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Author Topic: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers  (Read 27995 times)

MHMG

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #40 on: March 14, 2016, 12:55:48 pm »

How much is the print head, and how long does it last? That would be the most relevant info.

What is the longevity of the new inkset? Epson's has improved significantly, and it is rumored from tests of the Canson desktop unit they they are going backwards? Just wondering.

Here's the only info I've seen on the new Canon Inkset...and it comes from Canon's specification sheet for the Pro-1000 you can find on the Canon USA website:

"PRINT LONGEVITY 10*
 
Gas Fastness
Approx. 60 Years

Light Fastness
Approx. 60 Years (PT-201, i.e Canon Pro Platinum paper)
Approx. 45 Years (LU-101, ie., Canon Pro Luster paper)
Longevity in Photo Album
Approx. 200 Years

10* Based on accelerated testing by Canon in dark storage under controlled temperature, humidity, and gas conditions, simulating storage in an album with plastic sleeves. Canon cannot guarantee the longevity of prints; results may vary depending on printed image, drying time, display/storage conditions, and environmental factors."

Note that Canon tested in house, not with an independent lab, and has not stated the test conditions or failure criteria for its test methodology, so it's anyone's guess but likely to be similar to WIR's test methods.  Hence, taken at face value for what Canon claims as a 45-60 year lightfastness rating on its RC papers and what Epson is claiming (i.e.,200+ year ratings on select Epson media), this leads the enduser or print buyer to ponder a 3-4x difference in light fastness for prints on display when comparing the latest fine art printer offerings from these two companies. Yikes ::)

Whether the Canon results are as bad as it sounds depends to a great extent on how much value you place on the archival properties of your prints, but for this class of printers, I would be surprised if either Canon or Epson management are oblivious to these scores.

Also, the choice of media can also influence pigment print longevity by 3-4x or more in its own right, so neither company is truly providing adequate guidance to endusers regarding optimal media choices for the highest archival keeping requirements.  Artists are pretty much on their own to choose both inks and media wisely, and good information is unfortunately very limited.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
« Last Edit: March 14, 2016, 01:25:03 pm by MHMG »
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shadowblade

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #41 on: March 14, 2016, 01:20:25 pm »

Here's the only info I've seen on the new Canon Inkset...and it comes from Canon's specification sheet for the Pro-1000 you can find on the Canon USA website:

"PRINT LONGEVITY 10*
 
Gas Fastness
Approx. 60 Years

Light Fastness
Approx. 60 Years (PT-201, i.e Canon Pro Platinum paper)
Approx. 45 Years (LU-101, ie., Canon Pro Luster paper)
Longevity in Photo Album
Approx. 200 Years

10* Based on accelerated testing by Canon in dark storage under controlled temperature, humidity, and gas conditions, simulating storage in an album with plastic sleeves. Canon cannot guarantee the longevity of prints; results may vary depending on printed image, drying time, display/storage conditions, and environmental factors."

Note that Canon tested in house, not with an independent lab, and has not stated the test conditions or failure criteria for its test methodology, so it's anyone's guess but likely to be similar to WIR's test methods.  Hence, taken at face value for what Canon claims as a 45-60 year lightfastness rating on its RC papers and what Epson is claiming (i.e.,200+ year ratings on select Epson media), this leads the enduser or print buyer to ponder a 3-4x difference in light fastness for prints on display when comparing the latest fine art printer offerings from these two companies. Yikes ::)

Whether the Canon results are as bad as it sounds depends to a great extent on how much value you place on the archival properties of your prints, but for this class of printers, I would be surprised if either Canon or Epson management are oblivious to these scores.

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

Who knows what the endpoints were, though, or the definitions of 'normal display' used - was it 200 lux or 1000 lux, for 8, 10 or 12 hours a day? How much fading was considered acceptable? I'd guess that there isn't a fourfold difference between the Canon and Epson inksets, and wouldn't even bet on which one is more lightfast under the same test conditions - odds are they used very different criteria.

