Are we seeing the end of photo printer evolution?

[Dan Wells]

As I look at what's on the market today, I can't help but notice that most present photo printers have either been on the market a long time, or are closely related descendents of old models. The HPs are the oldest, at nearly a decade. The Epson x900 series were introduced in 2008, while the Canon x400 series are technically relatively recent 2012 models, but are basically the same machines as the x300 series from 2010. The few smaller-format "serious" photo printers left are using 2005-vintage inksets, except for the Canon Pro-1. There is actually less selection in extended-inkset printers at every size than there was a few years ago. HP has retreated completely from anything with >4 inks, with the exception of the old Z3200 in 24" and 44" sizes, while they had everything from 8.5x11" printers up to 44" a few years ago. All Epsons below the 4900 use the old Vivid Magenta inkset, are 4 color, or are dye-pigment hybrids. Canon is innovating more than anyone else in the smaller printers - the Pro-1 uses a fifth black.

Have the makers run out of ways to innovate? Are the gamuts so huge that there is really nowhere to go - what about a printer with the Epson HDR inkset, plus a Canon-style blue, for example? What about a wide-format machine with a fifth black (which seems to make a difference on the Pro-1, and Jon Cone is actually using SEVEN blacks in one of his inksets)? Or is the market for fine-art photo printers so small, compared to the sign-making market, that everybody has retreated?

Dan

[Geraldo Garcia]

(...) Or is the market for fine-art photo printers so small, compared to the sign-making market, that everybody has retreated?

I believe that covers the HP way of thinking.
Epson and Canon are comfortably seated on their thrones with no real reason to change their game.
Even being a perfectionist freak I must admit that all the "huge differences" that we see and talk about are almost imperceptible to the common user before we point it out. The current high end printers are certainly on a very good level and we should ask what should the manufacturers improve?
Resolution? I don't think so.
Speed? Well, that is important to some and none at all to others.
Scratch resistance? Sure it is important, but hard to improve as it is partially a consequence of the paper used.
Color gamut? Well, it is always good to have more, but it is quite good as it is already.
Dmax? Same as above.
More blacks/grays? Sure, as the two above it is always good to have more, but I don't think it would appeal to the majority of the users.

I believe we will face only incremental improvements until some truly new technology arrives.
  

[Iluvmycam]

I don't know Dan. But I'd like a dedicated BW printer and a 3880 that is designed like my the R2000. (Gloss Optimizer, Epson Vivid and on the fly MK / PK.

[Dan Wells]

From reviews I'd read, the HP WITH the Gloss Enhancer was only about as low-bronzing as the latest Canons and Epsons without. The HP ink was otherwise behind Lucia EX and Ultrachrome HDR (it was more like the x000 series Canon inks and the pre-Vivid Magenta Epson inks), and the gloss enhancer brought it up to the latest standard? I have extensive experience with Canons and Epsons, but have never used an HP larger than 13", so I'm going from what I've read here...

That said, a gloss enhancer might help the latest generation of inks as well. It seems like a 14-ink printer would be justifiable, and the ideal combination might be something like (simply combining what already exists - not wondering what something entirely new like a purple or brown ink might do, or three strengths of magenta or cyan):
11 channels of Ultrachrome HDR (the Epson orange/green combination seems to be a little better than Canon's red/green)+
Blue similar to the Lucia EX Blue+
Extra Black that Canon is using in the Pro-1+
Gloss Enhancer

It took about ten years to go from the first pigment-ink printers with weird gamuts only the size of sRGB (and oddly shaped to boot) with all sorts of strange metamerism and green casts to the Ultrachrome HDR/Lucia EX generation with well-behaved gamuts that cover most of Adobe RGB and exceed it in some areas. Once we got there, we've sat for five years. There are colors the latest sensors can capture that no printer can print (I'm thinking of some of the recent Sony full-frame and MF sensors with excellent dynamic range, as seen in recent Nikons, Sony's own cameras and now he 50 MP medium format CMOS sensors), and there are colors a Canon can reach, but not an Epson, and vice versa. Would the 14-ink printer above cover everything a Canon OR an Epson can reach today? Probably... Would it cover everything the latest Sony sensors can capture? Perhaps.

