epson P10000 review

[eronald]

Epson's native drivers were pretty bad around the 9600 time, but they have really made huge progress. I owned a 9600.

What is exceptional now is the way they own the whole process, with really nice papers, and out of the box predictable performance. You can switch on a new printer, put in some Epson paper and get predictable usable prints, out of the box. You can use a spectro and match a printer to the factory standard.

Back in the day they had huge issues with pigment prints changing colors depending on viewing light, and dye prints fading to zero all too quickly, and inter-sample variations. Every printer really needed to be profiled. To their credit they have worked these issues really well. Of course once one has special needs one needs to do some personal work or buy boutique software.

I would say that Epson's main problem now is that the hardware and inks are so good that there's little incentive for change

This is not to detract from the superb work done by the guys who make RIPs and monochrome solutions ...

Edmund

[MikeIvanitsky]

This is what Epson says in their propaganda about the ABW:

Advanced Black & White Printing Technology
- Unique screening algorithm for producing professional black & white prints
- Utilizes our four-level black system to optimize black & white print quality
- Some of the world’s greatest black and white prints have been produced using this driver technology

We shall see. I ordered one.

[datro]

- Utilizes our four-level black system to optimize black & white print quality

Mike,
Can you point to the URL or document where you found the above quoted statement?  I'm not doubting you here, just that I wasn't able to find anything like that statement in my searches.

Also, I'd be a bit cautious because "four-level black system" could easily mean [PK, MK], LK, and LLK.  In other words, you could still be printing with only three shades in the ABW driver.

A key question, for all of us I think, is whether or not the ABW driver software for the P10K has been updated/modified to actually take advantage of the extra gray ink.  Is there anyone here on the forum that can give us a definitive answer on this?  (I think there is, but I will leave it to them to come forward with some illumination on this).

Dave

[deanwork]

Exactly. Well said. That is the question. And if I seem nervous about it, that's exactly what is on my mind cause a lot of us have been thinking about this for a long time.

My comment about "Epson engineers" was referring to the ABW system which has indeed been "sad" and inadequate, compared to other  monochrome software we've been using for about 15 years now. Having a quad inkset that functions like a quad inkset in a robust, fast, durable machine would be a dream come true. Writing the driver for the bw is really very small potatoes compared all the other great things Epson had accomplished with this printer. Of course I would rather have a neutralized gray as apposed to a greenish warm gray so you don't have to use any color inks at all ( like HP and Canon have ) but that isn't the overriding issue for me with this improved yellow and magenta channel. The primary thing that would persuade me to move from my Canon back to Epson would be a fully functioning quad inkset ( since it is in the printer already to utilize ) that can be linearized by the end user for all kinds of media and applications. If they did or if they do it, that is a major step forward in the industry. Excellent everything in one package.

In the long run what Aaron said about the emergence of a high resolution flat bed with piezo pigment heads seems to me like the ultimate end of all this. Then you could print on virtually anything.

john

A key question, for all of us I think, is whether or not the ABW driver software for the P10K has been updated/modified to actually take advantage of the extra gray ink.  Is there anyone here on the forum that can give us a definitive answer on this?  (I think there is, but I will leave it to them to come forward with some illumination on this).

Dave
[/quote]

[Wayne Fox]

I don’t believe they just added another shade of gray in the Ultrachrome Pro inkset used in this printer, I don’t believe any of the 3 shades of gray exactly match either LK or LLK of the Ultrachrome HD inkset of the p6000/8000 printer.

It’s also a completely revamped head designed.  I can’t see how they wouldn’t have to rework the ABW driver because of the inkset and head design.

[deanwork]

Man, I hope your right because if they have accomplished this then they have raised the bar ( that Jon Cone put up there in the first place ) and Canon and Hp will have to follow suit or be left behind. I love black and white. I really do, but I have left the toxic chemical world behind long ago. Pigments are all I have now.

I don’t believe they just added another shade of gray in the Ultrachrome Pro inkset used in this printer, I don’t believe any of the 3 shades of gray exactly match either LK or LLK of the Ultrachrome HD inkset of the p6000/8000 printer.

It’s also a completely revamped head designed.  I can’t see how they wouldn’t have to rework the ABW driver because of the inkset and head design.

[shadowblade]

Epson is the Apple of the printer world.

Yes, their printers give great print quality, and, yes, they produce great products, provided you're a print shop or someone else who runs the printer full-time, as opposed to a photographer, artist or graphic designer who prints sporadically and on demand.

But, like Apple, they seem to have developed a need to exert control over the entire print workflow, from hardware to software to consumables, to bring as much of it in-house as possible and to use every means possible - legal or otherwise - to prevent people using third-party products. This is understandable where a hardware barrier exists - for instance, you can't fit a lens onto a Nikon camera unless it has a Nikon mount - although that only raises the entry barrier (Sigma and other companies have climbed it), not blocks it outright. And Epson is perfectly within its rights to implement a hardware block preventing the refilling of cartridges and impeding the development of third-party ones. But blocking people from using or developing third-party software to control Epson hardware isn't a technical limitation - it's just anticompetitive behaviour. As would be the use of coercive measures to prevent people using third-party inks and cartridges, should Jon Cone or someone else come up with one that works in the new printers. There have even been reports of Epson declining warranty, or even refusing to service printers outright (even for money), when they have been used to print on non-Epson papers. It's all a way of locking people into an Epson-only workflow, achieved through legal and procedural means rather than technical limitations. So far, neither HP nor Canon have tried this, nor given any indication that they would.