Although, assuming 450 lux for 12 hours a day, 45-60 years comes out to 89-118 Mlux-hours, which would be pretty good for a RC paper if the endpoint were defined as 'just noticeable fading'...
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deanwork

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #42 on: March 14, 2016, 01:39:43 pm »

Yikes indeed! For the art market, it seems Canon has managed to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. The world wants pantone colors and day glow gamut apparently.  I'll hang on to my 8300 and Z printers until we see how the Epson P 10K works out.

john



Here's the only info I've seen on the new Canon Inkset...and it comes from Canon's specification sheet for the Pro-1000 you can find on the Canon USA website:

"PRINT LONGEVITY 10*
 
Gas Fastness
Approx. 60 Years

Light Fastness
Approx. 60 Years (PT-201, i.e Canon Pro Platinum paper)
Approx. 45 Years (LU-101, ie., Canon Pro Luster paper)
Longevity in Photo Album
Approx. 200 Years
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MHMG

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #43 on: March 14, 2016, 02:07:47 pm »

... Although, assuming 450 lux for 12 hours a day, 45-60 years comes out to 89-118 Mlux-hours, which would be pretty good for a RC paper if the endpoint were defined as 'just noticeable fading'...

No manufacturer has been willing to embrace tougher or superior testing criteria in the last 30 years I've been involved in this type of testing, so why would Canon unilaterally adopt a "just noticeable" fade criterion now?  It would make no sense from a marketing perspective, especially considering the typical consumer was "educated" long ago to believe these ratings for years on display are somehow absolute values.  When I routinely hear a photographer say, "Well, I won't be around in 25 or 30 years so a 60 year rating is plenty good enough"... he or she is believing that rating in absolute terms...until perhaps the 60 year rated print process is put on display in the studio's front window to advertise the photographers artistry to the public. Wherein the photographer is surprised to observe noticeable fading in perhaps less than a year and it must be replaced.  A 4x improvement in the overall fade resistance would have allowed for 3-4 years of commercial display life in the same situation.

That said, I agree this particular 3-4x light fastness difference between the new printer offerings may not hold up to more scrutiny. The claims are puzzling to say the least.

« Last Edit: March 14, 2016, 04:37:58 pm by MHMG »
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shadowblade

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #44 on: March 14, 2016, 02:18:30 pm »

No manufacturer has been willing to embrace tougher testing criteria in the last 30 years I've been involved in this type of testing, so why would Canon unilaterally adopt a "just noticeable" fade criterion now?  It would make no sense from a marketing perspective, especially considering the typical consumer was "educated" long ago to believe these ratings for years on display are somehow absolute values.  When I routinely hear a photographer say, "Well, I won't be around in 25 or 30 years so a 60 year rating is plenty good enough"... he or she is believing that rating in absolute terms...until perhaps the 60 year rated print process is put on display in the studio's front window to advertise the photographers artistry to the public. Wherein the photographer is surprised to observe noticeable fading in perhaps less than a year and it must be replaced.  A 4x improvement in the overall fade resistance would have allowed for 3-4 years of commercial display life in the same situation.

That said, I agree this particular 3-4x light fastness difference between the new printer offerings may not hold up to more scrutiny. The claims are puzzling to say the least.

At the same time, they also claimed 'better longevity' than the old inkset.

Besides, if the new inks were judged by the same standards as the existing inks, it would be a colossal failure of both technology and marketing for Canon to come out and claim a 50% reduction in print longevity. It would practically scream to the world, 'go and buy the old printers/inks, the new ones are crap'.
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MHMG

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #45 on: March 14, 2016, 02:58:40 pm »

Yikes indeed! For the art market, it seems Canon has managed to grab defeat from the jaws of victory. The world wants pantone colors and day glow gamut apparently.  I'll hang on to my 8300 and Z printers until we see how the Epson P 10K works out.


There is 50 megalux hour data posted on the Aardenburg website (testing is ongoing) for two media types in side-by-side comparative testing of Epson HD, Canon LUCIA EX, and Epson K3 ink sets. You can filter the Aardenburg database on "batch" = "N" to quickly find this set of tests.

Epson HD is now clearly and handily outperforming the K3 ink set and should hold up perhaps even better than Epson's 2x claim of improvement over the K3 yellow.  LUCIA EX is still on top with both media, however, that could change at higher exposure doses if additional non linearity creeps into the fading curves as the testing goes beyond 100 megalux hours. We just have to wait and see, but so far so good for LUCIA EX performance compared to Ultrachrome HD. Goodbye, K3!

