This is Scott from American Inkjet Systems, AIS.
Thanks for your comments. Here are some of my comments and information you need to know.
If we have not been responsive to anyone, I apologize. We expanded our operation by moving to larger quarters earlier this year. At the same time, we redesigned our website, a major task in itself considering all the topics we cover other than ink. During the move, we added more printers to our collection for testing. After 7 months, we are 90% finished. During this time we developed another 8 Primary Color Ink Set for some major textile companies. This project has met with great success. I mention this, because a multichannel printer has so much potential that is not being taken advantage of, i.e. the Roland dual 6 color that became the Symphony 12. Elements of our new textile technology will be applied to our new 7 Primary Ink Set for the 9900 and for the Symphony 12 both designed for Photo/Fine Art.
What you should be aware of getting involved with the Roland Symphony 12 is greater cost and a good deal of learning. You need to find an older printer, like a Soljet or FJ 540 and or a 72 inch FJ printer and apply older firmware. While Roland will be of little help, we do have other users that will help you as well as having us for support. One good piece of news is that Xrite improved multichannel color management.
I created the Symphony 12 ink set over 8 years ago to push the envelope. This is not just a business for us, it is our passion.
You basically see ink companies offering slight variations of the same 4 color system with light inks, trying to match the original manufacturer. Epson entered the arena with the 9900 utilizing Orange and Green, which by the way, are the same Orange and Green produced for Roland over 10 years ago. Roland rejected it for light colors having stated that their reds were not much better than they were getting without those colors. This makes the system a 6 Color system as it was 10 years ago.
Most other ink companies large and small, follow the original manufacturer’s ink setup and ink colors. There are two reasons for this:
1. They do not have to get involved with printing technology, profiling and while companies that do offer profiles, only have to offer RGB profiles. This approach offers these companies the least effort and the least expense to enter the ink arena.
2. The second reason is that they have little imagination, no understanding of multichannel ink balancing, Rip Software, and Color Management. This technology necessitates sophisticated understanding and a significant investment.
Here is a simplified understanding of ink Light Resistance. Pigment inks are rated by the industry from 1 to 8, eight being the longest life. Carbon Black with a high density offers the longest life, while quality blues, reds and other dark colors offer between 7+ and 8. Yellows are the weak link and vary from 5 to 7. Diluted inks made from dark inks will diminish their resistance to light greatly. If you are printing the same image with several different rips as well as the Epson driver utilizing the same ink, you can end up with different results in overall fade resistance. You can read more about light resistance on our blog page.