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Author Topic: Are 12 inks better than 11?  (Read 3925 times)

texshooter

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Are 12 inks better than 11?
« on: July 18, 2012, 04:22:14 am »

Canon's highest end printer has 12 inks, while Epson has 11. I'm curious as to why Epson, the leader of the pack, uses fewer. Is less more?
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Tony Jay

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #1 on: July 18, 2012, 04:24:11 am »

Different technology.
Not necessarily better or worse but different.

Regards

Tony Jay
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DeanChriss

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2012, 08:11:27 am »

Canon's highest end printer has 12 inks, while Epson has 11. I'm curious as to why Epson, the leader of the pack, uses fewer. Is less more?

+1 for Tony's comment. More colors isn't necessarily better or worse.

In theory it's possible to make any possible color from just cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y). In practice the black (K) made from combining all of these is muddy because the other colors aren't perfect, so black was added making the traditional CMYK ink set. This happened in the very early days of color offset printing presses, long before anyone thought of inkjet printers. That's why they called these 4-color presses. The many other colors that have since been added to ink sets in both color offset printing and in inkjet printing are there for much the same reason - to fill out parts of the gamut that are weak or missing. Pigments are just finely ground elements like cadmium sulfide (yellow), and none of these reflects a perfectly pure single wavelength, much less one that perfectly combines with all the other less than perfect colors in a given ink set. How many colors, and what specific colors are added to the basic CMYK inks depends on the deficiencies in the color gamut produced by the basic CMY inks being used.
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texshooter

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2012, 08:24:01 am »

interesting video of epson hdr ink color gamet....fast forward to about 20 min. makes me wonder if epson needs a separate red ink because red seems to fall off the gamut map first.  lucia inks have a dedicated red.
im curious if the next generation printers will have more ink colors or if they hit a wall.

http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?feature=plpp&v=gMKbMM-L-UY
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Ernst Dinkla

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2012, 03:48:20 pm »

Next to gamut there are other factors that could be improved by more pigment hues in an inkset. For example the fade resistance, the gloss behaviour, "metamerism". Any inkset is a compromise on several aspects and the HP and Canon inksets show better fade resistance while the gamut is still good.


--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

340+ paper white spectral plots:
http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
update april 2012: Harman by Hahnemühle, Innova IFA45 and more
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MHMG

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #5 on: July 18, 2012, 05:24:37 pm »

Next to gamut there are other factors that could be improved by more pigment hues in an inkset. For example the fade resistance, the gloss behaviour, "metamerism". Any inkset is a compromise on several aspects and the HP and Canon inksets show better fade resistance while the gamut is still good. .


To expand upon Ernst's comment, and for those LL forum participants with an interest in print permanence, consider this paired-comparison light fastness experiment with Epson HDR inks printed with two different Driver/RIPs using the same printer and the same batches of paper.

Using same batch of Epson Hot Press Natural:

AaI&A ID#164:  Epson Stylus Pro 9900, Epson OEM UltraChrome HDR™, RIP = ImagePrint , Paper=Epson Hot Press Natural 330gsm, AaI&A Conservation Display rating = 90-100+ Megalux hours, i.e., sample still passing upper limit criterion at 100 megalux hours total light exposure.

ID# 166:  Epson Stylus Pro 9900, Epson OEM UltraChrome HDR™, Driver = Epson OEM, Paper = Epson Hot Press Natural 330gsm, AaI&A Conservation Display rating = 53-89 Megalux hours.

Using same batch of Epson Hot Press Bright White:

ID# 168: Epson Stylus Pro 9900, Epson OEM UltraChrome HDR™, RIP = ImagePrint, Paper = Epson Hot Press Bright White 330gsm, AaI&A Conservation Display rating = still passing  both lower and upper criteria at 100 megalux hours.

ID#170: Epson Stylus Pro 9900, Epson OEM UltraChrome HDR™, Driver = Epson OEM, Paper= Epson Hot Press Bright White 330gsm, AaI&A Conservation Display rating = 69-97 Megalux hours.