So, how might Canon have gone backwards in their new ink set? Well, it would be highly unlikely to be caused either by the chroma optimizer or the extra photo gray. The green ink got removed which would put more burden on the yellow ink stability when forming bright greens, and the blue ink has been reformulated, but those primary red, green, and blue colors don't get tested in a Wilhelm type of lightfade test. That leaves the possibility of Canon's newly reformulated magenta in the new LUCIA Pro ink set as having traded some light fade resistance for higher color purity.  Magenta does get tested in the WIR test method, but it's unclear to me by anything I've read to date that Canon has even contracted with WIR for more testing.  Even the WIR testing that was done on the LUCIA EX and the Pro-1 inks occurred quite some time ago, and the reports say more papers would be added but they never were.  So, all and all, Canon appears to be staking its longevity claims on it's own in house testing without revealing the testing criteria and coming up with seemingly "poorer" score compared to what WIR published for past Canon pigmented ink sets, and that's their story at this time.

I personally won't invest in either a Pro-2000 or a Pro-4000 until I can produce some Aardenburg light fastness tests on the new Canon ink set. My most economical pathway to that goal is the purchase of a Pro-1000 which uses the same ink set, but regretably it's not looking like I will be able to raise the necessary funds for any new tests any time soon.

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
« Last Edit: March 14, 2016, 05:20:07 pm by MHMG »
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MHMG

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #46 on: March 14, 2016, 04:31:07 pm »

At the same time, they also claimed 'better longevity' than the old inkset.

Besides, if the new inks were judged by the same standards as the existing inks, it would be a colossal failure of both technology and marketing for Canon to come out and claim a 50% reduction in print longevity. It would practically scream to the world, 'go and buy the old printers/inks, the new ones are crap'.

I haven't been able to find any wording from Canon that claims "better longevity" compared to earlier pigmented ink set like LUCIA EX. Better this and better that but not better longevity.  Perhaps you can provide us a link or a copy of the quote where this claim was stated. 

One thing is for sure.  Canon's internal testing of new ink formulations is much more extensive than what Canon reveals, so in all likelihood Canon really does know the answer to whether the new Canon Pro 1000/2000/4000 ink set is equal to, better, or worse in light fade resistance than the older pigmented sets like LUCIA EX. If they know it's better or merely equal to earlier ink sets, then Canon management has seriously dropped the ball to allow this current situation where printmakers like myself are earnestly looking at Canon's stated longevity ratings and observing discrepancies with earlier Wilhelm tests which suggest the new ink set is now less stable.  Canon does indeed appear by all indications to be carefully messaging the new printer promotional literature like a company that did decide to quietly give up some print longevity for other system attributes on its newest line of printers. Canon, please say it ain't so :'(

« Last Edit: March 14, 2016, 05:28:14 pm by MHMG »
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deanwork

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #47 on: March 14, 2016, 04:36:29 pm »

I know one thing, whenever I hear the word "Pro" I hold on to my wallet.

john


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MHMG

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #48 on: March 14, 2016, 04:41:12 pm »

I know one thing, whenever I hear the word "Pro" I hold on to my wallet.

john

 ;D ;D ;D
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kevinmcdnyc

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #49 on: March 14, 2016, 08:59:13 pm »

If the ink had an improved longevity, I'm sure any company would highlight that in its press release.
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MHMG

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #50 on: March 14, 2016, 09:50:17 pm »

If the ink had an improved longevity, I'm sure any company would highlight that in its press release.

As I noted earlier, the older Canon Lucia EX is holding its own very well in direct competition with the newer Epson UCHD ink set according to the Aardenburg Imaging & Archive light fade testing protocol.  Canon could have left the ink longevity properties alone and still been very competitive with respect to print longevity in its newest round of high end photo printers to hit the market. Hence, it's bewildering that Canon has not taken the appropriate steps to assure customers that its newest "Lucia Pro" ink set, although reformulated, is not at least equal in archival properties to the Canon pigmented ink sets which precede it.  Rather, Canon's published claims, the only ratings currently existing for the newest Canon ink set, suggest but don't adequately confirm that Canon has elected to "detune" the longevity performance in favor of other initial image quality attributes.