Whether it reached the edges of what the most recent sensors can do or not, it would be more transparent to artistic intent than any printer we have, and that seems reason enough for someone to build one. Photo technology is ultimately about taking what we see and transferring it into a final form, and it seems like, while the printers we have are very good at that, better is possible with current technology...

[samueljohnchia]

From reviews I'd read, the HP WITH the Gloss Enhancer was only about as low-bronzing as the latest Canons and Epsons without.

Scott Martin's review showed that the HP with GE still lags behind. His picture from his review:



In many ways the current crop of inkjet printers can improve a fair bit more. Dot sizes should get a lot smaller. Epson should change its fugitive yellow. Dmax for matte media needs to go up and gamut improvements in the deep shadows and bright highlights would be nice. Gloss differential and bronzing on glossy media should get a lot better.

[Geraldo Garcia]

Scott Martin's review showed that the HP with GE still lags behind. His picture from his review:

Well, I don't want to sound rude, but that conclusion is simply wrong. Scott is an extremely competent professional but my personal experience makes me disagree on this specific matter. HP Vivera inks are terrible regarding bronzing and gloss differential when used without the gloss enhancer, but quite good when used with it.
About bronzing alone we could call it a tie between Lucia EX, K3 HDR and Vivera+Gloss enhancer. Some will perform better on some papers as others will on other papers.
About gloss differential there is no possible argument. Try any luster/semi-gloss paper and the Vivera+gloss enhancer will win easily. I mean, there is *no* competition.
Canon and Epson managed a quite good performance on glossy papers, their pigments managed to retain the glossiness of the paper and so there is no much difference between printed and unprinted areas, but on papers where the unprinted area looks more matte than the printed area, only a gloss enhancer can do the trick.

Edit:
Rereading his review I noticed that he used Canson Baryta Photographique for this test and that explain the statement somehow. Canson Baryta Photographique is a beautiful paper that I use and love but it is one of the very few papers that, somehow, does not work well with the gloss enhancer. Doesn't matter how much Gloss Enhancer you tell the printer's media configuration to pour over the paper, it simply never eliminated the gloss differential. Other papers, like Canson Platine, does not display this behavior and allows the gloss enhancer to shine (no pun intended).

[kers]

Hai Geraldo,
you seem to know about papers that fare well with Gloss enhancer , like Canson Platine...
I am on a HPZ3100 for years now and am always looking for nice papers with a nice gamut that work well with the gloss enhancer.
As you say - it is very paper specific. i like very much the hahnemuhle Photo Rag Baryta, especially for black and white.
Any suggestions?
On mattpapers the reds are a weak point on this Machine- any suggestions there ?

[Ernst Dinkla]

Rereading his review I noticed that he used Canson Baryta Photographique for this test and that explain the statement somehow. Canson Baryta Photographique is a beautiful paper that I use and love but it is one of the very few papers that, somehow, does not work well with the gloss enhancer. Doesn't matter how much Gloss Enhancer you tell the printer's media configuration to pour over the paper, it simply never eliminated the gloss differential. Other papers, like Canson Platine, does not display this behavior and allows the gloss enhancer to shine (no pun intended).

True, some glossy papers behave better with HP Vivera pigment inks and HP Vivera pigment Inks + its Gloss Enhancer. It also depends on the amount of Gloss Enhancer with some (Epson Proofing White Semi Matte) but that is no remedy in all cases. The old Ilford Smooth Pearl RC behaved well with the Gloss Enhancer, Economy mode too.

BTW, there is an alternative for the Canson Platine. Felix Schoeller seems to be the coater for Canson and the company launched its own Professional Photo and Fine Art range with a Felix Schoeller J23000 True Rag Silk Satin 305 paper equivalent for Platine. There are other alternatives in that range for both Canson and Hahnemühle papers. Check SpectrumViz.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
September 2014, 650+ inkjet media white spectral plots.

