Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: markrause on August 29, 2016, 04:23:34 pm
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Has anyone used the Epson P10000 yet? I can't find any review online. How does it compare to the 9900?
Thanks
Marcelo
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Private message Gary from iCanvas. He recently went from a 9900 to the P10000.
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I have recently bought a P10000 from Tastar Data here in Pittsburgh and am very pleased with it. I print only on canvas and compared a print from my 9900 and the new P10000. There was hardly any difference. The difference in gamut will not be that apparent on canvas. The blacks were more robust on the P10000. The P10000 is fast, fast, fast. Love it. It cost about twice what a P9000 or P8000 runs for, but I plan on keeping this for many years. When I get a full feel for the printer I will put up a review. For me all the new technology in the P10000 is worth it and the 700ml cartridges are much cheaper than the P8000 and P9000.
Gar
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Well that's the thing. The ink cost is going to be a lot less, though you can only buy the big carts, which is fine by me. Also they seem to be clogging a lot less, and require less cleaning cycles and maintenance tanks so you should save a lot there also. There is talk that they redesigned the ink lines, and that may be true with their other large format models out now. Don't know about that.
My supplier says there are a lot of units out there now and they are in big demand, so I doubt we'll see any price breaks on them for some time.
I'm really interested in learning about what is happening with the monochrome output with the extra gray. According to Roy Harrington, it is doubtful that the QTR software is ever going to support these new Epsons because they are so different. But for very precise ink limiting and hue toning control Studio Print does support all the new Epson printers. ABW might work a lot better with this new inkset also. Don't know about that either. Wish someone would do a thorough review of all the aspects.
John
I have recently bought a P10000 from Tastar Data here in Pittsburgh and am very pleased with it. I print only on canvas and compared a print from my 9900 and the new P10000. There was hardly any difference. The difference in gamut will not be that apparent on canvas. The blacks were more robust on the P10000. The P10000 is fast, fast, fast. Love it. It cost about twice what a P9000 or P8000 runs for, but I plan on keeping this for many years. When I get a full feel for the printer I will put up a review. For me all the new technology in the P10000 is worth it and the 700ml cartridges are much cheaper than the P8000 and P9000.
Gar
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The ink cost is going to be a lot less, though you can only buy the big carts, which is fine by me.
John
That's interesting, as Epson Australia (http://www.epson.com.au/Prographics/products/largeformat/DisplayConsumables.asp?id=SureColor-P10070&groupid=89&grouptypeid=20) sells the P10000 as the P10070 (looks and specs appear the same to me) and they offer 350ml carts as well.
Brian.
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Same printer, yes.
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Anyone tried one of these printers with Piezography yet?
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We have ordered our first P10000 and hope to take delivery in a little over a week. If it works out as well as we hope, we'll move forward with a combination of P10000's and P20000's to take on the core of our colour printing workflow, supplanting our current crop of 11880's. My first task on arrival of the P10K will be to do a bunch of custom profiling and see how the inkset performs on a bunch of our common output media. (It will be awhile before ImagePrint support comes, so we'll make do with other options in the interim, probably Qimage.) I will post some thoughts when I have the time to organize them. :)
Shadowblade, I'm pretty sure nobody has tried Piezography on the P10K / P20K for a variety of reasons. The printers have been shipping only for a very short time. As noted by John above, Roy Harrington has said QuadToneRip may never support these printers because their head architecture is too different to be supported by the QTR driver as it is now. And Jon Cone has said these printers may never support Cone inks, or any other refillable 3rd-party inks, due to Epson's increasingly aggressive proprietary ink cartridge lock-in methods. So don't hold your breath on that front.
This is why I'm really motivated to find a way to get our 11880's going on Piezography. If the new SureColor's can become our colour printing workhorses as intended, then hopefully we can retire our 11880's into our Piezography workflow -- if I can get the latter working (touch wood).
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If Jon can find a way to get alternative ink carts and somehow bypass the new Epson high security electronics then piezography would work. Epson has gone a long way this time to keep their system secure and they've had many years to work on it. They thought they did it last time but they didn't.
As for software, Studio Print is already supporting all the new Epson LF printers and it could certainly drive it for any kind of monochrome set up. Those of us who have it and know how to use it could do it fairly quickly IF the ink security and carts could be hacked without causing some kind of a law suit on hardware copyright infringement.
I don't think that Epson cares much one way or another about Piezography, as it is small potatoes to them, but the third party color inks out there take a huge bite out of their bottom line and they will do anything they can to stop that. That may be one of the reasons they are also lowering their cost of inks in the big carts for production printing companies, that have in the past been using a lot of the 3rd party color inksets.
Studio Print is by far the most sophisticated and adaptable software for monochrome printing as well as printing on difficult alternative media such as fabrics and hand-made papers BUT it is quite expensive and there is certainly a learning curve involved. Also Epson clamped down on Ergosoft very hard many years ago for helping support alternative bw inksets, so you are totally on your own working out a workflow. That wouldn't stop people like me from using it but the significant expense and lack of support from ErgoSoft would stop a lot of people. But who knows, Roy said the last generation of printers were most likely unhackable, but he did it with QTR. But for the foreseeable future the 11880 would make a perfect Piezography printer, or if you can find any 7890s or 9890s left out there they work great too, that's what I'm currently using.
Last time I was at Cone's studio he had a new Canon 8300 sitting there and was going to experiment with his inks in the thermal printers, but it didn't come to that because the 900 series were usable after all.
