Epson 12 Ink Printers

[PSQuared7]

Has anybody heard anything on whether Epson is planning on bringing out a 12 ink printer? Logically, I would think that they would need to have one out by the fall in order to maintain any kind of market share. Thanks in advance.

[abiggs]

Has anybody heard anything on whether Epson is planning on bringing out a 12 ink printer? Logically, I would think that they would need to have one out by the fall in order to maintain any kind of market share. Thanks in advance.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=110589\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Don't expect Epson to have 12 color printers on the market any time soon. Epson has equivalent success with their 8 color inksets to competitors' 12 color inksets, and moving to 12 inks would pretty much be nothing more than marketing hype. Keep in mind that Epson licenses their inkheads to other companies, so their actions impact more than just the Epson line of printers.

I am not under NDA, but Epson is rumored to be updating their inks, but not their printheads. Incremental updates....

[feppe]

Don't expect Epson to have 12 color printers on the market any time soon. Epson has equivalent success with their 8 color inksets to competitors' 12 color inksets, and moving to 12 inks would pretty much be nothing more than marketing hype. Keep in mind that Epson licenses their inkheads to other companies, so their actions impact more than just the Epson line of printers.

I am not under NDA, but Epson is rumored to be updating their inks, but not their printheads. Incremental updates....
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=110593\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

If one wants to print both b&w and color, benefits of more than 8 inks are much more than marketing hype.

[Greg_E]

If one wants to print both b&w and color, benefits of more than 8 inks are much more than marketing hype.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=110594\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

That should read:

If you want to print color and B/W on both gloss and matte papers, the benefits of more than 8 channels are much more than marketing hype. We must not forget to remind them of the black ink swap that still needs to be done, they need to correct this!

If Epson simply changed the density of their gray inks to be lighter, the B/W would require less color inks for the lighter tones, producing a better print. They keep failing to see this and using gray inks that are too dark.

[abiggs]

Because Epson has the switching of black inks, I will not purchase another Epson product until this is rectified. Heck, i never 'upgraded' to the 4800 from my 4000 specifically for this reason.

Regarding the 8 versus 12 ink debate, I will let others chime in to represent the 12 color machines on the market. It is my experience that black and white output on the Epson is very close to that of the Z3100 series printers, so I don't consider that a major difference. From a color standpoint, from everything I have seen with my own eyes is that the HP excels in areas that Epson does not, and vice versa. Perhaps Epson's science behind their inks and mixing is more sophisticated, thus requiring fewer inks. I just don't know. It doesn't appear to be much different from an actual output standpoint, though. If Epson doesn't need to have more inks, why should they move to 12 inks? Marketing? Perhaps. There is always room for improvement, but I think Epson would be better served solving the switching of black inks first. This would make a huge difference to many of us.

[John Hollenberg]

I haven't seen a big difference with the Canon iPF5000 compared to Epson 2400.  In my opinion, the Epson K3 inkset has a somewhat more useful gamut (better in warmer colors).  I am planning to print some comparison prints using Epson and Canon printer, both on Epson Premium Luster with custom profiles, then show them to some folks at work (blind comparison test) and see which they prefer.

Still have to make the profiles with same profiling software and exact same number of patches in target, plus I have to get the clogs out of the 2400 to do the test.  Have been working on clearing it for 24 hours, but so far not successful.  Does anyone know how to manually move the head so I can get to the capping station?  Easy to do on my 2200, but can't figure out how to do it on the 2400.

--John

[Greg_E]

John, check the instructions on the InkRepublic website for installing their CIS. I think they will have the info you need.

[jpgentry]

This illustrates the fact that since the 4000/7600/9600/hp designjet130 printers there is going to be a drastic slowing of image quality improvement.  From normal viewing distance all colors within gamut should look about the same on all these printers right down to the newest.  B/W may be a different story as those who print in this format seem to be EXTREEMLY discerning (picky.)  Also our eyes are more discerning with only tonal differences in B/W prints versus color prints.

The real room for improvement as has been stated so many times before are in printer cost, ink cost, speed, paper handling and other features.  It seems like print quality and color gamut are really where they need to be for most users.

-Jonathan

I haven't seen a big difference with the Canon iPF5000 compared to Epson 2400.  In my opinion, the Epson K3 inkset has a somewhat more useful gamut (better in warmer colors).  I am planning to print some comparison prints using Epson and Canon printer, both on Epson Premium Luster with custom profiles, then show them to some folks at work (blind comparison test) and see which they prefer.

Still have to make the profiles with same profiling software and exact same number of patches in target, plus I have to get the clogs out of the 2400 to do the test.  Have been working on clearing it for 24 hours, but so far not successful.  Does anyone know how to manually move the head so I can get to the capping station?  Easy to do on my 2200, but can't figure out how to do it on the 2400.

--John
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=110617\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[Haraldo]

SNIP... If Epson doesn't need to have more inks, why should they move to 12 inks? Marketing? Perhaps. There is always room for improvement, but I think Epson would be better served solving the switching of black inks first. This would make a huge difference to many of us.

Keep in mind that the Z3100 has 11 ink colors. The 12th ink is Gloss Enhancer. To some, this is the big plus (ink-wise). Reduced gloss differential and virtually no bronzing, especially in B&W where it's been a problem with pigments on gloss/semi-gloss. Epson has Gloss Optimizer, but not in large format. Yet.

Harald