[Gary Damaskos]

As I look at what's on the market today, I can't help but notice that most present photo printers have either been on the market a long time, or are closely related descendents of old models. The HPs are the oldest, at nearly a decade. The Epson x900 series were introduced in 2008, while the Canon x400 series are technically relatively recent 2012 models, but are basically the same machines as the x300 series from 2010. The few smaller-format "serious" photo printers left are using 2005-vintage inksets, except for the Canon Pro-1. There is actually less selection in extended-inkset printers at every size than there was a few years ago. HP has retreated completely from anything with >4 inks, with the exception of the old Z3200 in 24" and 44" sizes, while they had everything from 8.5x11" printers up to 44" a few years ago. All Epsons below the 4900 use the old Vivid Magenta inkset, are 4 color, or are dye-pigment hybrids. Canon is innovating more than anyone else in the smaller printers - the Pro-1 uses a fifth black.

Have the makers run out of ways to innovate? Are the gamuts so huge that there is really nowhere to go - what about a printer with the Epson HDR inkset, plus a Canon-style blue, for example? What about a wide-format machine with a fifth black (which seems to make a difference on the Pro-1, and Jon Cone is actually using SEVEN blacks in one of his inksets)? Or is the market for fine-art photo printers so small, compared to the sign-making market, that everybody has retreated?

Dan

Thank you for starting this thread. I too am wondering what is going on...and fingers crossed for some printer action...

[spinellino]

BTW, there is an alternative for the Canson Platine. Felix Schoeller seems to be the coater for Canson and the company launched its own Professional Photo and Fine Art range with a Felix Schoeller J23000 True Rag Silk Satin 305 paper equivalent for Platine.

Where can I find it?

[disneytoy]

I think the current wide Epsons are quite pleasing. I can see better processors. More reliable routines to prevent clogs as advances.

[samueljohnchia]

Edit:
Rereading his review I noticed that he used Canson Baryta Photographique for this test and that explain the statement somehow. Canson Baryta Photographique is a beautiful paper that I use and love but it is one of the very few papers that, somehow, does not work well with the gloss enhancer. Doesn't matter how much Gloss Enhancer you tell the printer's media configuration to pour over the paper, it simply never eliminated the gloss differential. Other papers, like Canson Platine, does not display this behavior and allows the gloss enhancer to shine (no pun intended).

Thanks for clarifying your stand Geraldo. It seems that an ink set like the LUCIA EX with minimal gloss differential to start with combined with an additional gloss enhancer (like in the PRO-1) would be wonderful. Starting with an inkset that is poorly performing with regards to gloss differential and adding a gloss enhancer would not work well across all glossy papers.

[Wayne Fox]

I believe that covers the HP way of thinking.
Epson and Canon are comfortably seated on their thrones with no real reason to change their game.

I think HP might actually be the one on the throne ... I believe they have currently have a 40% LFP market share.  canon is second, epson 3rd.

But the overall market is split between the “technical” markets and the graphics market, and Epson has more than double the share of it’s nearest competitor of graphic segment, while HP dominates the technical segment.

Seems HP has always seen the graphic/fine-art side as secondary, and has such a large share they’re pretty content.  Canon sits in the middle (and still sells more to the technical side than the graphic side) but has been working to increase their graphic share in the past 5 years or so.  Epson seems to focus on the graphic side, but most of what they have been doing lately seems to be directed at the technical side.

I don’t have any real issues with my 9900 and clogs/ missing nozzles, but I do wish Epson would address the yellow dye, so they  would be more competitive with Canon’s longevity.  Again, problem is for most graphic houses as well as technical applications, longevity isn’t a concern, so not even sure it’s on their to-do list.

[Ernst Dinkla]

Where can I find it?

Hard to say yet. Felix Schoeller still has to find dealers I think. It is a big company and it is present all over the world. Any distributor can buy its products but few may be interested in yet another supplier of fine art and pro photo media. The products they already made were sold rebranded but my guess is that this time the FS name should be kept. Rauch GMBH in Germany distributes FS products but not this range as far as I know.
In Europe the biggest suppliers in this segment are Hahnemühle, Innovaart and Canson I was told and some raised their eyebrows on how FS could get market share. The quality will be excellent I think but there is more needed to get into this market.

