P9000

[petercorb]

Considering a p9000 - currently using a 9900, 7900 & 3800.
Has anyone had the opportunity to assess the print quality?
I am not a casual user, my printers are in use every day so for me it's a commercial as well as an aesthetic issue.

[JRSmit]

Considering a p9000 - currently using a 9900, 7900 & 3800.
Has anyone had the opportunity to assess the print quality?
I am not a casual user, my printers are in use every day so for me it's a commercial as well as an aesthetic issue.

Used a P8000 for a production of 25 images for an exposition in Stedelijk Museum in Kampen, The Netherlands. Very good.
Now deploying a P7000 and will deploy a P9000 in a few weeks.
Print quality is smoother, but not very visible in comparison to 9900. Blacks are blacker, but again not that visible.
No jaw-dropping differences, but differences there are.
Quite happy with P7000 on glossy materials, also the ABW. For matte materials i need more testing to find optimum settings.
Not: i make my own profiles.

[petercorb]

Thanks for the input Jan, sounds positive - it seems you have committed 100% to the "p" series.
As I always say when lecturing; image capture to print is an "incremental" process.
At the highest levels there are no "jaw-dropping" differences but striving for the impossible in both technique and technology is how we progress.
I also make my own profiles - what about the Epson calibration option?

[Wayne Fox]

I recently purchased a p9000 to replace my 5 year old 9900, and did some side by side testing. Output visually is nearly identical but there are subtle differences when compared side by side. The new blacks are visually noticeable on some images.  One surprising thing I am seeing is  a very slight difference in rendering of some shades of magenta/blue, where the 9900 tends to print them a littler bluer and the p9000 tends to lean towards the magenta side.  only noticeable if compared side by side. I'm still testing to see if I can figure out if the reason is in my workflow, or if there really is a difference in the printer.  Both printers are using profiles I made with identical settings in i1Profiler and a 4000 patch target. (the p9000 is closer to my display so perhaps this is an improvement on something I just sort of accepted before)

The increased longevity of the yellow ink is a major improvement, one reason I decided to upgrade.  Only time will tell if there were any "under the hood" changes that will improve the machine.  No cleans so far, but my 9900 didn't need cleaning very often either.

[MHMG]

The increased longevity of the yellow ink is a major improvement, one reason I decided to upgrade.  Only time will tell if there were any "under the hood" changes that will improve the machine.  No cleans so far, but my 9900 didn't need cleaning very often either.

Yes, the new yellow ink formula handily revealing its light fastness superiority at just 40 megalux hour light exposure level (equivalent to  20 "Wilhelm years" on display) in Aardenburg testing.

Too bad it takes a printer upgrade to take advantage of the new yellow ink.  Lots of operational older K3 and HDR Epson printers out there that could benefit from an enterprising third party cartridge vendor supplying an upgrade path that might allow for easy retrofit of the new Epson HD/HDX yellow into older printers. Epson is highly unlikely to ever provide a retrofit for older printers.  Missed opportunity, IMHO.


cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

[Wayne Fox]

Glad to hear the yellows are proving out to be as claimed.

the new inks have more changes than just the yellow dye formulation which is how they deliver the denser black and improved bronzing.  As such the new yellow won't mix with the older inks, and I think they did have to tweak the head designs to work with the new formulations.

I think Epson is just doing things the way most companies do, no real conspiracy. Just trying to improve the current product line, which is what all  business do. Canon did the same thing, the original ipf5000 had pretty weak blacks, the fix was the ipfx100 series printers, and no way to put the new blacks in the old printers.

Just how things work.

[JRSmit]

I recently purchased a p9000 to replace my 5 year old 9900, and did some side by side testing. Output visually is nearly identical but there are subtle differences when compared side by side. The new blacks are visually noticeable on some images.  One surprising thing I am seeing is  a very slight difference in rendering of some shades of magenta/blue, where the 9900 tends to print them a littler bluer and the p9000 tends to lean towards the magenta side.  only noticeable if compared side by side. I'm still testing to see if I can figure out if the reason is in my workflow, or if there really is a difference in the printer.  Both printers are using profiles I made with identical settings in i1Profiler and a 4000 patch target. (the p9000 is closer to my display so perhaps this is an improvement on something I just sort of accepted before)

The increased longevity of the yellow ink is a major improvement, one reason I decided to upgrade.  Only time will tell if there were any "under the hood" changes that will improve the machine.  No cleans so far, but my 9900 didn't need cleaning very often either.

My 9900 is still in repair (Yellow seems to get not enough ink, a weird torpedo like white (no ink with feathered edges, in direction of carriage movement in a  20 by 8 inch patch of solid yellow), so i cannot make a side by side comparison yet. Only with images printed earlier.
Will focus at some blue content to see if i see the same, did not notice that yet. I find the color nuances and transitions in color and in shades smoother, overall as if there is less disturbance in between you as observer and the image. Can get also more dimensional, more depth).

Comparing profiles the biggest shape difference is in the blue/purple (p-series slightly less) w.r.t. the colours, and in the bottom part, the p-series is blacker so to say. Again the differences are small, total profile volume difference is 1% or so (i used docbees profile manager).
For glossy papers choice of media-type and Color Density sort of matches, in most cases an equal or little less Color Density for the P series.
For matte papers the color density needs to be set much lower, to avoid crushed shadows.

[Alan Goldhammer]

Glad to hear the yellows are proving out to be as claimed.

the new inks have more changes than just the yellow dye formulation which is how they deliver the denser black and improved bronzing.  As such the new yellow won't mix with the older inks, and I think they did have to tweak the head designs to work with the new formulations.

I think Epson is just doing things the way most companies do, no real conspiracy. Just trying to improve the current product line, which is what all  business do. Canon did the same thing, the original ipf5000 had pretty weak blacks, the fix was the ipfx100 series printers, and no way to put the new blacks in the old printers.

Just how things work.

I agree but am saddened that my 3880 shows no signs of failing.     I won't be upgrading to the p800 until the burial time for the 3880 comes.

[petercorb]

The consensus, albeit limited at the moment, seems positive: less bronzing, better blacks, longevity, smoother/subtle images. No operational improvements or problems mentioned yet?
As I said this is an incremental process and and agree that Epson are doing what they are in business for; product progress = customer loyalty.
I will be getting quotes on Monday...

[JimGoshorn]

Any visual differences when printing on matte papers?

[Wayne Fox]

Any visual differences when printing on matte papers?

sorry, I haven’t used matt papers for quite some time.  I haven’t heard if the MK ink has more max or it’s only when using the PK ink.

[alifatemi]

Hi Wayne, what about clogging problem? Any better or worst?

[Wayne Fox]

so far no clogs. Lightly used,  turned off for a week at a time or so.