Bizarre ink 673 ink performance on L850 and L1800

[Smile]

Proper ICC profiles make prints neutral, it's up to the photographer to add tint color to warmer / cooler etc.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Epson is providing an 'Advanced B/W Mode' - ABW in drivers of newer A3 and A2... printers which let you adjust the color tone of the gray level from sepia to steel blue - with neutral somewhere in the middle, and this separately for the lighter and the darker grays. But you need to do a few test prints to find that gray tone you are looking for.
But be aware - you cannot change the colors of the endpoints of the gray axis - these are the whitepoint of the paper and the blackpoint of the ink on a particular paper, there are no other colors with the same L lightness which can be used to substitute these colors.
I don't know if the L1800 provides this ABW driver feature, the ET-8550 has it, the P900 has it and other printers as well.
Can a profile correct grays to neutral - yes and no - only to a degree - it's a question how the profile software handles that - how the gray axis is connecting the whitepoint and the blackpoint, this can vary with the rendering intent. And some profiling software let you influence this . This all would require testing if particular software settings meet your requirements. And be aware that the color temperature of the ambient light influences the look of gray tones as well - particularly the lighter ones. A paper does not have a neutral spectral distribution of the paper white aside from the effects of UV additives giving just the lighter grays a more blueish tint under daylight.
So it's all a little bit more complex.

 

[AmaDeuSbg]

Proper ICC profiles make prints neutral, it's up to the photographer to add tint color to warmer / cooler etc.

Thank you, I will probably go full Printfab for B&W image on the L1800.

Epson is providing an 'Advanced B/W Mode' - ABW in drivers of newer A3 and A2... printers which let you adjust the color tone of the gray level from sepia to steel blue - with neutral somewhere in the middle, and this separately for the lighter and the darker grays. But you need to do a few test prints to find that gray tone you are looking for.
But be aware - you cannot change the colors of the endpoints of the gray axis - these are the whitepoint of the paper and the blackpoint of the ink on a particular paper, there are no other colors with the same L lightness which can be used to substitute these colors.
I don't know if the L1800 provides this ABW driver feature, the ET-8550 has it, the P900 has it and other printers as well.
Can a profile correct grays to neutral - yes and no - only to a degree - it's a question how the profile software handles that - how the gray axis is connecting the whitepoint and the blackpoint, this can vary with the rendering intent. And some profiling software let you influence this . This all would require testing if particular software settings meet your requirements. And be aware that the color temperature of the ambient light influences the look of gray tones as well - particularly the lighter ones. A paper does not have a neutral spectral distribution of the paper white aside from the effects of UV additives giving just the lighter grays a more blueish tint under daylight.
So it's all a little bit more complex.

Thank you again for your so detailed response. L1800 does not provide this ABW but for this I will go Printfab because I already own the software anyway. Yes, I remember making profiles like for like a month for the original 673 inks, I guess I will play around some more now haha.

Yesterday my 673 LM almost depleted so I gave it a go and ordered inks. I recon that you were using 106 CMYK + diluted Lights, so I ordered 106CMYK and T54C LM LC. After I ordered them I decided to go over your fading tests and see if maybe I will change one of the 106 CMYK to a T54C if the performance is significantly better.
From those test (https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...ing-test-106-114-t54c-gi-53.16479/post-142202 ; https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...ing-test-106-114-t54c-gi-53.16479/post-142308) for Y I found the difference was less than 1 point so I decided that I might skip changing 106 to T54C, but I found something odd from the next tests I saw, which were both on epson prem glossy paper (https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...6-107-114-t54c-bottled-inks.16040/post-139574 ; https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...6-107-114-t54c-bottled-inks.16040/post-139425) - where yellow performed sometimes better on the 106 and sometimes way better on the T54C.

Similar for the magenta, it seems that the 106 inks were close by the T54C tests here ( https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...6-107-114-t54c-bottled-inks.16040/post-139574 ;https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...6-107-114-t54c-bottled-inks.16040/post-139425) but the 106 was performing with 1 or even 2 points difference in the following tests (https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...ing-test-106-114-t54c-gi-53.16479/post-142202 ; https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...ing-test-106-114-t54c-gi-53.16479/post-142308).

For the Cyan actually the results were opposite in the above tests for 106 and T54C but again they performed a lot? different in the different tests. For example in (https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...ing-test-106-114-t54c-gi-53.16479/post-142202 ; https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...ing-test-106-114-t54c-gi-53.16479/post-142308) the 106 inks were 1-2 points better, while in (https://www.printerknowledge.com/th...6-107-114-t54c-bottled-inks.16040/post-139574 ; https://www.printerknowledge.com/threads/fading-test-epson-106-107-114-t54c-bottled-inks.16040/ ) the cyan in some tests for the 106 were worse with 1-2 or even near 3 points difference.

I wonder if my knowledge (or more or less the lack of knowledge ) is stopping me in seeing somethings and if it is actually any point in comparing so much in detail those charts and just go for the 106 CMYK and T54C LC LM. If you were choosing inks and the cost was not important which combination of inks you will choose (if it is really worth bothering mixing and labeling the CMYK out of T54C and 106 inks)?

I wonder if visually the inks will have any difference at all on normal conditions if compared (I am referring to the 673 vs the 106/T54C) if stored for let's say 1 week or something with no harsh conditions or the difference will mainly become more visible in the long term of storing the prints like months etc.

I do realize those are budget inks and no one actually is going to outlive the advertised 300 years for example on the 114inks but I obviously have a condition where I want to always max out the options I have (probably should see a therapist for that haha).

Thank you and all others that will read that long and probably confusing post.

Have a lovely day

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

You won't see those small variances; all these tests just should show that it is impossible to rate and compare inks just with one global parameter - every ink/paper combination delivers a different result.

I think it is about enough to group the inks into a few performance classes - like premium - average and poor.
It's the Epson Claria inks, 106, T54C Ultrachrome D6 and Canon Chromalife 100(*) which I would group into the premium group . An average ink would be the Epson 673 and poor are Epson 664 , some Canon inks of the low end Megatank printers like GI-51 , and there are inks from China which you can watch fading from day to day . And don't forget how much the paper can impact the ink performance. I'm not extrapolating the data for the next 200 years, it's just results by direct comparison.
And it's up to the user to bring prices into his calucation - prices vary over time and by Epson/Canon business region.
And with this data together you need to make the purchasing decision.