--
Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
September 2014, 650+ inkjet media white spectral plots.

[Robert Ardill]

About gloss differential there is no possible argument. Try any luster/semi-gloss paper and the Vivera+gloss enhancer will win easily. I mean, there is *no* competition.
Canon and Epson managed a quite good performance on glossy papers, their pigments managed to retain the glossiness of the paper and so there is no much difference between printed and unprinted areas, but on papers where the unprinted area looks more matte than the printed area, only a gloss enhancer can do the trick.

Having just changed from a Z3100 to an iPF6400 I can confidently second that.  The gloss enhancer is really fantastic for gloss differential.

I wonder if there is a spray, like the Lyson Print Guard perhaps, that would have the same effect as the HP gloss enhancer?  And at the same time provide additional protection to the print.

In reply to the OP, my biggest wish is reliability, reliability, reliability!  I think the current printers are fantastic, but all you have to do is to read some of the posts on this forum to see that there are still some big-time reliability problems with things like head clogs on the Epsons.  If I was Epson I would forget about going further down the pico-litre route and concentrate on fixing the head clogs (having had 2 Epsons in the past, I didn't even consider an Epson this time round for this reason alone).  I now find out that with Canon I may have to replace the print heads at a cost of nearly $1000 every year: that should not be acceptable to us.  With HP the paper feed was a major pain in the butt, IMO, but my Z3100 was certainly an amazingly reliable machine (I would have bought a Z3200 if I hadn't had concerns that HP might drop that product line).


Robert

[Mark Lindquist]

The HP's are amazing machines and it is somewhat a "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" kind of thing.

As Robert Ardill posted, reliability is the main issue. 

HP could improve the following on Z3100 and Z3200 machines:

Create a better carriage head belt system that can be EASILY repaired without taking the entire machine apart.
(It's like having to pull the motor to change the oil, in a car, for goodness sakes...)

They could improve sensor switches with more robust parts.

They could theoretically make a stronger more capable cutter (although hand cutting canvas is fine with me)

They could easily incorporate a scanner into the current system and add it as an option.  (If I'm not mistaken, the Photo Spectrometer already scans targets...)

They could improve sheet handling capabilities by including some kind of sled for smaller paper sizes.
(This would be a biggy for me, since the Z3200 prints on smaller format papers incredibly well, but loading them is a real PITA.)

It would be nice to have a diagnostic tool that could compare custom profiles that have been made to see which ones are superior.

But other than the MAJOR issue of replacing the belt, the rest would be more gravy for a machine and system that is awesome as it stands.

I certainly hope HP's interest in this market becomes reinvigorated - it is one the best printers out there, IMO.

-ML

[Some Guy]

....
Create a better carriage head belt system that can be EASILY repaired without taking the entire machine apart.
(It's like having to pull the motor to change the oil, in a car, for goodness sakes...)
....
But other than the MAJOR issue of replacing the belt, the rest would be more gravy for a machine and system that is awesome as it stands.

I certainly hope HP's interest in this market becomes reinvigorated - it is one the best printers out there, IMO.

-ML

I never thought about the belt on the currently broken Epson being a mere 22 months old and now maybe history, but I can see the belt breaking on it and getting the carriage off the rails to change it.  The spring-loaded belt pulley on one side is a piece of cake as is the driving tooth one off the motor end, but getting it off the carriage is another matter.  Took me 10 hours to get the carriage off the rails to even see behind the thing and where the belt is attached.  They did appear to build up the machine around the print head and carriage making it a throw away machine for any problems developing there (Broken plastic tabs, springs, print head, belt, sensors, hoses, dampners, etc.).  What could ever go wrong in there?

Really, they should make the designers fix these things in the field sometime!  Probably would result in better machines overall as well if they experience their shortcomings too.

