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by Porsche917 on Tue Oct 27, 2015 1:06 am
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Ladies and Gentlemen:

Am I correct in understanding that the new Epson Surecolor line of printers are the successors to the Epson Stylus Pro line of printers?  

Best Regards,

Roman  :D
 

by E.J. Peiker on Tue Oct 27, 2015 8:40 am
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If you are referring to P800, P6000, P8000, P10000 then yes :)
 

by Porsche917 on Tue Oct 27, 2015 5:58 pm
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Hi E.J.

"Yes," I was definitely referring to the P800, P6000, P8000 and P10000.
Thanks.

Best Regards,

Roman :-)
 

by pleverington on Tue Nov 03, 2015 7:30 am
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EJ have you had the opportunity to do any side by side comparisons and evaluations?
Paul Leverington
"A great image is one that is created, not one that is made"
 

by E.J. Peiker on Tue Nov 03, 2015 9:04 am
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Haven't used any of them.
 

by Primus on Tue Nov 03, 2015 12:13 pm
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pleverington wrote:EJ have you had the opportunity to do any side by side comparisons and evaluations?
Paul, I've been using the P800 since my 3880 also died around the same time as my 9900 :-(

1. Print quality: On the surface of it, there is little difference in the quality. 
2.The feed is a bit easier, especially with thick stock, you can put say 20 sheets of 310gm into the feeder and they all go through easily. With my 3880 it would cause a jam. 
3. User interface is better, there is now a set of buttons and an LCD display that allows you to access more of the menu and do different things like set paper size and so on.
4. Speed of printing to me appears faster too.
5. I am having a bit of trouble connecting to the printer at times through a Windows shell and QImage (running a Mac Pro), but that may be just my set up. It has no problems printing through PS or LR. I print almost everything with QImage so I need to troubleshoot this.
6. Paper profiles are a bit  of a problem. Some vendors have not perfected them yet. For example, Canson Baryta profile is too yellow. I used the Ilford galerie silk profile with Canson paper and it worked  very well. 

I don't know about clogging, I have now become paranoid about it and either print or do a nozzle check every 3 days at most. 

Pradeep
 

by pleverington on Thu Nov 05, 2015 7:30 am
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Thanks Pradeep. It would be nice if I didn't need to upgrade for another long while. I'm still hoping ou get your 9900 up and running. Please do get back to us if you have any future assessments to share...
Paul Leverington
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by Primus on Tue Nov 24, 2015 10:42 am
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pleverington wrote:Thanks Pradeep. It would be nice if I didn't need to upgrade for another long while. I'm still hoping ou get your 9900 up and running. Please do get back to us if you have any future assessments to share...

Paul, the printer died and I have the replacement already as I mentioned.

The new Surecolor P9000 is identical to the old Stylus Pro 9900 externally and I suspect in most aspects internally too. You have to be careful the first time setting it up either as a 'photographic' printer or a 'commercial' printer (the latter uses the Violet ink cart), because this step is permanent.

The other features of the printer are well described elsewhere so I will not mention them here.

I did some printing this weekend mainly the standard targets on standard Epson semi-glossy paper and a few other images of mine that I like. Here is what I noted:

1. Print speed  - again, no discernible difference. I never timed the old one so don't know if this is faster or not.
2. The printer goes to sleep on its own and then wakes up, which may be a power saving feature. I've had a couple of error code messages come up but none in the past two days, so hope this was just a glitch of some sort. 
3. The  nozzle check now prints the date and time and serial number which is good, I think the old one did not if I remember.
4. Print Quality: This obviously is the big one. So I will elaborate a bit.

I usually print through QImage, (through a Fusion virtual machine on my Mac) which IMHO is the best $70 you could ever spend on printing. If you print anything at home do yourselves a favor and get this. I cannot say enough good things about it. The difference in quality between printing through QImage and Photoshop/Lightroom is obvious even at 5X7 size. Enough said.

Anyway, the new printer produces some of the richest blacks I have seen, even on the bog-standard Epson Semi-gloss paper. I don't have the means to do any formal testing, but looking at identical print target from my Stylus 9900 and the SC-9000 there is a distinct difference. The blacks are black!

There is also a discernible improvement in the accuracy of the profile supplied by Epson. I have always used the standard OEM profiles and have found that there was a slight loss of warm tones (the prints were not 'cooler' but the reds and pinks were not so rich) with the older printer. This one is more accurate. I guess this may just be a color gamut thing, but the red tones are better and more like they appear on my calibrated NEC monitors.

The color gamut seems to be a bit better to my eyes in the blue range as well. Again, this is all subjective.

The prints are also a bit sharper, especially in areas of high contrast. This is most noticeable in the B&W portion of the test target but again , this could be due to the darker blacks but even in portraits this is visible. 

I have ordered some paper stock since the only one I have right now is the Epson semi-gloss and a  couple of BC papers, will post updates with results on the new papers. 

So, if your old Stylus Pro is dying or dead like mine, it is a worthwhile replacement and I am back in happy printing grounds :-)

If you are also in the market for a new printer, this is a great buy, I don't have any idea of the print quality of HP or Canon, but from what I am seeing coming out of this printer, I could not ask for anything more.

Pradeep
 

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