For anyone concerned about archival properties, this leaves the new line of Canon printers somewhat in a current state of uncertainty.  There are many reasons to upgrade to a new printer.  However, if print longevity is a feature that you care about, then Canon has left us with remarkable uncertainty about this specific property. I for one won't retire my ipf8300 in favor of a new Canon model upgrade until I get more clarity about Canon's newest ink set in terms of accurate print longevity ratings. If forced to replace my Canon ipf8300 today, then Epson's newest line of printers and corresponding ink set(s) hold out much more apparent promise to meet my print longevity requirements than the newest Canon printer models, not because I know the comparative longevity properties of each printer and ink set for certain, but because Canon has done such a poor job explaining its latest print longevity rating rationale in comparison to Epson's latest claims. Canon's 45-60 year light fastness rating would generally meet my expectations if based on the Aardenburg testing protocol and an indoor light level of 450 Lux average daily illumination, not so much if based on the Wilhelm testing protocol.  Yet Canon has not explained how it arrived at this figure, so it's of little use.  Not a sound and reassuring way to choose any printer, IMHO.

cheers,
Mark
« Last Edit: March 14, 2016, 10:08:01 pm by MHMG »
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shadowblade

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #51 on: March 14, 2016, 11:23:00 pm »

As I noted earlier, the older Canon Lucia EX is holding its own very well in direct competition with the newer Epson UCHD ink set according to the Aardenburg Imaging & Archive light fade testing protocol.  Canon could have left the ink longevity properties alone and still been very competitive with respect to print longevity in its newest round of high end photo printers to hit the market. Hence, it's bewildering that Canon has not taken the appropriate steps to assure customers that its newest "Lucia Pro" ink set, although reformulated, is not at least equal in archival properties to the Canon pigmented ink sets which precede it.  Rather, Canon's published claims, the only ratings currently existing for the newest Canon ink set, suggest but don't adequately confirm that Canon has elected to "detune" the longevity performance in favor of other initial image quality attributes.

For anyone concerned about archival properties, this leaves the new line of Canon printers somewhat in a current state of uncertainty.  There are many reasons to upgrade to a new printer.  However, if print longevity is a feature that you care about, then Canon has left us with remarkable uncertainty about this specific property. I for one won't retire my ipf8300 in favor of a new Canon model upgrade until I get more clarity about Canon's newest ink set in terms of accurate print longevity ratings. If forced to replace my Canon ipf8300 today, then Epson's newest line of printers and corresponding ink set(s) hold out much more apparent promise to meet my print longevity requirements than the newest Canon printer models, not because I know the comparative longevity properties of each printer and ink set for certain, but because Canon has done such a poor job explaining its latest print longevity rating rationale in comparison to Epson's latest claims. Canon's 45-60 year light fastness rating would generally meet my expectations if based on the Aardenburg testing protocol and an indoor light level of 450 Lux average daily illumination, not so much if based on the Wilhelm testing protocol.  Yet Canon has not explained how it arrived at this figure, so it's of little use.  Not a sound and reassuring way to choose any printer, IMHO.

cheers,
Mark

Exactly.

Although, how hard would it really be for a manufacturer to release multiple inksets for the one printer? As in, a super-wide-gamut one for prepress and advertising work (possibly pigment mixed with dye, since longevity isn't a concern there), a set for maximum longevity, even a black-and-white set (pure carbon, plus a few colour cartridges for toning). It would make for an extremely versatile, high-quality print system, rather than the current one-size-fits-all approach. Epson has already done it in a very limited way, with the option of LLK or V in the P7000/P9000.
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GrahamBy

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #52 on: March 15, 2016, 08:04:59 am »

I personally won't invest in either a Pro-2000 or a Pro-4000 until I can produce some Aardenburg light fastness tests on the new Canon ink set.

Mark, out of interest: supposing eventually the new and old inks turned out to have near-identical light-fastness... would you still buy one of the new printers?

I'm coming from the comment often read that there is no longer any real difference in image quality between Epson and Canon (and that presumably meaning the Canon CO doesn't add that much relative to the Epsons which don't have it). Admittedly, the 8300 is now two generations old... but do you forsee image improvements, or are there other issues beyond lightfastness and image quality that would motivate a new printer?

