Epson 9900 or 9890?

[HowieShultz]

Two year ago I bought the Epson 4900 and have been pretty satisfied with the results.  It was my first printer so as a newbie I went through the learning curve and now am looking  at doing prints at 44" so I was thinking of getting the 9900 as I figured it would have the same color space with the HDR inks as well as a similar driver and panel interface.  Two of my friends suggested that I should seriously consider the 9890 instead because they said they could not tell the difference in the same print made with the two different printers.  I thought that the additional green and orange inks as well as the increased color space would make the 9900 a slightly better choice but my friends have suggested is that in "real world printing" there is essentially no noticeable difference to justify the additional cost of the printer as well as the additional expense of the 2 extra inks with the 9900.  I am willing to pay the additional money if I felt the quality of the 9900 was better than the 9890.  But if there is not really any tangible difference I just assume save the money.  So I was wondering what others have seen in regard to this issue.  Thanks for your help.

[I.T. Supplies]

The 9900 is more for doing proofing images for the final product (graphic design jobs), but if you do portraits, landscapes, etc, the Orange and Green may help with the skin tone, grass, leaves and anything else with those colors.

We've also done a test print on the 7900 with and w/o the 2 extra colors and really didn't see a difference.  We did the test print on a flower with high contract greens and some orange tones.

If you're doing mainly photo prints and not much of proofing to final prints, I would recommend going with the 9890 as well.
Let us know if you have any other questions regarding these 2 models.

Atlex.com

[davidh202]

     Atlex is 1000 % correct !!
I started with a 7900, and when it came time to upgrade (which I should have done from the start), I purchased a 9890 from them instead of the 9900.
Use the difference in cost to stock up on a bunch of paper, and the cost of the initial ink carts replacement.

David

[hugowolf]

Apart from prepress proofing, another reason for going with orange and green inks would be print longevity, but only if you are using a RIP. Many RIPs can often use O and G in the screening process to replace Y, and the yellow ink on Epson printers has the weakest longevity.

The Epson drivers do not take advantage of this, but several RIPs do. RIPs are expensive. The O and G inks, when running through the driver, are the least used inks.

The increased gamut is incrementally small. It does not in my opinion have an effect on skin tones (light or dark). I went with the 9890, and have not regretted it so far.

Brian A

[HowieShultz]

thanks for all of your thoughtful responses as it has helped me a lot.

[John Caldwell]

An item that has worked for me is the ability to share custom profiles made for the 4900 or 9900 interchangeably. This is probably a vanishingly minor point, perhaps or debatable value, but I'll share it.

Having no knowledge of the price differences between the 9890 and 9900 machines, I will say that i wouldn't buy either unit without an extended warrant contract.

John Caldwell

[Paul2660]

I feel the the stock 9900 is used as much or more as a standard inkjet printer.  Epson makes a proofing version of the 9900 which is the same printer but with a proofing tool attached at the output.  This is the printer that I see in large shops that are proofing on a commercial scale.  If you are working in such an environment a standard 9900 would be a big hassle vs. having the proofing generated as you make the print.  Totally different type of work flow. 

As for the effect of orange and green, I can't say you see a big difference but you can't use the profiles from the 9890 on the 9900 so the inks come into play somewhere.  The usage of these two colors is no where as much as the other 9. 

For sure the 9890 and 9900 both have about the same gloss differential as the older Epson's i.e. too much, and you still have metamerism  issues with various colors on various glossy/semi glossy papers something I had hoped to get away from in moving from the 9880 to 9900.

+1 to John's point on using the 4900 in combination the two should work with the same profiles. 

Paul Caldwell

[langier]

It's  nice to have but one set of profiles and the same ink sets with two printers. Less chance of mismatched prints when you change printers or print sizes.