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by pleverington on Fri Jul 17, 2015 9:35 am
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I downloaded some profiles for the P600 using the new sure color inksets and compared these in colorthink to ones for the 7900-9900 inksets.
I compared profiles on two of the best papers out there-- Epson's Exhibition  fiber paper, and Epson's Hot Press Bright White--- to get a feel for photo and matte black applications.

Wireframes are the 7900-9900 profiles
Image
Image
Image
Image
Maybe I am missing something and logic would dictate that and all as the surecolor inks are all new and are getting rave reviews, but looking at these gamuts am I not seeing that the 9900 pigment  blowing the sure color on the P600 gamut away?? In a way I would love any significant improvement that makes our prints a whole lot better, but in another way it would be very nice to not even have to think of buying more expensive stuff..once again.....

I downloaded the profiles from the epson site by the way...Any thoughts anyone???


Paul
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"A great image is one that is created, not one that is made"
 

by Royce Howland on Fri Jul 17, 2015 11:48 am
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I don't think it's likely, even with tuned custom profiles, that the new P600 can challenge the 9900 for colour gamut. The P600 reverts back to Epson's "classic" 8-ink mix (not counting the extra PK vs. MK black), and the only serious claims about the ink set I've seen so far include reformulated black for slightly better Dmax and improved resin encapsulation presumably for an unknown degree of reduced clogging.

The 9900's ink set is older, but offers a 10-ink mix, adding Orange & Green to the other 8 of the classic mix. If you look at the gamut plots you made where the 9900's wire frame exceeds the P600's solid core, these are colours that mostly make sense for a printer that can call on dedicated Orange and Green pigments. The 9900 shows better gamut mainly in oranges, yellows, greens, cyans and blues, most of which can benefit from those extra couple of dedicated pigments.

Also consider that the P600 is the most entry level of the new SureColor printers, and as such probably has some hardware limitations that may impact the colour gamut that can be delivered. For example, the P600's head has only 180 nozzles * 8 ink channels, whereas the 9900's head has 360 nozzles * 10 ink channels. I'm betting as a fully "pro" large format model, the 9900 also has much more accurate head placement and paper transport. Now, the P600 has a minimum of 2 picolitre ink droplets vs. the 9900's 3.5 picolitres, but there's no info I can see on which inks of the P600 can use droplets that small. Possibly only the new blacks (hence the great Dmax). So for colour, I'd say it's quite possible that the 9900 head has the ability to lay down a more accurate and more complex ink dither pattern, which may translate to better gamut in some hues where the driving factor isn't just the extra 2 pigments.

Interestingly, the SureColor P800 which has a larger size that presumably should be able to incorporate a little more advancement, also has a 180 nozzles * 8 ink head design, but claims 3.5 picolitre ink droplets... like the older models rather than 2 picolitres like the P600.

At our print shop we're rocking the older Epson 11880's (plus one old 9880 converted to K7 carbon ink), and have no plan to move off of them until they're no longer maintainable and ones in good condition are no longer available. The prints we produce consistently meet or exceed the expectations of our customers on every level. Printers are like digital cameras -- almost all of the last 2 - 3 generations (at least) of these machines are better than what 99.9% of people need.

For the vast majority of us even at the most enthusiastic levels :), as long as our gear stays working, and isn't actively blocking us from great image-making in very specific situations, then we can stay off the hamster wheel of equipment upgrades. I'm almost immediately skeptical of most new product announcements these days, unless there's something clearly net new & ground-breaking trumpeted immediately.

That's not good news for vendors who just want us to upgrade to new machines that are essentially re-treads of old machines. To get more of my money, they'll have to really innovate, or else wait for my gear to die off and require replacement. The latter is what I'm most worried about, observing the trend lines of reliability, maintainability and service over the past few years...
Royce Howland
 

by pleverington on Tue Jul 21, 2015 7:04 am
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Thanks for the response Royce.. I guess my curiousness on this new printer stems from all the hype about the sure color inks. There must be something more than just longevity(200 years?)here that they are all excited about, especially guys like Reichman. From the plots it doesn't look like much would be gained by the surecolor inks even if  they had orange and green as the HDR inks of the 9900 does. The Dmax doesn't even look as good even though Reichman said the blacks on matte paper are the best he has seen. So I figured I'm missing something.

I'm looking at the plots and am wondering why the (I guess one would call it the white point of the plot) is not identically plotted since the paper is identical between the two. The very lightest tones would be the lightness of the media...right? Maybe just discrepancies of the equipment used and operator and programs maybe of the profiling equipment.

So far it looks like I won't be missing anything staying with my 9900, but  I do like to not lose touch with whats coming down the pike next...


Paul
Paul Leverington
"A great image is one that is created, not one that is made"
 

by Royce Howland on Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:46 am
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You described it with the right word -- "hype". Any time something new comes out, people get excited. It takes time to find out the reality. As I said above, I'm skeptical about most new product announcements unless there's a clear major differentiation that's evident right from the beginning. I'm not seeing that so far with the SureColor printers, at least the consumer/prosumer models that have come so far. Once the large formats come out we'll get a better sense of what the new inks are contributing to the equation. Plus people with a more hard core analytical bent will be able to produce some observations.

Dmax depends on more than just the ink. Since it's a density thing, it also depends on the ink droplet size, the ink screening and dither pattern, the ink limits used for the media in question, and the ink carrying capacity of the paper. Looking at plots of Hot Press Bright White, we see the black is about equivalent. I surmise the limiting factor there is the paper. The more surprising one is the Exhibition Fibre, where the 9900 shows deeper black tones. If the new SureColor black indeed supports significantly better Dmax, we should be able to see it on this paper of all papers. Since it's not showing in the profiles, either the P600 profile is suboptimal, or there's a limiting factor other than the ink that's preventing the P600 from achieving a better Dmax that the ink is capable of. I wouldn't be surprised if it's both.

As for the shift in whites, yes... it could be discrepancies in equipment or configuration used to produce the profiles. It could be the profile-making software itself (X-Rite I presume) has changed. It could even be batch drift issues in the paper.

Bottom line... I think your conclusion is right, you're not likely going to be missing anything by sticking with the 9900. As long as you can keep it going, it's going to do the job. Our 9900's at the shop were great while they worked, we just had the bad luck that they turned into the nightmare cases after a period of time. If they had kept working we'd be running them today except for the 11880's we need for wider roll stock.
Royce Howland
 

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