Presumably there will be some good prices on X400 series printers over the next few months...
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shadowblade

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #53 on: March 15, 2016, 09:18:36 am »

I'm coming from the comment often read that there is no longer any real difference in image quality between Epson and Canon (and that presumably meaning the Canon CO doesn't add that much relative to the Epsons which don't have it). Admittedly, the 8300 is now two generations old... but do you forsee image improvements, or are there other issues beyond lightfastness and image quality that would motivate a new printer?

These new inks improve Dmax a fair bit, by using a more-concentrated ink, i.e. more pigment per millilitre of ink. It'd certainly be nice to get even richer, deeper blacks, particularly on matte paper.

Although increasing the pigment concentration really should increase longevity...
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deanwork

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #54 on: March 15, 2016, 09:32:31 am »

Now that is a Really good point. I have always wondered why they couldn't provide one inkset for all of these printers aimed at designers and pantone colors, one for photographers, and possibly even one for black and white enthusiasts, kind of like offset presses. I mean hell we've done all this for over a decade ourselves with rips the hard way.

A good example of this is back when Epson released the CF Archival inkset for the 10K printer people eventually complained about the gamut. They quickly released the Ultrachrome version of the same printer. They told all of us we would have to buy a totally new $10,000.00 printer to use it. That turned out to be bs. Many people started hacking into the carts and making 3rd party carts and put Ultrachome inks in them, reprofiled the media and everything was fine. Then people started using the MIS and Lyson inks in them. Same thing, perfectly good. I used mine for Piezography K6 and it worked perfectly for about 7 years until I switched printers. Having several lines of printers doing slightly different things seems insane to me, unless they are trying to sell shops more than one printer. Imagine if you had a 10-12 ink printer and you could put various combinations of Epson inks in them for different purposes. That's what you could do with the Rolands back in the day.

john




Exactly.

Although, how hard would it really be for a manufacturer to release multiple inksets for the one printer?
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MHMG

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #55 on: March 15, 2016, 10:06:19 am »

Mark, out of interest: supposing eventually the new and old inks turned out to have near-identical light-fastness... would you still buy one of the new printers?

I'm coming from the comment often read that there is no longer any real difference in image quality between Epson and Canon (and that presumably meaning the Canon CO doesn't add that much relative to the Epsons which don't have it). Admittedly, the 8300 is now two generations old... but do you forsee image improvements, or are there other issues beyond lightfastness and image quality that would motivate a new printer?

Presumably there will be some good prices on X400 series printers over the next few months...

Well, eventually I will have to buy a new WF printer if I want to keep printing my own work (which I do because I insist on total control of the process). My 8300 is getting old and having more printhead burnout issues with increasing frequency which suggests the motherboard may also be on the way out.  At that point, the out of warranty repair bill goes a long way towards purchase of a new printer. Nevertheless, I will try to keep it running as long as feasible because the thought of just sending all this plastic and metal to a landfill with not much opportunity to recycle tugs at my environmental conscience.

I freely admit I'm not the manufacturers' target market for any big printer.  I only print my personal work which puts me squarely in the low volume output user group, and printer reliability issues get magnified for those of us who aren't running our printers each and every day.  That means I will have to spend some time studying how well the new crop of WF printers cope with lower frequency use. I have learned how to keep the ipf8300 reasonably happy by just running daily nozzle checks, and a small print or two once a week. I can handle that.  But interestingly enough, the little Pro-1 I purchased several months ago, needs even more constant throughput to keep it from running many preemptive cleaning cycles. It's an unbelievable ink hog that makes my iPf83300 seem positively frugal by comparison.  So, I will want to understand the new printer routine maintenance and reliability issues much better before pulling the trigger on a new one. Unfortunately, ink consumption and reliablity are not easily documented in the printer reviews since the printers are typically loaned to the reveiwer for relatively short periods of time. And relying on forums for the info also gets tricky because people tend to report mostly the horror stories, and it's hard to get any statistics on "the average enduser" experience. So, we all have to try to sort out signal to noise issues when forming impressions about printer reliability, and that simply takes time.

