Best B and W prints from Epson or Canon - large format

[toddwms]

So, I'm an Epson large format printer - photo artist - printing primarily B&W images, but not exclusively, generally on matte papers. My 9890 is dying quickly. Interested in best replacement between the Epson P8000 or Canon Prograf Pro 4000.

Epson has spent years bettering their Advanced B&W print capability. Funny to say, I haven't used it much as I'm not so dependent on pure B&W neutrality. BUT I'd like to know what the consensus is as to which one is the better B&W performer. Or - if they just come off equally fine.

Is there presently a Dmax advantage in the black from either worth consideration?

 

[Mark D Segal]

Is there presently a Dmax advantage in the black from either worth consideration?

No.

[Dan Wells]

Possibly Epson converted with Piezography inks?

[unesco]

If you stay with Epson, try Quad Tone Rip (QTR) for B&W. It gives you full control on ink placement from each channel, you can make tone curves (beautiful shadows) of any shape, prepared for duo and tri-toning. Curve preparation requires effort, but then priniting is easy. Can be used for any ink set - Epson OEM, Piezography etc. Hope it helps.

[Garnick]

+ 1 for QTR.  For the price it's a great app for B&W printing as well as the variety and depth of toning effects.  Where it really shines is with the Piezography inkset, but also offers a wide range of possibilities for the Epson OEM inkset.  Also, the creator, Roy Harrington, is always there to help with any issues one might come across. 

[Paul Roark]

+ 1 for QTR.  ...

I, however, also opted to go dedicated B&W -- many more "neutral" carbon inks and easier control due to  pre-mixed toner that takes are of the Lab A value.  Full RGB control for B&W is difficult.  Limiting the color to a single toner curve/variable brings the most useful B&W range into something that is easily doable.  (I kept of cheap 1100 for color -- mostly maps.)

So, my solution is shown generally at

http://www.paulroark.com/BW-Info/7800-Glossy-Carbon-Variable-Tone-2016.pdf

This is totally open source and inexpensive, even while using the most stable Canon color pigments in the toner.

Paul
www.PaulRoark.com

[toddwms]

My problem w/ B&W conversion w/ my present printer is that other complications are in the works, I think motherboard and I'm getting air in the lines from somewhere in the system.

The other considerations are that I still want to be able to print color, and I only have room for one machine.

If I only needed this one machine, then maybe I'd consider fixing these other problems, and it might be a savings in the long run - MAYBE.

I thank you all for your recommendations to make it a B&W machine. Normally a damn good idea. And if anyone would care to make that conversion after bringing the printer up to grade w/ my 9890 then come and get it. Freebie. I live in Santa Fe, NM. And I realize I have the problem now of how to get rid of the beast in a positive way (any suggestions?)

Thanks Mark for the D-max reply. And if you should be reading this post again - how does Canon do B&W? Would I still be dealing w/ color casting? Or has Canon developed some tricks up it's own sleeve to match Epson's ADV B&W?

[David Sutton]

how does Canon do B&W? Would I still be dealing w/ color casting? Or has Canon developed some tricks up it's own sleeve to match Epson's ADV B&W?

I've used both Epson and Canon, but not the latest models. The Canon tends not to clog as much on low usage. That's generally about it. Both can make lovely prints.
With the Canon printer I set it to monochrome in the printer dialogue and hit print. It uses a little colour ink but not nearly enough to cause colour casts.
My printer doesn't have the gloss optimiser, and I've heard from a reliable source that it doesn't do much and may be better to avoid models that have it, if reasonably possible.
The only issue I've had is getting a good screen to print match. This was solved by converting the RGB file to QTR – Gray Lab colour space prior to printing. That also allows softproofing in Lightroom. I don't bother with that as the match is near perfect.
David

[Mark D Segal]

Thanks Mark for the D-max reply. And if you should be reading this post again - how does Canon do B&W? Would I still be dealing w/ color casting? Or has Canon developed some tricks up it's own sleeve to match Epson's ADV B&W?

Both printers can make fine B&W prints. Have a look at my review articles, as well as those of Keith Cooper on Northlight Images. All described.

[Mark D Segal]

I've used both Epson and Canon, but not the latest models. The Canon tends not to clog as much on low usage. That's generally about it. Both can make lovely prints.
With the Canon printer I set it to monochrome in the printer dialogue and hit print. It uses a little colour ink but not nearly enough to cause colour casts.
My printer doesn't have the gloss optimiser, and I've heard from a reliable source that it doesn't do much and may be better to avoid models that have it, if reasonably possible.
The only issue I've had is getting a good screen to print match. This was solved by converting the RGB file to QTR – Gray Lab colour space prior to printing. That also allows softproofing in Lightroom. I don't bother with that as the match is near perfect.
David

You can't tell much about clogging because it prevents clogging by cleaning itself under the hood.

Your reliable source doesn't understand the Canon inkset to judge from what you report. Firstly, it is not gloss optimizer, it is chroma optimizer. It brings out colour depth for gloss/luster papers. It is a component of the inkset and developed for this purpose instead of adding orange and green ink, as Epson did. If you are buying a new Canon Pro 1000/2000/4000 etc. printer it cannot be avoided and there is no reason on earth to do so anyhow.

If you are not getting a good screen to print match with the Canon driver and Adobe applications, you are having a colour management problem. But if you solved it by other means, that's great, except it should be unnecessary.

[David Sutton]

You can't tell much about clogging because it prevents clogging by cleaning itself under the hood.