What would be really cool is if Jon could develop and market his own printers to use any inks they want in. But that would be a huge feat to come up with a head design that isn't copyright protected. Wonder if some eccentric engineer has some other head design out there. ( then you would have to service them and provide parts, which is an equally big deal.........) Just thinking out loud?
john
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As I've said earlier, I hope some Chinese companies start moving up in the photo inkjet world. After all, they already make more inkjets than Epson, Canon and HP combined, often with sophisticated RIP software, and sell them at a lower price than their Epson equivalents. Just that these are all geared towards industrial use, at 60" to much, much larger, with multiple sets of CMYK for speed rather than light colours and extra colours, printing billboards, banners, advertising material, film coverings for vehicles, etc. - there's no equivalent of the P9000, Pro 4000 or Z3200. Thing is, these companies don't make ink and don't care what you put in them - they'll even sell you the empty tanks or bulk ink systems.
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What would be really cool is if Jon could develop and market his own printers to use any inks they want in. But that would be a huge feat to come up with a head design that isn't copyright protected. Wonder if some eccentric engineer has some other head design out there. ( then you would have to service them and provide parts, which is an equally big deal.........) Just thinking out loud?
john
Actually, this is not hard at all.
A Chinese inkjet printer with an epson printhead will do the job easily
as long as, for example, get Roy or Ergosoft to support that printer, things will turns out easy.
I have once talked to Jon when he was visiting Asia, he said his dream printer would be a flatbed just like the flatbed uv printer.
And I think this is coming to be true for now on since there are a lot of Chinese company are making these flatbed printer with piezo print head.
as long as we have a good software that supports these printers, it shouldn't be hard at all.
aaron
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Actually, this is not hard at all.
A Chinese inkjet printer with an epson printhead will do the job easily
as long as, for example, get Roy or Ergosoft to support that printer, things will turns out easy.
I have once talked to Jon when he was visiting Asia, he said his dream printer would be a flatbed just like the flatbed uv printer.
And I think this is coming to be true for now on since there are a lot of Chinese company are making these flatbed printer with piezo print head.
as long as we have a good software that supports these printers, it shouldn't be hard at all.
aaron
Definitely.
It would also help if he made an alternate version of the inks that worked in thermal heads, instead of piezo - that way, the system wouldn't be beholden to Epson. The pigments would be the same anyway (pure carbon) - the main difference would be the resin.
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I have recently bought a P10000 from Tastar Data here in Pittsburgh and am very pleased with it. I print only on canvas and compared a print from my 9900 and the new P10000. There was hardly any difference. The difference in gamut will not be that apparent on canvas. The blacks were more robust on the P10000. The P10000 is fast, fast, fast. Love it. It cost about twice what a P9000 or P8000 runs for, but I plan on keeping this for many years. When I get a full feel for the printer I will put up a review. For me all the new technology in the P10000 is worth it and the 700ml cartridges are much cheaper than the P8000 and P9000.
Gar
Gary,
By any chance did you measure actual printing speed of some popular formats? The printing speed in specification is suprisingly low...
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Marcin,
I am just getting the feel for the printer. I needed speed so that is why I chose it over the Canon 4000. On canvas giclees, which is all I print on right now, I see no difference in quality between printing at 600dpi as opposed to the higher quality of 1200dpi. The speed at 600dpi is very fast. I would definitely agree with Epson that it is about three times as fast as my previous 9900 or the present P9000. The P10000 will do a printless nozzle check which I love. It would have been nice to have a touch screen, wireless printing, and a replaceable printhead as in the Canons. I was also concerned that the gloss optimizer in the Canons would have to be replaced more often than the inks at a cost of $295.00 per 700ml cartridge. Wish I had the best of both worlds but there is no perfect printer out there. For what I do I am very pleased with the P10000 print quality and would highly recommend it. The new Canons are also great printers for photographers, no doubt. A lot of new technology in those printers and am sure the print quality is superb.
Gar
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Thanks Gary,
I'm really glad you're happy with your new printer ;) I'm just asking about the print speed because this issue puzzles me - in tech specs from the Epson site it seems to be relatively low, while all users report that it's outstanding...
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Slow relative to what?
The 10000/20000 series is *much* faster than, say, a new 9000 series unit or previous 9900 looking at A1 print speeds. Particularly at the highest output resolution.
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Well, its arrival was inexplicably delayed but our P10K finally arrived yesterday. I spent the afternoon getting it set up and configured, and then printing a few profiling test targets. Today I'm generating the custom profiles for the papers I managed to print test charts for before the starter ink cartridges ran out.
The new printer does look very good so far. Before continuing on that, a quick side note -- the initial irritation that I expected to see was every bit as irritating as anticipated. The starter ink carts lasted not even 24 hours, with 24 letter sized profile target sheets printed (4 sheets per paper, 6 papers printed). Of course most of the ink went to the initial charging of the lines. But a surprising amount has been dumped straight into the waste tank by what appears to me to be extremely aggressive and lengthy autocleaning cycles. The righthand waste tank is already 99% full and will have to be swapped as soon as we get new, full-size carts and do the first thing that triggers a cleaning. So my feeling is the ink-wasting aspect of the Epsons that we all know has not really changed (or, certainly not for the better) with the new P10K / P20K models.