I tend to agree with you that all of the printers have reached an image quality state where drop size and screening patterns don't lead to easily noticeable differences in sharpness or "smoothness", especially on prints over 16x20 in size. Price, cost per print, reliability, media handling, and overall ease of use are all very big factors to consider when making a WF printer choice.  The addition of a gloss or chroma optimizer is also feature I instinctively like very much, but only if it gives the enduser proper control when venturing away from RC media and truly eliminates the need for a post treatment coating step. The problem I have seen is that the manufacturers seem to be optimizing their optimizers for RC photo media, so it can sometimes fall quite short when used on other non RC media (the so called Baryta papers) because the microporous coatings on those third party media often suck up the clearcoat more than the RC media. If the user can't adjust the GlOP channel output, then it will often fall short on truly eliminating gloss differential on those fine art media. I use very little RC and none for any archival printing.  Because i dislike gloss differential in inkjet pigment prints, i would therfore still have to resort to a post treatment spray for all glossy fine art media where the Glop doesn't take care of it, and in those situations, having the built in clearcoat feature fails to meet the intended objective, at least for me.  I'd actually like to see one or more of the printer manufacturers market an easy to use standalone GLOP machine that has more coating thickness versatility, but I doubt that will ever happen.

The manufacturers seem to be concentrating in the latest generation of printers on Dmax and B&W output quality, and from what I've seen there, the improvements in these areas of image quality are noticeably real but subtle. They are also highly media dependent, so if one has a favorite glossy/luster paper that you use a lot (I like HN photo rag pearl very much), it is worth checking a new printer's output specifically on that paper before purchasing.

Too many interesting choices, too little time :)

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
« Last Edit: March 15, 2016, 10:13:32 am by MHMG »
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shadowblade

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #56 on: March 15, 2016, 10:44:50 am »

Now that is a Really good point. I have always wondered why they couldn't provide one inkset for all of these printers aimed at designers and pantone colors, one for photographers, and possibly even one for black and white enthusiasts, kind of like offset presses. I mean hell we've done all this for over a decade ourselves with rips the hard way.

A good example of this is back when Epson released the CF Archival inkset for the 10K printer people eventually complained about the gamut. They quickly released the Ultrachrome version of the same printer. They told all of us we would have to buy a totally new $10,000.00 printer to use it. That turned out to be bs. Many people started hacking into the carts and making 3rd party carts and put Ultrachome inks in them, reprofiled the media and everything was fine. Then people started using the MIS and Lyson inks in them. Same thing, perfectly good. I used mine for Piezography K6 and it worked perfectly for about 7 years until I switched printers. Having several lines of printers doing slightly different things seems insane to me, unless they are trying to sell shops more than one printer. Imagine if you had a 10-12 ink printer and you could put various combinations of Epson inks in them for different purposes. That's what you could do with the Rolands back in the day.

Presumably you would choose the inkset you wanted to use when you first set up the printer, and get a second printer if you wanted to run another inkset too - the cost of changing between inksets (draining the ink in the tubes, plus more to completely flush out the lines, etc.) would rapidly exceed the cost of a new printer if you changed inksets on a project-by-project basis.

It'd be really nice if they made a version of Piezography Carbon that worked with HP or Canon printers.
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deanwork

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #57 on: March 15, 2016, 04:03:29 pm »

Mark,

I had to replace the main board on my 8300 this fall. It cost about $1,000.00. I had been running the printer everyday for 5 years. I was not really upset about doing that because this machine is built like a tank otherwise, I'd never had a day down, and I'd much rather do that than buy an 8400 which is no improvement. and have  to hire 4 guys to dispose of this one and move in another one without breaking our backs.

I have been told that the main boards are very sensitive to power surges and surge protectors only go so far. We have a lot of storms in the end and beginning of summer so I always completely unplug my machines during storms now. If I'm away for a couple of days I do the same. Don't know if this has effected you but it's worth considering. I still love this printer and wouldn't trade it for one of the new ones.

john



Well, eventually I will have to buy a new WF printer if I want to keep printing my own work (which I do because I insist on total control of the process). My 8300 is getting old and having more printhead burnout issues with increasing frequency which suggests the motherboard may also be on the way out.  At that point, the out of warranty repair bill goes a long way towards purchase of a new printer. Nevertheless, I will try to keep it running as long as feasible because the thought of just sending all this plastic and metal to a landfill with not much opportunity to recycle tugs at my environmental conscience.

