so we'll all have to wait until independent tests are done as people are using them. Epson should have designed a way to use this quad gray inkset in all of their new printers, as an option, but they didn't. I wouldn't have been hard for them to create a software adaption for replacing one of the additional color inks they offer, but they didn't.

John



Quote from: Alan Goldhammer =topic=111482.msg921042#msg921042 date=1467912527
Your are right that there is nothing there about usage though it's clear that the sepia tone will use more colored ink that the neutral (probably yellow).  I just pointed you to the test set as you can see what the stability of the various shades of gray are for the different settings.  I print ABW on my 3880 and use a QTR generated profile with it.  One can still do this under WinOS but not MacOS.

Alan
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LGeb

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Re: Epson ABW least colour ink
« Reply #5 on: August 01, 2016, 03:01:06 pm »

HI

Am I correct in assuming that the Epson ABW setting « warm »  uses the least amount of colour ink? 
thanks

Paul

The Warm in ABW and QTR are not what I'd consider equivalent. The Epson blacks are pure carbon pigments from the MSDS, and appear very yellow. My guess is the Sepia ABW option is going to have the least color ink added to it. QTR warm uses only the black and gray inks on the printers I've looked at.

As far as permanence goes I think the cyan and the magenta are very good. The yellow is generally the problem. The good news is I was able to design my QTR curves so that I didn't need any yellow ink. Since the blacks have a yellow tint to them you need to add both cyan and magenta to them to get something neutral.
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