More Info on Epson Vivid Magenta Inkset

[John Hollenberg]

I ran across a post by Eric Chan on DP Review with this link to Joseph Holmes detailed description of the Vivid Magenta Inkset and his Epson 11880:

http://www.josephholmes.com/news-epson11880.html

I found this detailed description very informative and thought others might be interested.

--John

[Mark D Segal]

Thanks John, very interesting. Now that we know Epson has the technology for putting nine channels on a printhead, customers only need await the model AFTER the 4880 when this design may finally be introduced to large format desktop printers, avoiding these aggravating and costly ink purgings to change media. That's when it will be worth up-grading from a 4800 etc. It was also a bit disappointing to see there is no improvement of DMax for matte papers. Perhaps this has just plateau'ed, making it all the more sensible to have trouble free media switching for those images that just cry for the richer blacks.

[madmanchan]

Hi Mark,

On the other hand, my testing shows that K3 regressed with respect to UltraChrome (d-max going from 1.75 down to 1.65 for some papers), so there may still be room for improvement in the next ink set or driver revisions.

For instance, the 3800 with Velvet Fine Art in color mode can get a d-max of about 1.68 whereas with ImagePrint a d-max of about 1.75 can be reached (according to the profile data). This is clearly a difference in how the ink is being put down ...

[Mark D Segal]

Thanks Eric. All the more reason to wait if one has no really compelling need to buy or up-grade now.