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Author Topic: New Printer coming from Epson  (Read 17710 times)

Stefan Ohlsson

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #40 on: March 07, 2015, 04:33:18 am »

Not as far along as I'd like them to be.  The status of the UltraChrome HD ink/P600 printer project is posted and being updated regularly on the AaI&A homepage: http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com

best,
Mark
We are getting close :-) Let's hope that you will get the rest soon.
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Stefan Ohlsson

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #41 on: March 07, 2015, 04:42:40 am »

Here's a less than satisfactory gamut comparison of the P600 versus the x900 series.  It's not stated what paper, but it looks like a glossy from the x900 hull.  Not much difference in the shadows, but there are voids in the the P600 bright blues and greens and yellows that could seriously impact print brilliance on at least landscapes.  I'd much rather have minimal gamut clipping in those areas than a little more D-max.  Of course gamut graphs don't tell the whole story of a print as viewed, only a lot of it.  It's possible the P600 gets higher marks for apparent saturation than for brilliance.

The red hull is the older x900 printer.



I'm the one who made that test and it was made on Epson premium Semigloss. Both were profiles that I made with i1Profiler. The increase in black is easy to see even without a spectrophotometer. It's harder to spot the decrease in gamut on most prints.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #42 on: March 07, 2015, 06:20:49 am »

I'm the one who made that test and it was made on Epson premium Semigloss. Both were profiles that I made with i1Profiler. The increase in black is easy to see even without a spectrophotometer. It's harder to spot the decrease in gamut on most prints.

Stefan, fine, "harder to spot the decrease in gamut on most prints", but does the decreased gamut have any impact on the overall richness of colour reproduction? And, not a question for you, but in principle for Epson, why should Epson produce a new model professional printer that has less gamut than a model now four years old or more? I don't get it. If Epson needs to know, what I'm looking for is incremental progress where it matters, not regress. So I would like to see preserved the gamut of the 4900, the very little scope left for improvement of DMax achieved and most important of all - freedom from ink flow problems, whatever the cause. That is my challenge to them. Anyhow, let us see what emerges from under the wrappers, and then how it fares over a period of six months or so of testing when its long-term expected performance reliability under a range of usage conditions can be thoroughly evaluated.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Stefan Ohlsson

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #43 on: March 07, 2015, 07:05:55 am »

Stefan, fine, "harder to spot the decrease in gamut on most prints", but does the decreased gamut have any impact on the overall richness of colour reproduction? And, not a question for you, but in principle for Epson, why should Epson produce a new model professional printer that has less gamut than a model now four years old or more? I don't get it. If Epson needs to know, what I'm looking for is incremental progress where it matters, not regress. So I would like to see preserved the gamut of the 4900, the very little scope left for improvement of DMax achieved and most important of all - freedom from ink flow problems, whatever the cause.
The improvement in much less clogging is very easy to see. During the 4 months that I have used the printer I've only spotted one problem with clogging. It took only one cleaning to solve that problem. And the printer has been placed in a very dry room, with a humidity level of around 20 %. The improvement in D-Max is important for me when I proof on a uncoated paper. Some of the presses today can achieve a better D-Max than it is possible to do on today's ink jet printers on uncoated paper.

But I do agree that it is important to have a large gamut. When I compare the profiles against the Pantone colors I can see that the 4900 can print more of the Pantone colors than the P600. So I hope that the replacement to the x900-printers will have more colors than the P600.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #44 on: March 07, 2015, 07:10:05 am »

Thanks Stefan. Encouraging on the clogging front.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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MHMG

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #45 on: March 07, 2015, 10:03:24 am »

And, not a question for you, but in principle for Epson, why should Epson produce a new model professional printer that has less gamut than a model now four years old or more? I don't get it. If Epson needs to know, what I'm looking for is incremental progress where it matters, not regress. So I would like to see preserved the gamut of the 4900...