So, how can a driver or RIP make a difference in print longevity with a mult-colorant ink set like HDR, and why can the HDR ink set outperform the Epson K3 and K3VM ink sets on light fastness?  It's got to do with skillful exploitation of the additional colorants... in the case of the HDR ink set, the orange and green inks.  The most likely reason for these test results is that the Image print RIP is blending HDR orange and green inks more liberally than the Epson driver, using more orange in the skin tone colors that are part of the AaI&A standard color test target, and also using more green ink when blending colors that would otherwise make green by requiring more yellow added to cyan ink. Because the Epson yellow pigment is the most fade prone and is therefore the common limiting light fastness factor in the Epson K3, K3VM, and HDR ink sets, any RIP or driver that can successfully make a more liberal substitution of the HDR orange and green inks wherever more yellow would otherwise be required while simultaneously delivering great color fidelity is going to have the potential to win on both counts.

Pretty cool results, right?

FYI: I have no commercial interests in any of these products.  Like most of my members at AaI&A, I'm just interested in how inkjet printer/ink/paper/driver/coating combinations perform with regard to both image quality and image permanence from the perspective of the end-user.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
« Last Edit: July 18, 2012, 05:52:37 pm by MHMG »
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Czornyj

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #6 on: July 19, 2012, 02:23:30 am »

Mark, thanks for another insightful tip!
Considering the above results - what you think is the cause of overall better fade resistance of Canon and HP inksets? Is it rather the result of generous RGB colorants addition, or maybe CMY colorants are less prone to fading (or both)?
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MHMG

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #7 on: July 19, 2012, 10:39:16 am »

Mark, thanks for another insightful tip!
Considering the above results - what you think is the cause of overall better fade resistance of Canon and HP inksets? Is it rather the result of generous RGB colorants addition, or maybe CMY colorants are less prone to fading (or both)?

There are two logical choices of yellow pigments commercially available and appropriate for use in fine art printing applications. One is inherently more vivid, but the other is inherently more lightfast. Hp probably chose the latter, while Canon and Epson probably chose the former. However, lightfastness of a pigmented ink also depends on numerous other factors which the ink chemists then try to engineer into the full ink set. For example, final size and distribution of the particles makes a significant difference (smallest particles less stable than largest ones) as does any chemistry (e.g. "encapsulating" techniques) which further protects the particles from photo oxidation. These additional ink formulating factors can result in a significant difference in lightfastness between two inks even if those two inks are formulated with the same bulk pigment. This additional ink formulating "know-how" and conscious compromises with additional ink attributes can therefore account for Canon's yellow ink edging out Epson's yellow ink in terms of lightfastness on average, but not always due to one's choice in media also playing a big role. It also explains why some third party pigmented yellow inks perform considerably worse in testing than either Canon or Epson yellow. The small third party vendors presumably can't always expend the same engineering efforts into their lower cost inks as the major OEM do (but that said, there are some lightfast third party inks out there as well).

As for HP's light fastness performance, HP chemists have also skillfully engineered both dye-based and pigmented ink sets which exhibit "color balanced" fading characteristics. It may seem counterintuitive, but if the cyan and magenta inks are actually engineered to be somewhat less stable than they otherwise would be while the yellow is improved as much as can be achieved by additional chemistry tricks, then overall image fading behavior results in the image simply going lighter and losing contrast over time as opposed to taking on highly undesirable hue shifts. People visually tolerate the balanced fade much better than fade which exhibits strong color balance shifts, especially in the skin tones and low chroma colors which are the key areas in an image where people judge color fidelity. Both the WIR densitometric criteria 3.0 set used to rate lightfastness at Wilhelm Imaging Research, and the I* metric used at Aardenburg Imaging & Archives in it's light fade testing protocol invoke some weighting for this color balance issue. The I* metric actually separates color balance problems from lightness and contrast problems. If you take a look at numerous HP Vivera pigment ink tests on various papers (having reasonable media whitepoint stability) you will see that HP results generally show both I* color and I* tone scores declining very evenly. This is a clear indication of "balanced fading". For Canon and Epson, you will generally find I* color declining at a faster rate than I* tone. This means the image is holding better image contrast but shifting more undesirably in color balance and/or color vividness. And for anyone who hates numbers, just look at some of the "before and after"image target reproductions in the AaI&A test reports. They are a good visual guide to how the product is fading. The reproductions of the faded targets are generated not from image scans, but from the colorimetric data measured by the spectrophotometer. This approach gives the most accurate reproduction of the fading color patches that can be achieved with today's monitor and display technology.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
« Last Edit: July 19, 2012, 02:40:17 pm by MHMG »
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deanwork