I freely admit I'm not the manufacturers' target market for any big printer.  I only print my personal work which puts me squarely in the low volume output user group, and printer reliability issues get magnified for those of us who aren't running our printers each and every day.  That means I will have to spend some time studying how well the new crop of WF printers cope with lower frequency use. I have learned how to keep the ipf8300 reasonably happy by just running daily nozzle checks, and a small print or two once a week. I can handle that.  But interestingly enough, the little Pro-1 I purchased several months ago, needs even more constant throughput to keep it from running many preemptive cleaning cycles. It's an unbelievable ink hog that makes my iPf83300 seem positively frugal by comparison.  So, I will want to understand the new printer routine maintenance and reliability issues much better before pulling the trigger on a new one. Unfortunately, ink consumption and reliablity are not easily documented in the printer reviews since the printers are typically loaned to the reveiwer for relatively short periods of time. And relying on forums for the info also gets tricky because people tend to report mostly the horror stories, and it's hard to get any statistics on "the average enduser" experience. So, we all have to try to sort out signal to noise issues when forming impressions about printer reliability, and that simply takes time.

I tend to agree with you that all of the printers have reached an image quality state where drop size and screening patterns don't lead to easily noticeable differences in sharpness or "smoothness", especially on prints over 16x20 in size. Price, cost per print, reliability, media handling, and overall ease of use are all very big factors to consider when making a WF printer choice.  The addition of a gloss or chroma optimizer is also feature I instinctively like very much, but only if it gives the enduser proper control when venturing away from RC media and truly eliminates the need for a post treatment coating step. The problem I have seen is that the manufacturers seem to be optimizing their optimizers for RC photo media, so it can sometimes fall quite short when used on other non RC media (the so called Baryta papers) because the microporous coatings on those third party media often suck up the clearcoat more than the RC media. If the user can't adjust the GlOP channel output, then it will often fall short on truly eliminating gloss differential on those fine art media. I use very little RC and none for any archival printing.  Because i dislike gloss differential in inkjet pigment prints, i would therfore still have to resort to a post treatment spray for all glossy fine art media where the Glop doesn't take care of it, and in those situations, having the built in clearcoat feature fails to meet the intended objective, at least for me.  I'd actually like to see one or more of the printer manufacturers market an easy to use standalone GLOP machine that has more coating thickness versatility, but I doubt that will ever happen.

The manufacturers seem to be concentrating in the latest generation of printers on Dmax and B&W output quality, and from what I've seen there, the improvements in these areas of image quality are noticeably real but subtle. They are also highly media dependent, so if one has a favorite glossy/luster paper that you use a lot (I like HN photo rag pearl very much), it is worth checking a new printer's output specifically on that paper before purchasing.

Too many interesting choices, too little time :)

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

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #58 on: March 15, 2016, 05:48:49 pm »

Mark,

I had to replace the main board on my 8300 this fall. It cost about $1,000.00. I had been running the printer everyday for 5 years. I was not really upset about doing that because this machine is built like a tank otherwise, I'd never had a day down, and I'd much rather do that than buy an 8400 which is no improvement. and have  to hire 4 guys to dispose of this one and move in another one without breaking our backs.

I have been told that the main boards are very sensitive to power surges and surge protectors only go so far. We have a lot of storms in the end and beginning of summer so I always completely unplug my machines during storms now. If I'm away for a couple of days I do the same. Don't know if this has effected you but it's worth considering. I still love this printer and wouldn't trade it for one of the new ones.

john

Yup, all of what you said applies to my situation precisely. Some dealers I know keep trying to upsell me to an 8400 with really sweet deals, but the thought of moving another one of these monsters into my studio, and finding a home for the older 8300 is overwhelming. People often say to give these older printers to a local school, but I honestly don't think that's fair to the school unless a hefty ink endowment goes along with it ;D.  Most public schools these days live on shoestring budgets for both their science classes and art programs that require reasonable material and supply budgets.