Well, I won't be able to answer this question definitively until we can run some independent confirming tests on the new HD ink set where we can actually publish the fading curves, but assuming the lofty Wilhelm ratings reported in the WPPI article are indicative of a greatly improved yellow pigment lightfastness, it's very likely that Epson chemists had to switch to a different yellow pigment to accomplish that feat. It probably wasn't enough just to tinker with resin encapsulation properties alone. It's a well known and longstanding fact that more stable pigments and dyes tend to be less colorful, so there is  nearly always an engineering trade-off between light fastness and color gamut. In fact if the more colorful dyes had more light fastness, I doubt any manufacturer would be producing pigment printers for the home and fine art photography market.  Those pigment printers would be allocated only to applications in outdoor signage.

Moving to a more stable but somewhat less vivid and/or slightly hue-shifted yellow thus means somewhat compromised reds. greens, and blues reproduction (they need yellow in the blend to make those colors). This is what the slightly reduced gamut of the HD versus K3VM ink sets is hinting at.  Recall the first Epson desktop pigmented ink printer (the Photo Stylus 2000). It had a very stable yellow pigment, much more so than Ultrachrome K3 yellow, but combined with a "dirtier" magenta in that ink set and no photo grays, and we had a printer with horrible color constancy problems and pretty compromised color gamut. I personally bought one and made only a few prints before abandoning it as totally unsatisfactory.  I could make a perfectly gray balanced print under 5000K high CRI lighting, walk the print into a gallery under 3200K lamps where the color balance would look implausibly reddish, then carry the print over to a window with overcast cool daylight illumination and the print would turn a sickly cyan-green in color balance. Obviously Epson engineers got the message from customer feedback, and improvements were then made, but the next generation of inks erred too far towards a vivid yellow pigment selected for color constancy and colorfulness. That opened the door for Canon and HP to deliver pigmented ink sets that struck a different balance (better or worse depending on who you ask) between color gamut and longevity, also ushering in era of 12 color sets that add red, orange,violet, and/or green inks in various ways to extend what the cyan, magenta, and yellow inks can do for blue, green, and red reproduction.

IHMO, Epson probably should have introduced a different yellow when the X900 series HDR ink set was introduced, but the public at the time was largely unaware of the K3 yellow pigment stabilty weaknesses, so "if it ain't broke" in the minds of the consumer, there's little incentive to change. Now that it's more common knowledge that the older Epson K3VM and HDR ink sets lag significantly behind recent Canon and HP pigment sets in lightfastness, there was indeed more incentive for Epson to make further improvements, and it seems promising that Epson may have achieved it. It's just the way the world works :)  I do anticipate that the HDR set with it's extended color gamut using orange and green inks will get an update as well and we will see that new generation of HDR type printers soon, perhaps next year.  I think at that point, Epson may once again be leading rather than following, and Canon may then have to respond. I doubt anyone will top the current HP Vivera pigment stability, but if the other companies meet or come close, that would be great.  

Meanwhile, the color gamut of the P600 HD ink set should be more than adequate for it's intended market. Improved black levels are indeed part of the total color gamut though few people think of greater tonal range that way, and it is actually more critical to the vast majority of images how accurately and pleasingly the low to moderate chroma colors are being reproduced.  For example, get the skin tones of the bride and the neutral tonal gradients in the wedding dress right, and the fact that the red roses she's holding are vivid red but not as super vivid red as in the digital image on the monitor, and the print will still be perceived by the viewer as a beautiful print :) Now, if the print just stays that way over time, all the better ;D

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
« Last Edit: March 07, 2015, 10:26:03 am by MHMG »
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Stefan Ohlsson

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #46 on: March 07, 2015, 10:38:24 am »

Meanwhile, the color gamut of the P600 HD ink set should be more than adequate for it's intended market. Improved black levels are indeed part of the total color gamut though few people think of greater tonal range that way, and it is actually more critical to the vast majority of images how accurately and pleasingly the low to moderate chroma colors are being reproduced.  For example, get the skin tones of the bride and the neutral tonal gradients in the wedding dress right, and the fact that the red roses she's holding are vivid red but not as super vivid red as in the digital image on the monitor, and the print will still be perceived by the viewer as a beautiful print :) Now, if the print just stays that way over time, all the better ;D

cheers,
Mark
http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com
The B&W prints made with the Photo Stylus Epson 2000 were very special. I have some left that I show when I try to explain the concept of metameric failure.