Speed is extremely fast. I'm not measuring any page size print times yet (see ink issue above), but I really had to watch the printer to catch the roll cuts before they ended up on the floor. The head in this thing is massive and it's covering a massive amount of paper area, compared to previous generations. So the production times should be excellent.
The paper path is different than before. Gone are the days of the angled, straight-through feed. Paper rolls are now loaded on the spindle-less hubs in the top carriage, and feed down through a fly-by-wire loading system similar to the x900 series. But the paper then curves perhaps 35 degrees, and runs across a flat platen under the horizontally-mounted head, feeding out the front horizontally. For thick media that can't curve this way, there's a new front-loaded flat paper path, which I haven't tried yet (no ink). But the roll feed seems to work without drama, though I do miss the days of manual release levers that were faster to deal with than the often painfully slow fly-by-wire systems seem to be.
There seem to be lots of other small, incremental improvements in there. And some changes that may need further examination, e.g. some very fine, toothed pizza wheels at the front paper exit.
From the custom profiles done this morning, gamut and dmax on some papers looks to be significantly improved vs. the old 11880 ink set. On some other papers, though, the improvement in both gamut and dmax is negligible. I thought I might immediately see a more marked improved from the new black, and extra grey. More analysis will be needed on this topic.
No ability to look at any print quality comparisons yet, since I'm now waiting on full size ink cartridges. They were ordered along with the new printer, but for some reason didn't arrive. When they get here, I'll be able to really put the machine through some paces, and have more to say about it...
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Thanks Royce,
I'm very curious. Yea I think that's really cheap of them to put these dinky ink carts in such an expensive machine. Add another 2K for a set of inks, so your really talking an $8,500.00 printer to get started plus the waste tank.
It may be worth it in the long run with the ink prices a little less, if they don't increase their prices.
For me the two big things that would determine my buying one would be, do the new heads really function better in regard to nozzle issues and durability, like the original 10K, which this machine looks exactly like in many aspects, and does the added gray really have a software capable of making it even worth thinking about.
I don't know why they don't have real independent experts evaluating these things and publishing reviews before the printers are released. It's always a dribble here and a dribble there before anyone knows anything. Same with Canon pretty much.
john
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I came really close to buying the 10000 when my 9900 needed a new head.
What I did instead was repair my 9900 ($2950 for a new head and capping station)
Also purchased a used 9890 still under it's 3 year warranty for $1500.
The new 10000 with a full set of 700ml carts was just under $9000.
I paid $4450 which is half of the 10000 and I now have 2 44" printers in excellent shape.
What tipped the hat was the 10,000 ml of K3 inks that I have here that can be used in both printers. (Sorry, know I have said that before.)
That whole thing of diminishing returns also plays into this.
Are the new ones better, no doubt. I would have loved it for sure.
Is it $4500 better, not for me.
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We don't know whether it is better or not, apart from the fade resistance. It will probably be a year before we know. If they are as dependable as they say, they will be around a long time and the prices will come down. Now they don't even have enough units to supply all the orders.
I know what you mean about holding on to equipment. I put a new mainboard in my Canon 8300 and it is like new. Lightning blew the board and it was my fault 100%. I don't see a lot to wear out on these machines other than the electronics. The only reason I'd go for the expense of the 10K would be a major improvement in head life, in addition to major improvement in monochrome. Speed has never been an issue for me and I don't even think about it.
j
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I am at the point of replacing an Epson 7900 with one of the newer models. My choice has come down to a P7000/P9000 vs. a P10000. Much of the work I do is monochrome, so the extra gray ink in the P10000 is compelling to me. I also do color landscape work, so the possibly expanded gamut of the P7000/P9000 is also appealing. I have not been unsatisfied with the 7900, but want the best output quality possible for this upgrade cycle. I am unable to find comparison gamut plots for the two printer series, nor can I find any reports of comparisons in monochrome. Has anyone really compared the printers of the current generation yet? Salespeople, of course, are useless in this matter.
Any opinions are appreciated!
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Mike,
Like you, I own a 7900. Earlier this summer I lost the Green channel on the printer's second head (which I had installed to replace the original head which also failed in the green channel two years ago). Other than these head failures, the printer has been fantastic since Dec. 2008. Most of my own work is B&W which means I could just continue using the printer with ABW, QTR, or Piezography, but I also print color for other artists and photographers and so I needed to make a decision on a new printer. Additionally I have demand for doing larger prints than my 7900 can produce and I had been thinking about an upgrade anyway.
Initially I was very curious about the P10000 since it has quad K inks, and of course it is a 44" printer and has new head technology. But after a lot of research and following what little "real user" data was available, I made the decision to move to the SureColor P9000. I have been very happy with that decision. Key factors for me:
- It appears Epson has introduced the additional gray ink mainly to improve gradients in color. Nowhere can I find any evidence that Epson is focusing on improved B&W printing with the additional gray ink. It is not at all clear that ABW on the P10000 can even use the additional shade.
- Roy Harrington has said it is unlikely that QTR will/could work with the P10000. Although things can change, it's a complete unknown at this point and I am doubtful it would ever be supported by QTR.
- Epson markets the P10000 printer with a primary focus on speed. Clearly the machine is optimized for speed and high volume printing more than anything else. Speed is not a problem for me.
- The P10000 is way more expensive than the P9000.
- While not a major issue, the P10000 resolution is slightly less than on the P9000 (again, it is speed optimized).