The "under the hood" cleaning on Canon printers is pretty good but not perfect. Nozzles can and do clog. The latest head I've installed has proved a little troublesome with the PK ink nozzles, and needs a small print through it every 5 days if I want to avoid waiting for a nozzle check and head clean before printing. I lodged this with the local Canon tech and we're monitoring how it goes.

Your reliable source doesn't understand the Canon inkset to judge from what you report. Firstly, it is not gloss optimizer, it is chroma optimizer. It brings out colour depth for gloss/luster papers. It is a component of the inkset and developed for this purpose instead of adding orange and green ink, as Epson did. If you are buying a new Canon Pro 1000/2000/4000 etc. printer it cannot be avoided and there is no reason on earth to do so anyhow.

Quite correct. It's a chrome optimiser. But I'll stick with my source, it's a good one. Agreed your experience may differ.

If you are not getting a good screen to print match with the Canon driver and Adobe applications, you are having a colour management problem. But if you solved it by other means, that's great, except it should be unnecessary.

Last time I looked, Lightroom only softproofed RGB colour spaces. Has this changed?
My screen to print match is normally fine.
Except when using the monochrome setting in the Canon driver, with both RGB and greyscale files. I'm certain this is not a colour management issue. I agree that using the QTR colour space should be unnecessary, but it works well.

[Mark D Segal]

Quite correct. It's a chrome optimiser. But I'll stick with my source, it's a good one. Agreed your experience may differ.

The role of chroma optimizer is actually not my experience. The people who designed the system explained its role and rationale to me and the testing of alternative approaches they undertook before confirming the final product specs.

[unesco]

The other considerations are that I still want to be able to print color, and I only have room for one machine.
(...)
I thank you all for your recommendations to make it a B&W machine. Normally a damn good idea.

the option could be to have large universal machine for color and B&W, one smaller, e.g. A2 or even smaller A3+ size for B&W conversion

Thanks Mark for the D-max reply. And if you should be reading this post again - how does Canon do B&W? Would I still be dealing w/ color casting? Or has Canon developed some tricks up it's own sleeve to match Epson's ADV B&W?

on pigment printing, both Canon and Epson will give you excellent results in B&W modes
there is independent True Black and White software for Canon printers, but only for older generations (e.g. iPF8300, x400), it has some similarities to Epson QTR, but is much easier to use (but suppose you can go further with QTR customisation)

Epson ABW is not a rocket science, it has number of drawbacks, however I have impression that it gives much better results with Sure Color series over older K3 generation inksets and printers. the new Epson Print Layout app adds some limited softprofing functions to ABW - you can see differences on your picture during manipulations with curves toning and other parameters. "+" to Epson.

Canon and Epson have different strategies for B&W inksets and printing technoiques. canon inks are neutral, epson has warm dominance so to make print neutral it needs some little magenta and cyan to put on paper. canon adds colorants to its pigment blacks ink liquid to compensate warmth just in the ink itself.
hope it helps

[Eric Brody]

This may be obvious but just to be sure it's clear, with the QTR driver, unless you convert the entire printer to use Cone or other black and white insets, it will still print in color with no issues. QTR is just another printer driver but is not available for Canon printers. I've been using it for many years with great success. I'm a long way from an expert printer. I use the built in paper profiles for QTR, mostly print on Moab Entrada natural. I've not tried to make my own curves. When I want to print color, just switch to the Epson driver. I usually print out of Photoshop with Roy Harrington's excellent Print Tool program for both black and white and color. I currently use an Epson 3880 and wish that QTR would be available for Canon printers. I'm not anxious to switch, but would like to have the option without giving up QTR.

[Mark D Segal]

Lest one be tempted to conclude from reading a number of cogent contributions in this thread that excellent B&W prints can't be made from the standard software offered through the photo editing applications, well-made ICC profiles and the printer drivers, I offer a sample of the evidence from my extensive reviews of papers and printers that do not at all rely on third-party drivers and inks: Ilford Gold Fibre Silk paper in the Epson SC-P5000 printer, using the Epson driver and an ICC profile made in i1Profiler from X-Rite's standard 2371 patch target.

I measured the results using a 100 patch verification target that provides measurement for every grayscale patch from L*1 to L* 100, looking at both adherence to the linearity of the Luminance scale and at the hue bias of each patch in the set. For the dark tones, maximum Black is L*2.2. The human eye would not be able to distinguish this from any value in the L*1 range and no printing combination I know of can do better than to reach somewhere into that range. The average variance from complete linearity is 0.5 L values. The maximum variance is 0.9 for one value. The minimum variance is 0.01 for one value. The average hue bias from a* or b* = 0 (total neutrality) is absolute  0.12 points for the a* channel and 0.15 for the b* channel - insignificant. For the mid-tones, the average L* variance is 0.5, the maximum being 0.83 and the minimum 0.19. The average hue bias is 0.12 points in the a* channel and 0.29 in the b* channel. For the light tones, the average variance of L* is 0.37 points, the maximum being 0.52 and the minimum 0.03. The average hue bias is 0.14 a* points and 0.42 b* points. All the variances from complete neutrality of the a* and b* values are below the level of JND (Just Noticeable Differences) from neutral gray.

In the attached three graphs for the L* scale, the black line is complete linearity (input equals output) and the red line shows the values read from the printed patches. The closer the overlap the more accurate/more linear the printing set-up. Speaks for itself.

I have no quibble with any one using alternative approaches for making their prints - it's whatever works well for the user and in which the user is experienced and has confidence; I'm just reminding here that given the state of current inkjet printing technology, one can obtain excellent, predictable results for B&W prints just using the manufacturer's supplied drivers and inks.