What has impressed most people when I show them prints made on the new P600 are the blacks, especially on matte papers. Even with prints with saturated colors, no one has reacted to the smaller gamut when I show them prints made both on the P600 and the 4900. I think that the addition of more colors is important when you use it as a proof printer, especially if you have Pantone colors. But that is a very special market, important for Epson, but not so much for fine art printers.
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Wayne Fox

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #47 on: April 01, 2015, 07:06:26 pm »

Looks like the new printer will finally be revealed soon ....

http://2015.palmspringsphotofestival.com/project/epson/

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jferrari

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #48 on: April 01, 2015, 08:28:53 pm »

Probably not a good idea to post this on April Fool's day, although it's probably legit. Or is it??
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digitaldog

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #49 on: April 01, 2015, 08:52:31 pm »

The B&W prints made with the Photo Stylus Epson 2000 were very special. I have some left that I show when I try to explain the concept of metameric failure.
What an awful printer experience. Had (beta tested) it, B&W was a sick joke. And then there was the gray balance software, ugh. Epson has come a very long way since that printer. I absolutely love my 3880, whatever is released, I don't think I'll be that upset.
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Wayne Fox

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #50 on: April 01, 2015, 09:08:08 pm »

Legit link from a trusted person, who I just happened to email today about info and this is the link he sent back.  So April 1 is a coincidence.

Follow the link ... looks pretty legit.
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Mark D Segal

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #51 on: April 01, 2015, 09:37:02 pm »

What an awful printer experience. Had (beta tested) it, B&W was a sick joke. And then there was the gray balance software, ugh. Epson has come a very long way since that printer. I absolutely love my 3880, whatever is released, I don't think I'll be that upset.

It's perhaps worth remembering that in its day the 2000P was a breakthrough printer. It was the first archival pigment inkjet printer in a 17" desktop format to ever be produced. In 15 short years the technology has matured to an extent that it can only get better by small amounts at a time, but each increment has made a difference and I expect will continue to do so. 
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Mark D Segal

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #52 on: April 01, 2015, 09:39:05 pm »

Looks like the new printer will finally be revealed soon ....

http://2015.palmspringsphotofestival.com/project/epson/



Aren't they talking about the Epson Surecolor P600 which is already shipping?
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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digitaldog

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #53 on: April 01, 2015, 09:40:50 pm »

It's perhaps worth remembering that in its day the 2000P was a breakthrough printer. It was the first archival pigment inkjet printer in a 17" desktop format to ever be produced. In 15 short years the technology has matured to an extent that it can only get better by small amounts at a time, but each increment has made a difference and I expect will continue to do so. 
True and it only sucked bad for B&W. We have seen a lot in 15 years but the pace of progress, in all nature of digital imaging seems to me to have stalled considerably from those days.
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digitaldog

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #54 on: April 01, 2015, 09:41:16 pm »

Aren't they talking about the Epson Surecolor P600 which is already shipping?
No, but I can say no more than that.... ::)
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Mark D Segal

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #55 on: April 01, 2015, 09:45:15 pm »

True and it only sucked bad for B&W. We have seen a lot in 15 years but the pace of progress, in all nature of digital imaging seems to me to have stalled considerably from those days.

Not sure "stalled" is a good way of describing it. I would rather suggest it has "matured", and you reach a certain point of maturity with most technologies that the improvement curve flattens until the next big breakthrough. There just isn't that much further it can go in its present technical context. So I would look upon that as a recognition of a truly successful technological revolution.
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Mark D Segal (formerly MarkDS)
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Wayne Fox

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #56 on: April 01, 2015, 10:58:07 pm »

Aren't they talking about the Epson Surecolor P600 which is already shipping?
Pretty sure they're gonna take the wraps off the printer under the black shroud that started this thread, which appears to be a 3880 size printer.  Certainly could be more than that, it's not a secret that all the pro printers will eventually move to the new inks.

No, but I can say no more than that.... ::)
I'm jealous  ;D
« Last Edit: April 01, 2015, 11:30:59 pm by Wayne Fox »
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aaronchan

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Re: New Printer coming from Epson
« Reply #57 on: April 01, 2015, 11:12:41 pm »

No, but I can say no more than that.... ::)

very interesting answer
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