Luckily I was able to arrange space in my studio so I could accommodate both printers, and my tentative plan is put the new Piezography Pro Edition inks in the 7900 when they are available in a few weeks. The P9000 has been solid so far. I like the updated menus and improved display information, and it has the new HDX ink with improved black and yellow. It's a small thing, but the nozzle check print now prints the colors in the same sequence as laid out on the head, and also includes the date printed...a nice improvement in usability. I could never figure out why they didn't do it this way in the earlier printers.
Of course, the head in the P9000 is exactly the same head as in the earlier printers, so there is still some risk of issues. But the printer firmware includes a different approach for head cleaning with some automated cleaning that did not exist in the earlier printers, so I believe there is a good chance that head life will be improved on these printers.
Hope this helps.
Dave
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All I can say is if Epson can't even develop a workable monochrome software solution for an onboard quad gray inkset just sitting there for them to use, with these great heads, with all the toning capabilities of the more stable color channels, then they are seriously screwed up. It would go well beyond the realm of laughable into the realm of incomprehensible. At this point who knows.
But I don't think that is going to be the case. My God the True Black and White people in LA have done this a decade ago with the Canon and MIS inks in a little business composed of 3 people. Same with Jon Cone and his tiny operation who developed software nearly 20 years ago that created a beautiful rich quad linearity.
I"m probably going to look for a used Epson for the new Piezography inkset also and keep my 9890 for the K7 Carbon. QTR is going to be a big problem it looks like for any of the new Epson printers. Epson has put something on the main board to lock out any non Epson ink carts for one thing. Studio Print will work with them, but that's another major investment for one extra gray, as nice as it would be, I'm not going there, if ABW is anything like what it has been in the past the 10K will be out for me too.
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Dave and Deanwork,
Thanks for your replies. I don't have the space for a dedicated monochrome printer, otherwise, there are excellent solutions available for that, obviously. I am looking for the best all in one solution for monochrome and color needs. If the color gamut is at least better than the 7900, then I am probably happy going with the P10000, given the other (potential) advantages, real or imagined. The speed is nice, certainly, but not necessary in my world. Better heads are greatly important, and the ability for the heads to self-maintain without having to always put a sheet in the printer is a good thing. The slight loss of resolution is not something that I or my clients will ever see at any print size. The cost differential between P9000 and P10000 is not huge, and will be offset by half of an inkset. As long as the inks continue to be usable for a long time, which has always been the case, regardless of package labeling, I see no disadvantage.
I do not want a printer that has severely less gamut in color than the P9000, as when I do color, this is an important factor. With regard to monochrome, I would hope to see improvements in ABW, but no one has admitted to doing a test of this yet, on glossy media with PK ink.
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Actually, this is not hard at all.
A Chinese inkjet printer with an epson printhead will do the job easily
as long as, for example, get Roy or Ergosoft to support that printer, things will turns out easy.
I have once talked to Jon when he was visiting Asia, he said his dream printer would be a flatbed just like the flatbed uv printer.
And I think this is coming to be true for now on since there are a lot of Chinese company are making these flatbed printer with piezo print head.
as long as we have a good software that supports these printers, it shouldn't be hard at all.
aaron
Hi Aaron, got any links to these Chinese flatbed Piezo head machines?
I'm looking at Swiss Q, but would rather find something more affordable, and designed for quality rather than speed.
thanks
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Epson's marketing talk is as obtuse with the P10K as it is with most of their printers.
For me it's all about two things, the newly designed big heads, and the extra gray channel, allowing a more dimensional and linear bw inkset, especially on gloss fiber media with the new inks.
The heads Could be a Big deal for Epson, beyond speed. These are the same heads as in their flagship P20K so they are serious about the design on some level.
What we don't know is 1. are the heads really less susceptible to the clogging, pressure, and ink starvation issues of the previous designs. ( if they went back to the engineering of the original 10K and the Roland heads that also used them, and improved upon that these heads by making them 2440 rather than 1440, that would be a huge improvement). I"ve been waiting for that for a decade.
Or, do they only improve the nozzle check situation by making the system pump more and more, and more ink through the heads on a weekly basis automatically . They reduced the ink cost on these printers and only have big carts. We don't know yet.
2. Did they really spend time designing a decent ABW method or is it pretty much the same output as the less expensive 44" models which themselves may or may not have any added improvement beyond dmax, which I don't see as a factor. Yea I know a lot of people will say they are totally happy with a tritone configuration using one black and two grays. I'm not one of those people. I grew up in the silver darkroom when there was quality silver content in the products, and I know what excellence looks like. Look this is 2016 not the 1990s.
It will be interesting to watch. In the mean time, I'm holding on to my wallet. It's always best to wait a year if you can. It really takes that long to sort all this out. Apparently we have three companies out there now competing for this "art" and design market and that's a good thing. I'd like to see someone come up with a modular high-end printing system that you could use with any inkset and switch out components yourself when they need it. That's probably a pipe dream, but who knows.
john
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Don't forget that color printing is 95+% of the usage of these machines, and only a small minority obsess over black and white output.
Yes, they have put 4 iteration of black on there for linearity, but the machine is not dedicated to B&W, and it would be wrong to assume it is. This and the bigger P20000 are intended as a speed & volume quality output machine with (hopefully) better costs due to the reduced inkset and large carts. That combination of speed and quality is new to the market, and that is where the real breakthrough is here.