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #8 on: July 19, 2012, 02:37:02 pm »

Now that IS cool. That would sell me on Image Print for working with Epson HDR inks. That's a quite big difference and apparently will continue to be as the tests continue. I wonder if Image Print is also allowing for the minimizing of problem hues for making bw prints from this inkset?

The True Black and White Rip by BowHaus is doing a similar thing with the Canon IPF printers for monochrome use. They are limiting the problem inks while giving you precise control over exactly what ink channels are used and in what proportion. For instance you can easily increase or decrease any of the separate color channel to "tone" the monochrome to your needs while viewing the exact percentage of any of your curves of what ink is used for that custom set up. Then you save that as a custom curve.  When you linearize it with the Eye One and their software you can do some quite amazing things with only three channels of gray. For totally clean and precise neutral prints on both gloss and matte quality papers, you are not using any color ink at all.

john





Pretty cool results, right?

FYI: I have no commercial interests in any of these products.  Like most of my members at AaI&A, I'm just interested in how inkjet printer/ink/paper/driver/coating combinations perform with regard to both image quality and image permanence from the perspective of the end-user.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
[/quote]
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digitaldog

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #9 on: July 19, 2012, 02:45:30 pm »

Fascinating results Mark. Another question. Can you tell us anything about ink usage and linearity between the two driver options? For years and years, we’ve told Epson their driver in No Color Adjustment mode is severely non linear. They’ve gotten it better over the years but it has a long way to go. So what would this tell us about ink usage and linearity in terms of using the native driver and IP? Could an argument even be made that over X number of years or prints, there would be ink savings with IP that might help justify the price?
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John Nollendorfs

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #10 on: July 19, 2012, 03:29:00 pm »

Epson, Canon and HP all do different things in terms of how they laydown their inks. Epson used to laydown a fairly heavy base coat of LtCyan and LtMagent, which accounted for heavy usage of those inks over the others. Both Canon and HP laydown heavy base coats of gray inks. HP printers use two to three times as much LtGray ink as any other colors. Also HP uses generous amounts of gray component removal in the process. This tends to lead to a very "neutral" looking image, that changes color balance slowly on the print--much much slower than the Epsons do, as you adjust the balance in PS.

This also explains why HP printers, and I'm guessing Canon, seem to exhibit very little drift in color as they age. I'm amazed that in 4.5 years, I'm still using the same profiles I created when I got my Z3100.

HP balanced their gray inks in favor of a neutral tone. Epson, in contrast, has a fairly warm "carbon gray", which is balanced by other colors.

I believe that HP's approach  to balancing their gray inks, and using generous GCR, all contribute to the significantly better fade resistance of their prints.
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Justan

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #11 on: July 20, 2012, 02:26:24 pm »

^Thanks for the post^

I wondered from time to time if the reason my z3100 uses so much grey ink is because the images come from the often grey NW. Never bothered to ask about it.

PeterAit

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Re: Are 12 inks better than 11?
« Reply #12 on: July 21, 2012, 01:23:31 pm »

Different technology.
Not necessarily better or worse but different.

Regards

Tony Jay

Agreed - Canon's inks aren't the same as Epson with one more added - they're a different approach to getting wide gamut colors prints.
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