SG

[Dan Wells]

Another thing that would be interesting to see is a 24" printer made specifically for photographers. All existing 24" machines are based heavily on the requirements of print shops, and are actually inkjet plotter chassis. There's no need to make a machine as heavy as these for the average photographer's workload, and there are a couple of features these printers don't have that would be really useful to photographers. It's not impossible - HP actually had a 6 color dye-based unit (the DesignJet 130) in the early 2000s that was a nearly ideal chassis for a lot of photographers - graft a modern inkset with more colors on to that machine, and you have something really interesting.

The DesignJet 130 was about 60 lbs, didn't come with its own stand(you could buy one from HP), but was only about 36" wide, because it had a LOT less space on both sides of the carriage than most current 24" printers (which are over 48" wide). In addition to being radically more compact than its 24" competitors (and less than half the weight), it actually had a paper tray! The tray was either 13" or 17", because nobody sheet feeds 24" paper anyway, but it provided an interesting combination of small and medium sheet feed with roll capability. The roll feed was relatively primitive (although not dissimilar to the rear roll feed on the current HP Z-series, it was nothing like the fancy power roll-feeders on the current Canon and Epson models)

What you'd almost certainly lose is really huge ink cartridges (I seem to recall the DesignJet 130's being in the 80 ml range), and quite a bit of speed. I think a lot of photographers might trade speed and huge cartridges for compactness and a sheet feed. HP has some current 4-color 24" and even 36" models that seem similar to the old 130 (the T120 and T520), including a 36" printer that is both smaller in every dimension and quite a bit lighter than an Epson 7900. One of the tradeoffs in the 36" T520 is almost certainly a non-starter for most photographers - the color cartridges are truly tiny (29 ml), although the black is 80 ml. Still, it shouldn't be too hard to fit decent-sized cartridges into a machine that's not the size of a 7900...

Another way to look at this machine is a 24" Epson 3880 with a newer inkset and a roll feeder?

[Ernst Dinkla]

What I recall of the Designjet 130 cart size is 28 ML content which is a show stopper in my opinion. The dye inks needed a compatible paper to create some longevity and HP ceased to make several choices of these papers. I agree that a 24" 8 ink pigment printer in similar fashion would fill a gap in this market. Even in the 17" desktop segment there is too little competition, dominated by Epson and the 3880 as the best machine then.

Building on the Z3200 B version I think HP could quite easily make a better machine with few hardware changes. While the belt repair is a PIT* and could be made more easy, HP should at least deliver a better belt quality. For sheet feeding I never use the lid (taken it off actually) but feed over a paper roll. It would be very nice if HP added a new choice in the menu that allows sheet feeding with the paper transport handle set free so one can immediately align the paper to the blue lines and drop the handle again. That sheet feeding choice not asking for 'sheet or roll' and not asking for 'media type' but expecting the last sheet media choice setting as being the correct one. That way sheet print runs would be way faster than it is now. About 7 inks in the Z3200 are similar to the Z5200 8 ink system. Allow the new Z3200 model to accept the 300 ML carts of the Z5200 range. Among them are the most consumed ones of the Z3200; Light Grey, Matte Black, Yellow, etc It would create a competitive ink price again versus Epson/Canon and have no impact on the HP ink distribution system. The cartridge compartment lids of the Z5200 will fit the Z3200 as well. Ugly but I can live with that. As I understand it the Z3200 B is slightly faster than the Z3200 A version and I can live with the speed of the last for the volume I print.

Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
September 2014, 650+ inkjet media white spectral plots.

[Dan Wells]

I thought the 130's carts were bigger than 28 ml, but maybe I'm remembering the black (which was certainly larger than most of the colors). The current T120 and T520 do use 29 ml carts, which I agree with Ernst are a showstopper for photographers, even if those weren't 4-ink printers. It should be possible to get 80 ml (or so)cartridges into a similarly sized chassis, though, perhaps mounted over the platen in the manner of the 3880. Really large cartridges won't fit, but I'm not sure most photographers need 300 ml on most channels, and many might trade off having the big cartridges on the few channels where they make sense for a more convenient printer with both roll and sheet feeds.

Dan