For those not concerned with speed, or wanting the absolute largest gamut they can get, there are the 7900/9900 options. If you want that and 60+" width, then you have a small problem, which hopefully Canon will fix.
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That sounds exactly like what the Epson marketing people who don't know jack about software would say.
Well that's just silly. This exact same argument is what people said before Epson finally after years and years put 2 gray channels in the ultrachrome inkset as apposed to just one "light" gray of the 9600. There are thousands of artists, many of them photographers, who I talk to every week, who care a lot about high-end permanent digital monochrome, especially when they've actually SEEN it. And HOW are people going to use a dedicated monochrome inkset if Epson locks them out of using third party carts or even accessing QTR? Use an old Epson with bad heads. That's not good either. To ask for bw photography capability equal to or surpassing what was available in the 1940s, is, I'm sorry, not too much to ask and I don't consider myself a fanatic in any respect in regard to bw. This is 2016.
IF you have the technology to accomplish a quad configuration, which they do, and don't provide a workable software to run it, I"m sorry that's just crazy, however you want to spin it.
I'm not saying that is the case with the P10k-20K. We don't know yet.
Even if Epson does screw up and doesn't offer a really improved ABW, someone will come along and find a way to drive the inks. But that could take a couple of years and they would have to go through grief to accomplish it.
The Epson 11880 has been used in a major way all over the world for extremely high-end museum level projects, thousands of them monochrome work, and giant monochrome at that. This new P20K technology is replacing and "upgrading" that system. It should be better, not just faster.
All of this capability of the Epson printers is a software issue really. For instance you have 10 channel printers with an Orange and Green that could also be swapped out for additional gray inks just by updating the software. But Epson will not allow anyone to have access to their codes and firmware to do anything like that. That's stupid. So really what I'm saying is the technology has been there for a long time, they just don't care enough about black and white to allow it to happen. They say exactly what the previous poster just said, " most people don't care". Right. Thousands of us who have been artists for decades are not "most people".
john
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I am very pleased with my P10K printer. I have compared prints from my previous 9900 and I like the P10K better. The blacks are more lustrous. I very rarely do a head cleaning. However, the tendency of the printer is to do a cleaning after, say 5 prints. If you have prints continuously coming off the printer, it will not do a head cleaning. But if there is a break, say 5 minutes between prints, the printer will want to do a cleaning. I did an experiment and shut the printer down before it would do a cleaning. I restarted the printer and ran the "Printless nozzle check" and the check came up with no clogs. I am also satisfied to print at 600dpi. Have compared prints at both 600 and 1200dpi and can't tell the difference on canvas. I do not print B/W so I can't help anyone there. I would highly recommend this printer. The P10K also has a fast start up time.
I use Macs and there is no Epson software for the Mac to read the printer hard drive. I was able to run Virtual Box and install a Windows operating system to read the hard drive. You will need an ethernet connection for it to work. Hope that helps somebody.
Gar
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. They say exactly what the previous poster just said, " most people don't care". Right. Thousands of us who have been artists for decades are not "most people".
john
Please read my post again - it certainly does not say "most people don't care", and it is wrong to put quotation marks around an invented quote!
I simply pointed out that the vast majority of work done on the P10000 and P20000 will be in color, and it is wrong to assume that it should be oriented for black and white, and that Epson should concentrate on that. Is it capable of doing good black and white? - maybe so, a nice fillip if it can be achieved, and maybe it will be in the future, but should Epson be castigated for not zeroing in on that? - not in my opinion.
All my output is fine art too, so I know a *lot* of other artists working in the same area, at the highest level - form MoMA to Guggenheim to the Tate to the Whitney, LACMA, etc. Only 1 of them does b&w. Nothing wrong with that at all, just saying - it's horses for courses.
Good luck.
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I'm sorry, I wasn't quoting you in that most people sentence. But that is the core of what I have heard for the last 15 years or so.
What I was simply saying, which seems like common sense to a lot of the people I know, who have been doing digital pigment printing since the very beginning, is there is no reason in the world why, with the technology we have had for a long time why they can't do both.
The hardware has been there for a long time, and Epson deserves a huge amount of credit for delivering this hardware, but these printers are capable of so much more adaptability than has been provided with their own drivers. My complaint is if they are not going to allow third parties to offer the superior monochrome solution for their print heads, then the least they could so is not lock out great software capability that more serious people have created long ago. They have come down hard on ErgoSoft Studio Print for allowing them to work with Piezograpy environments on Epson printers like we used to, to the point where Ergosoft could no longer give support for the quad and 7 channel sets available. Now QTR is locked out. The only reason Epson would do that is keep someone from showing them publicly that ABW is an inferior solution. Hell they could reverse engineer QTR and do it themselves. I don't care. My real point was that now Epson does have a truly balanced quad gray inkset, it's just nuts for it not work the way it should. And once again I'm not critiquing the "improved" ABW software before I've seen it. But from past experience, monochrome has been a very low priority for them. That was understandable 15 years ago, but not now.
When some really great printmaker gets ahold of these P printers and does serious reviews we will know more, cause Epson is not going to do it. If they did, and there is a big step forward for them, they would make more money. I know that for sure.
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Note that changing colours/blacks/etc is not "just" a software upgrade/change. It's a big deal of a software upgrade/change. Ask any RIP vendor. When you are dealing with LUTs with hundreds of billions of combinations (between colours and dot sizes) it's a big deal.
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It is absolutely not that big of a deal for a corporation like Epson, not at all.
