Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: keithcooper on March 29, 2024, 10:02:28 am

Title: A longish look at the P5300/P5370
Post by: keithcooper on March 29, 2024, 10:02:28 am

I've just finished the written version of my P5300/5370 review (~9k words)

https://www.northlight-images.co.uk/epson-sc-p5300-printer-review/

The review has a new (~18min) P5300 video review overview to go with it, as well as all the videos I produced covering aspects of using the printer.

https://youtu.be/hcTM5mOJv3o

There are also some 20 other videos looking at different aspects of using it, or using it with particular media (all linked from the written review)

Title: Profiles and the P5300/P5370
Post by: keithcooper on March 29, 2024, 10:07:39 am

In the written review I've also a list of all the 20+ papers profiled for the review.
just for US readers I included a couple of RR papers ;-)

Palo Duro 300
Big Bend Baryta 310

I've profiles, .mxf files and ABW greyscale measurements for most

Title: Re: A longish look at the P5300/P5370
Post by: Eric Brody on March 29, 2024, 08:26:23 pm

Keith, I've read the review, looked at the overview video, and as a relatively unhappy P900 owner, I'm sold.

All of it reflects your usual excellent review skills.

The "good?" news is that my P900 is currently working well (second unit, a refurb). The bad news is the refurb came with a full set of inks and I already had a fair amount of ink. Since I'm not sure I can sell the P900 in good conscience, though it's probably as reliable as any P900, I'm not in a hurry to give away all that ink. When either the ink is gone or if the printer significantly misbehaves, it's history.

I do wonder about your use of Epson ABW for black and white. I have been a happy user of Roy Harrington's QTR RIP for a long time and it makes excellent monochrome prints. In my limited testing, QTR is superior to ABW. I've even, horrors, printed straight untoned black and white with the plain Epson driver and it looks pretty good. I wonder if you could comment on this.

Thanks again for all your superb efforts with the review.

Title: Re: A longish look at the P5300/P5370
Post by: keithcooper on April 04, 2024, 08:28:25 am

Quote from: Eric Brody on March 29, 2024, 08:26:23 pm

Keith, I've read the review, looked at the overview video, and as a relatively unhappy P900 owner, I'm sold.

All of it reflects your usual excellent review skills.

The "good?" news is that my P900 is currently working well (second unit, a refurb). The bad news is the refurb came with a full set of inks and I already had a fair amount of ink. Since I'm not sure I can sell the P900 in good conscience, though it's probably as reliable as any P900, I'm not in a hurry to give away all that ink. When either the ink is gone or if the printer significantly misbehaves, it's history.

I do wonder about your use of Epson ABW for black and white. I have been a happy user of Roy Harrington's QTR RIP for a long time and it makes excellent monochrome prints. In my limited testing, QTR is superior to ABW. I've even, horrors, printed straight untoned black and white with the plain Epson driver and it looks pretty good. I wonder if you could comment on this.

Thanks again for all your superb efforts with the review.

Thanks - I do keep meaning to have a look at QTR again, but with occasional tweaks for linearity, I find ABW gives good results for B&W. I do use the QTR profile generation tool to make the linearity curves I show in some reviews.
Interestingly enough, on many papers the P5000 needed a slight adjustment in the ABW settings for neutrality, whilst the P5300 was much closer on a wide range of papers