The historic house I live in sits back on a hill, and the electronic dog fence we installed seems to be a lightening magnet (who knew?). My 8300's motherboard fried early on due to a nearby lightening strike which also fried several hundred dollars worth of microprocessor controllers on my high tech heating system in the basement. I shut down all sorts of equipment nowadays whenever a storm seems imminent, the 8300 being at the top of my list.  Fortunately, the 8300 was still under warranty at the time, and Canon kindly replaced the motherboard with no questions asked, but I'm pretty sure it was that one big EMP event from the lightening strike that did it in.
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shadowblade

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Re: New Canon PRO-2000 / 4000 printers
« Reply #59 on: March 15, 2016, 11:59:31 pm »

Well, eventually I will have to buy a new WF printer if I want to keep printing my own work (which I do because I insist on total control of the process). My 8300 is getting old and having more printhead burnout issues with increasing frequency which suggests the motherboard may also be on the way out.  At that point, the out of warranty repair bill goes a long way towards purchase of a new printer. Nevertheless, I will try to keep it running as long as feasible because the thought of just sending all this plastic and metal to a landfill with not much opportunity to recycle tugs at my environmental conscience.

I freely admit I'm not the manufacturers' target market for any big printer.  I only print my personal work which puts me squarely in the low volume output user group, and printer reliability issues get magnified for those of us who aren't running our printers each and every day.  That means I will have to spend some time studying how well the new crop of WF printers cope with lower frequency use. I have learned how to keep the ipf8300 reasonably happy by just running daily nozzle checks, and a small print or two once a week. I can handle that.  But interestingly enough, the little Pro-1 I purchased several months ago, needs even more constant throughput to keep it from running many preemptive cleaning cycles. It's an unbelievable ink hog that makes my iPf83300 seem positively frugal by comparison.  So, I will want to understand the new printer routine maintenance and reliability issues much better before pulling the trigger on a new one. Unfortunately, ink consumption and reliablity are not easily documented in the printer reviews since the printers are typically loaned to the reveiwer for relatively short periods of time. And relying on forums for the info also gets tricky because people tend to report mostly the horror stories, and it's hard to get any statistics on "the average enduser" experience. So, we all have to try to sort out signal to noise issues when forming impressions about printer reliability, and that simply takes time.

I tend to agree with you that all of the printers have reached an image quality state where drop size and screening patterns don't lead to easily noticeable differences in sharpness or "smoothness", especially on prints over 16x20 in size. Price, cost per print, reliability, media handling, and overall ease of use are all very big factors to consider when making a WF printer choice.  The addition of a gloss or chroma optimizer is also feature I instinctively like very much, but only if it gives the enduser proper control when venturing away from RC media and truly eliminates the need for a post treatment coating step. The problem I have seen is that the manufacturers seem to be optimizing their optimizers for RC photo media, so it can sometimes fall quite short when used on other non RC media (the so called Baryta papers) because the microporous coatings on those third party media often suck up the clearcoat more than the RC media. If the user can't adjust the GlOP channel output, then it will often fall short on truly eliminating gloss differential on those fine art media. I use very little RC and none for any archival printing.  Because i dislike gloss differential in inkjet pigment prints, i would therfore still have to resort to a post treatment spray for all glossy fine art media where the Glop doesn't take care of it, and in those situations, having the built in clearcoat feature fails to meet the intended objective, at least for me.  I'd actually like to see one or more of the printer manufacturers market an easy to use standalone GLOP machine that has more coating thickness versatility, but I doubt that will ever happen.

The manufacturers seem to be concentrating in the latest generation of printers on Dmax and B&W output quality, and from what I've seen there, the improvements in these areas of image quality are noticeably real but subtle. They are also highly media dependent, so if one has a favorite glossy/luster paper that you use a lot (I like HN photo rag pearl very much), it is worth checking a new printer's output specifically on that paper before purchasing.

Too many interesting choices, too little time :)

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

Wouldn't you want to use a protective spray anyway, regardless of whether the printer had a gloss optimiser? The optimiser might reduce gloss differential, but so does the spray, and the optimiser does nothing for print longevity, UV protection or physical protection.

Besides, 100% coverage of the whole print means the tank doesn't go a long way, and gloss optimiser is much more expensive than spray.

Would rather have the green ink back any day, or an extra shade of black, than using up one of the heads with optimiser.
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