When Bowhaus in LA can make and release True Black and White for the 12 channel Canon IPF printers in a couple of months after the printers release (with Canon's co-operaton, encouragement, and support ) Epson can do it in a decade. With True Black and White, a very inexpensive rip, you can easily turn off all the color channels and only use the black and grey channels and linearize them by simply plugging in your I1 spectro, clicking a button to display and print their target. You can make your own profiles in 15 minutes for any media with both PK and MK ink. It comes with free profiles for many papers. With TBW you can also easily click on any of the color channels and pull up the sliders visually to add more or less of that ink. So in effect you can design your own monochrome profiles by using any of the ink hues you want ( like QTR ) and save presets for future use, ....neutral, warm neutral, warm, cool,sepia, etc. for any number of PK and MK papers. You do this while soft proofing on the screen within their software to select the hue. Basically a child could use the workflow.
Hell if Epson would design their grays to neutral in the first place like Canon and HP, you could shut off the other channels altogether. That's really would be a no brainer then.
Maybe they improved ABW in a big way for the P10K. I doubt it, but I'm still hoping.
john
Note that changing colours/blacks/etc is not "just" a software upgrade/change. It's a big deal of a software upgrade/change. Ask any RIP vendor. When you are dealing with LUTs with hundreds of billions of combinations (between colours anproofd dot sizes) it's a big deal.
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/sigh
Sure, it's so easy that they needed the direct support of a massive corporation like Canon.
If you want a RIP, buy a RIP and do what you want to do no problem. But if you want a manufacturer to create and support (and it's the latter that's the killer) something like this, then it's a big deal, whether you believe it or not :-)
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Canon did nothing to create True Black and White software. All they did was allow Bowhaus to use the codes. The Canon black and white solution was a bad as Epson ABW, so it was in their benefit to let these guys create and sell this grayscale workflow with toning option. Canon didn't pay for that, or help in any technical way, they simply allowed it to exist, and why not, it's a no brainer. These guys made it for themselves, they are printmakers, not corporate people.
Same thing with Roy Harrington and QTR for Epson printers. He provided a great capability when Epson had absolutely nothing, for years and years and years. I was there. I used it on the 9600 printers I had at the time and it transformed a nothing monochrome capability to something quite decent for the time, even though Epson only had one gray at the time. If Epson supported QTR, they would have an amazing quad printer built right into a full color set with the P10K. That's not my opinion, anyone who is serious about monochrome printing knows that. But they won't, it would make their engineers look sad and lazy. But they would sell more printers, that's for sure and it would be good for em.
john
/sigh
Sure, it's so easy that they needed the direct support of a massive corporation like Canon.
If you want a RIP, buy a RIP and do what you want to do no problem. But if you want a manufacturer to create and support (and it's the latter that's the killer) something like this, then it's a big deal, whether you believe it or not :-)
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Well I guess you know more than Epson, well done!
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A lot of people know a lot more about monochrome inkjet imaging than Epson, a lot. Yea I've been printing monochrome for 40 years on the very high-end. A lot of us have.
Not that there aren't people there on staff that don't know, but the decision makers and sales promoters have no idea. Main reason is only a tiny percentage of photographers even have any input there.
Well I guess you know more than Epson, well done!
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I came really close to buying the 10000 when my 9900 needed a new head.
What I did instead was repair my 9900 ($2950 for a new head and capping station)
Also purchased a used 9890 still under it's 3 year warranty for $1500.
The new 10000 with a full set of 700ml carts was just under $9000.
I paid $4450 which is half of the 10000 and I now have 2 44" printers in excellent shape.
What tipped the hat was the 10,000 ml of K3 inks that I have here that can be used in both printers. (Sorry, know I have said that before.)
That whole thing of diminishing returns also plays into this.
Are the new ones better, no doubt. I would have loved it for sure.
Is it $4500 better, not for me.
I had a 9900 that died (bad head) after two years (I am convinced that the orange and the green channels were the culprits). I've now had my 7890 for almost three years. The X890 printers, in my opinion, are far less prone to clogging. I hardly ever run cleaning cycles on the 7890. I leave it on 24/7. It is plugged into a dedicated UPS. If the machine sits idle for more than five days, I run a nozzle test to monitor the head. If a channel is clogged (very rarely), I will print a file that matches the clogged head and if that doesn't clear up the problem, I'll run a "pair clean." Then, if a message comes up saying the "clean" did not work, I decline the request to run it through another cleaning cycle. I then print another nozzle test. If I see that some of the blockage has cleared, I create a file in photo shop, select and then fill the area with a color that matches the clogged channel. I may need to run a few prints and tweak the color in Photoshop a few times, but 95% of the time, this clears the head. Sometimes after a pair cleaning, another channel "clogs" up. I attribute that to a bubble in the line and print out a file that matches that color. I avoid cleaning cycles as they are destructive. I rarely power the printer down because it will often initiate a cleaning cycle when it is powered back up.
The X900 printers included orange and green channels for graphic and industrial designers who needed to print the spectrum of PMS colors--a wider gamut than is necessary for extreme high-quality photo printing. I compared at least a dozen prints from the 9900 to those from the 7890 and could not discern a difference. I have an excellent eye for color. I typically score between 5-7 on the X-Rite color chart test.
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I agree that the more channels you have on those recent Epsons the more pressure issues you should expect, especially if you don't use them all day everyday. However, my 9890 lost two nozzles completely after two years, so they are far from perfect either.