Grounds for an anti-trust case for anti-competitive behaviour and abuse of position by a market leader? Quite possibly. Microsoft and others were hit for less than this. But there needs to be a sufficiently large number of plaintiffs (or one or two big ones) for such a claim to get off the ground, and the large-format printer, accessories and printer services market may not be big enough for this to happen.

[datro]

I don’t believe they just added another shade of gray in the Ultrachrome Pro inkset used in this printer, I don’t believe any of the 3 shades of gray exactly match either LK or LLK of the Ultrachrome HD inkset of the p6000/8000 printer.

It’s also a completely revamped head designed.  I can’t see how they wouldn’t have to rework the ABW driver because of the inkset and head design.

Wayne,

What you say would seem to make sense, but I guess I'm a little suspect because as John has pointed out, Epson has not really marketed any kind of "significantly improved" ABW capability on these new P10k/P20K printers.  If indeed Epson has full Quad K capability with ABW now, I for one would expect them to really make a big deal of this.  But maybe they just don't want to waste their marketing message on it.  If that is the case, then it is really unfortunate.

In any case, on behalf of all us interested in B&W printing, I decided to try to get an answer directly from Epson.  I contacted Epson technical support with the following question:

"I would like to know if the P10K/P20K Advanced Black and White (ABW) driver has been modified to take full advantage of the new additional gray ink on this printer. ABW on my P9000 only uses three K inks: PK or MK, LK, and LLK. Does the ABW driver on this new printer use ALL FOUR of the gray inks when printing B&W (i.e. PK or MK, DG, G, LG)? Or does it still use only three shades of K? If so, which K inks are used in ABW?"

Here is what I got back from Epson:

"Thank you for contacting Epson regarding your Epson SureColor P20000. It is my pleasure to respond to your inquiry.  Yes, the driver for both the P1000 and P2000 has been optimized to utilize the gray inks for those printers."

I followed up with an additional question to make sure this answer was referring to ABW, and got this answer from Epson:

"Thank you for contacting Epson, the printer driver provided on the Epson website does take advantage of all of the inks installed in the printer. The driver will use all of the inks when printing color or the advanced black white option.  Please note there is only one driver, there is not a separate driver for color or a separate driver for black and white printing."

So based on Epson's response as above, it seems ABW does use the four K shades on the P10K/P20K (and other inks of course to neutralize the warm K inks).  I have to admit that I'd still like to see more detail (e.g. whitepaper, technical review document, etc.) from Epson on ABW improvements on the P10K/P20K compared to earlier printers.  I think there are enough of us interested in high-end B&W printing that it would make it worth their while.

In the end, I guess we will have to get a deeper understanding of the improved ABW based on user experience and reports. I know from reading the P10K manuals that the driver software interface is exactly the same as before, but what we really need to see is if/how ABW prints differently than before.  I encourage all new owners of P10K/P20K printers here on the forum to let us know your experience with ABW, especially as it compares to ABW on previous Epson printers.

Dave

[Ernst Dinkla]

Getting the knowledge what is laid down in quad mode requires not more than a simple microscope + a printed grey wedge.

Ernst, op de lei getypt.

[deanwork]

That's so funny.

These sales and support geeks at Epson are clueless.

Even if the monochrome mode does utilize all the dilutions of the quad, there is no information on what has been improved or why.

For instance can you print out a 16 bit grayscale and linearize the patches with your spectro ? If you can't it is not a professional driver. This is not rocket science, this the foundation of a monochrome driver.

Can you tone the hue in a sophisticated and precise way to avoid that god-aweful epson cyan-bluish neutral as before ? Can you turn off all the color channels completely if you want?  Is there a professional way to do split toning or do you need to do that in Lightroom, an rgb workflow. Those are just some very basic questions of a bw driver.

Now maybe their great engineers are way ahead of the amateur hour sales force in just doing what needs to be done. They certainly have the hardware to do it! I hope so. Otherwise to get anything useful out of this printer besides speed you will need Studio Print.

If Epson could get away with putting chips in the paper rolls they would do that too. I heard there was some talk of that years ago.

john

[Wayne Fox]

Maybe Kevin will reach out to Dano and try to get some clarification. 

As I said, the reasons I believe the ABW portion of the driver was redone was because it is a brand new head, it is a 300dpi based machine instead of a 360 dpi based machine, and I am also reasonably confident that none of the gray colors in the machine match the densities in the LLK inkset.  Seems there is no option other than modifying the driver.

As to whether they did a good job of this and if they really take advantage of the 4 blacks I can’t say.  Additionally as far as why they are not shouting it from the rooftops, I would assume the target market for this printer isn’t high end black and white photographers, but high volume production houses, most of which probably never even print in ABW mode.

[deanwork]

If that is the case, then they should have put their quad inkset in the slower units, but if they are using the same print heads as the 9900s I'm not going there.

If it is a great reliable rock solid printer with a quad inkset then the target market is whatever market they choose to support and offer it to.