Eventually we'll all find out how well the new head design functions on the P10K P20K printers. They may have gone a long way to solving most of these issues, and they may not. They may use less ink in cleaning, or they may not. Only time will tell. In the time being, I'll stick with my Canon that I know just works, and pay for the heads once every year or two.
j
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John - I was more referencing your comments about what they should do, from a business perspective. Also, your general comment about their engineers being sad and lazy was over the top and uncalled for, unless you personally know some and can critique them as such from first hand knowledge.
They may not be producing exactly what you want, but that doesn't make it a mistake :-)
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Epson's native drivers were pretty bad around the 9600 time, but they have really made huge progress. I owned a 9600.
What is exceptional now is the way they own the whole process, with really nice papers, and out of the box predictable performance. You can switch on a new printer, put in some Epson paper and get predictable usable prints, out of the box. You can use a spectro and match a printer to the factory standard.
Back in the day they had huge issues with pigment prints changing colors depending on viewing light, and dye prints fading to zero all too quickly, and inter-sample variations. Every printer really needed to be profiled. To their credit they have worked these issues really well. Of course once one has special needs one needs to do some personal work or buy boutique software.
I would say that Epson's main problem now is that the hardware and inks are so good that there's little incentive for change :)
This is not to detract from the superb work done by the guys who make RIPs and monochrome solutions ...
Edmund
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This is what Epson says in their propaganda about the ABW:
Advanced Black & White Printing Technology
- Unique screening algorithm for producing professional black & white prints
- Utilizes our four-level black system to optimize black & white print quality
- Some of the world’s greatest black and white prints have been produced using this driver technology
We shall see. I ordered one.
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- Utilizes our four-level black system to optimize black & white print quality
Mike,
Can you point to the URL or document where you found the above quoted statement? I'm not doubting you here, just that I wasn't able to find anything like that statement in my searches.
Also, I'd be a bit cautious because "four-level black system" could easily mean [PK, MK], LK, and LLK. In other words, you could still be printing with only three shades in the ABW driver.
A key question, for all of us I think, is whether or not the ABW driver software for the P10K has been updated/modified to actually take advantage of the extra gray ink. Is there anyone here on the forum that can give us a definitive answer on this? (I think there is, but I will leave it to them to come forward with some illumination on this).
Dave
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Exactly. Well said. That is the question. And if I seem nervous about it, that's exactly what is on my mind cause a lot of us have been thinking about this for a long time.
My comment about "Epson engineers" was referring to the ABW system which has indeed been "sad" and inadequate, compared to other monochrome software we've been using for about 15 years now. Having a quad inkset that functions like a quad inkset in a robust, fast, durable machine would be a dream come true. Writing the driver for the bw is really very small potatoes compared all the other great things Epson had accomplished with this printer. Of course I would rather have a neutralized gray as apposed to a greenish warm gray so you don't have to use any color inks at all ( like HP and Canon have ) but that isn't the overriding issue for me with this improved yellow and magenta channel. The primary thing that would persuade me to move from my Canon back to Epson would be a fully functioning quad inkset ( since it is in the printer already to utilize ) that can be linearized by the end user for all kinds of media and applications. If they did or if they do it, that is a major step forward in the industry. Excellent everything in one package.
In the long run what Aaron said about the emergence of a high resolution flat bed with piezo pigment heads seems to me like the ultimate end of all this. Then you could print on virtually anything.
john
A key question, for all of us I think, is whether or not the ABW driver software for the P10K has been updated/modified to actually take advantage of the extra gray ink. Is there anyone here on the forum that can give us a definitive answer on this? (I think there is, but I will leave it to them to come forward with some illumination on this).
Dave
[/quote]
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I don’t believe they just added another shade of gray in the Ultrachrome Pro inkset used in this printer, I don’t believe any of the 3 shades of gray exactly match either LK or LLK of the Ultrachrome HD inkset of the p6000/8000 printer.
It’s also a completely revamped head designed. I can’t see how they wouldn’t have to rework the ABW driver because of the inkset and head design.
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Man, I hope your right because if they have accomplished this then they have raised the bar ( that Jon Cone put up there in the first place ) and Canon and Hp will have to follow suit or be left behind. I love black and white. I really do, but I have left the toxic chemical world behind long ago. Pigments are all I have now.
I don’t believe they just added another shade of gray in the Ultrachrome Pro inkset used in this printer, I don’t believe any of the 3 shades of gray exactly match either LK or LLK of the Ultrachrome HD inkset of the p6000/8000 printer.
It’s also a completely revamped head designed. I can’t see how they wouldn’t have to rework the ABW driver because of the inkset and head design.
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Epson is the Apple of the printer world.
Yes, their printers give great print quality, and, yes, they produce great products, provided you're a print shop or someone else who runs the printer full-time, as opposed to a photographer, artist or graphic designer who prints sporadically and on demand.
But, like Apple, they seem to have developed a need to exert control over the entire print workflow, from hardware to software to consumables, to bring as much of it in-house as possible and to use every means possible - legal or otherwise - to prevent people using third-party products. This is understandable where a hardware barrier exists - for instance, you can't fit a lens onto a Nikon camera unless it has a Nikon mount - although that only raises the entry barrier (Sigma and other companies have climbed it), not blocks it outright. And Epson is perfectly within its rights to implement a hardware block preventing the refilling of cartridges and impeding the development of third-party ones. But blocking people from using or developing third-party software to control Epson hardware isn't a technical limitation - it's just anticompetitive behaviour. As would be the use of coercive measures to prevent people using third-party inks and cartridges, should Jon Cone or someone else come up with one that works in the new printers. There have even been reports of Epson declining warranty, or even refusing to service printers outright (even for money), when they have been used to print on non-Epson papers. It's all a way of locking people into an Epson-only workflow, achieved through legal and procedural means rather than technical limitations. So far, neither HP nor Canon have tried this, nor given any indication that they would.
Grounds for an anti-trust case for anti-competitive behaviour and abuse of position by a market leader? Quite possibly. Microsoft and others were hit for less than this. But there needs to be a sufficiently large number of plaintiffs (or one or two big ones) for such a claim to get off the ground, and the large-format printer, accessories and printer services market may not be big enough for this to happen.
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I don’t believe they just added another shade of gray in the Ultrachrome Pro inkset used in this printer, I don’t believe any of the 3 shades of gray exactly match either LK or LLK of the Ultrachrome HD inkset of the p6000/8000 printer.
It’s also a completely revamped head designed. I can’t see how they wouldn’t have to rework the ABW driver because of the inkset and head design.
Wayne,
What you say would seem to make sense, but I guess I'm a little suspect because as John has pointed out, Epson has not really marketed any kind of "significantly improved" ABW capability on these new P10k/P20K printers. If indeed Epson has full Quad K capability with ABW now, I for one would expect them to really make a big deal of this. But maybe they just don't want to waste their marketing message on it. If that is the case, then it is really unfortunate.
In any case, on behalf of all us interested in B&W printing, I decided to try to get an answer directly from Epson. I contacted Epson technical support with the following question:
"I would like to know if the P10K/P20K Advanced Black and White (ABW) driver has been modified to take full advantage of the new additional gray ink on this printer. ABW on my P9000 only uses three K inks: PK or MK, LK, and LLK. Does the ABW driver on this new printer use ALL FOUR of the gray inks when printing B&W (i.e. PK or MK, DG, G, LG)? Or does it still use only three shades of K? If so, which K inks are used in ABW?"
Here is what I got back from Epson:
"Thank you for contacting Epson regarding your Epson SureColor P20000. It is my pleasure to respond to your inquiry. Yes, the driver for both the P1000 and P2000 has been optimized to utilize the gray inks for those printers."
I followed up with an additional question to make sure this answer was referring to ABW, and got this answer from Epson:
"Thank you for contacting Epson, the printer driver provided on the Epson website does take advantage of all of the inks installed in the printer. The driver will use all of the inks when printing color or the advanced black white option. Please note there is only one driver, there is not a separate driver for color or a separate driver for black and white printing."
So based on Epson's response as above, it seems ABW does use the four K shades on the P10K/P20K (and other inks of course to neutralize the warm K inks). I have to admit that I'd still like to see more detail (e.g. whitepaper, technical review document, etc.) from Epson on ABW improvements on the P10K/P20K compared to earlier printers. I think there are enough of us interested in high-end B&W printing that it would make it worth their while.
In the end, I guess we will have to get a deeper understanding of the improved ABW based on user experience and reports. I know from reading the P10K manuals that the driver software interface is exactly the same as before, but what we really need to see is if/how ABW prints differently than before. I encourage all new owners of P10K/P20K printers here on the forum to let us know your experience with ABW, especially as it compares to ABW on previous Epson printers.
Dave
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Getting the knowledge what is laid down in quad mode requires not more than a simple microscope + a printed grey wedge.
Ernst, op de lei getypt.
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That's so funny.
These sales and support geeks at Epson are clueless.
Even if the monochrome mode does utilize all the dilutions of the quad, there is no information on what has been improved or why.
For instance can you print out a 16 bit grayscale and linearize the patches with your spectro ? If you can't it is not a professional driver. This is not rocket science, this the foundation of a monochrome driver.
Can you tone the hue in a sophisticated and precise way to avoid that god-aweful epson cyan-bluish neutral as before ? Can you turn off all the color channels completely if you want? Is there a professional way to do split toning or do you need to do that in Lightroom, an rgb workflow. Those are just some very basic questions of a bw driver.
Now maybe their great engineers are way ahead of the amateur hour sales force in just doing what needs to be done. They certainly have the hardware to do it! I hope so. Otherwise to get anything useful out of this printer besides speed you will need Studio Print.
If Epson could get away with putting chips in the paper rolls they would do that too. I heard there was some talk of that years ago.
john
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Maybe Kevin will reach out to Dano and try to get some clarification.
As I said, the reasons I believe the ABW portion of the driver was redone was because it is a brand new head, it is a 300dpi based machine instead of a 360 dpi based machine, and I am also reasonably confident that none of the gray colors in the machine match the densities in the LLK inkset. Seems there is no option other than modifying the driver.
As to whether they did a good job of this and if they really take advantage of the 4 blacks I can’t say. Additionally as far as why they are not shouting it from the rooftops, I would assume the target market for this printer isn’t high end black and white photographers, but high volume production houses, most of which probably never even print in ABW mode.
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If that is the case, then they should have put their quad inkset in the slower units, but if they are using the same print heads as the 9900s I'm not going there.
If it is a great reliable rock solid printer with a quad inkset then the target market is whatever market they choose to support and offer it to.