Canon G series. "megatank" CISS printers

[stratman]

Here is another review of the printer compared to store printed images. The differences are very obvious in the yellows and greens. He had a couple prints that he thought worthy of display and few not. The reviewer likes the printer.

As you said, paper selection could make a difference.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

As long as the technical parameters are not clear I'm not able to follow his conclusions from the ovbservation of different greens - he is comparing to a print from another printer and we don't know for both prints the paper type, driver settings - e.g. Photo enhance - color adjustments - gamma - or ICM off/on with a generic or custom profile , all these parameters can create wide variations - wider even than what he is showing

 

[stratman]

Disregarding the store printed images, the yellows and greens, particularly the lighter tones, are lacking according to the reviewer when compared to the original images. He appeared to have more pleasing reddish and some bluish tones.

Of course color reproduction can be altered by the selection of paper used. There is nothing to lead to believe he is not using OEM inks and ICC profiles. With the proper combination of paper, ink and ICC profile there is also no reason to think the printer cannot perform as well as any other 4-color dye-based CYMK printer.

The question remains whether this printer is worth the price of admission. It appears to have plenty in its favor. I do not know anything comparable in the Canon line, tank or no tank. It is like my old MP830 but on steroids. However, the initial sticker price - $650 - is a barrier. It is 450% more than my Maxify but it has superior image reproduction and is a wide format printer. I do not know the OEM archival quality compares with other ink sets.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I did a quick gamut comparison of a ET7750 profile with the profile of the same glossy paper on a 6 color L1800,



The blue line is the gamut outline for the ET7750, with a small edge over the gamut of the L1800 in the green - yellow range - with the red line - and the profile maintains this edge over the complete range up to the white point. There is no weak area for the yellows and greens.
The reviewer mentions a lightness difference as his first comment which is visible in the video, and it is rather strong, just this is an indication for me that he did not use specific profiles , such lightness changes on the same paper are just not possible when you go through a proper profiling process on different printers, differences between profiles are typically less visible - loss of detail definition in highly saturated areas, duller looking darker ranges and more.
But since we don't have any futher information I'm closing my comments here.

Epson pricing - Epson wants to make all possible profit with the Ecotank models upfront - when you buy the unit, there is much less profit possible with the bottled inks afterwards, that's their practice across all ET... printer models, but you just can recalculate the supplied ink into sets of cartridges with the same total volume, and you may add some $$ for the gain in convenience. It's not a simple decision, I only can say that I'm glad I got away from all those cartridges - o.k. - not really - I still have a WF2010W as a test printer - to swap inks for testing and this and that like the gloss optimizer................

 

[stratman]

Reading through the YouTube comment section of the video I posted, the reviewer states:

I used Epson Photo Paper Glossy 11x17 270x432mm 52lb/200g/M2 for this review

He is using OEM paper. He is using OEM inks. His monitor is calibrated (Spider5 Pro). That's three out of the four main intersections for error accounted for.

Lower down in the comments section he states:

I use Epson paper with the Epson profile.

It is possible he set the wrong paper type so wrong ICC profile used. Maybe, maybe not. The printer does have a safeguard to select the proper paper setting. From the user manual:

Turning Off the Paper Setting Alert

The Paper Setting Alert warns you when the paper settings do not match the paper you loaded. You can turn off this feature from the product's control panel.

Not fool proof but it does add a measure of ensuring proper settings.

He also addresses archiving, though not by much:

At the time of this video, just for this reason, I printed two of the same photo and put one on top of the other and left them out to compare. They seldom get direct sunlight (you don't want that on any picture) but get a fair amount of ambient light. So far I can see no difference but I have my doubts; I'm also concerned that they will fade sooner than a dedicated photo printer ink

A respondent then posts that Epson claims 300 years!

https://www.epson.co.uk/viewcon/cor...sumables/overview/inkcart/1055colorinkbottles

A conclusion the reviewer makes:

IF your getting it as a dedicated Photo printer I think you will be disappointed, It does do a very good job for a multi tasking Consumer printer but there are better options for Pro photo printing.

I doubt we would disagree with that. However, this is a niche printer that does more than any other AIO printer either Epson or Canon currently sell.

Seems like a nice printer with some great features.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Fading - 300 years - oh well - I don't do my prints for the next 300 years - other inks will last for 'generations to come' in Epson's marketing speech, the inks of the ET7750 are equivalent in fading performance to the Epson Claria inks - it was a test in a German computer magazine about 2.5 years ago reporting that the first time, and I could confirm this with various tests as reported. Rather have a look to the data by Aardenburg Imaging, there are tremendous differences by paper type and the influence of optical brighteners. Dye inks fade - sooner or later , it's relative performance that the OEM inks Claria/Epson or Chromlife/Canon inks are the best - by far compared to 3rd party refill inks of Far East origin, you can watch some of those fading from day to day if you place them outside.

'IF your getting it as a dedicated Photo printer I think you will be disappointed,' - I wouldn't know why - it is not explained. It's not the print quality - it could be handling - the paper bins, the use of heavier papers - a horizontal pass through option and such - and yes - that was the reason I gave mine away and I got a L1800, the gamuts are pretty similar, there is no visible difference in the overall print quality.

 

[stratman]

'IF your getting it as a dedicated Photo printer I think you will be disappointed,' - I wouldn't know why - it is not explained.

I took it to mean as compared to printers of a class like the Canon Pro 100 or it's Epson equivalent (Pxxx?).

Does your Epson L1800 image reproduction perform as well as your "pro" image dedicated Epson printer models?

I got a L1800, the gamuts are pretty similar, there is no visible difference in the overall print quality.

Are you of the opinion that the 2 additional ink colors of the L1800 are superfluous, for marketing or profit purposes?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Are you of the opinion that the 2 additional ink colors of the L1800 are superfluous, for marketing or profit purposes?

There is no simple answer - it is a kind of everything.
You need to view the light inks - or photo inks as Canon calls them - together with the droplet size of a particular printer. You don't gain any gamut from those, they are diluted inks. Larger format printers - Epson or Canon - use a droplet size of 4pl, and ink drops are less visible from dithereing when the ink is thinner, lighter than regular ink so you get a smoother , less grainy print - at a very close up view , yes there is some benefit in this respect but it is normally difficult or impossible to test that on the same printer - printing with or w/o light inks. I could do it longer time ago on my Pro 7600 with some RIP software, it allowed me to print with or w/o the light colors by a simple software flag in the RIP software. And there is another parameter you need to take into account - the viewing distance - you typically view posters from a greater distance than 4x6" prints , so yes - you can see a difference at a close up view - which is not typical with poster sized prints.
When you look to desktop printers the situation is slightly different, Canon was/is using since a long time - more than 15 years - a droplet size of 1 - 2 pl and a 5 colors inkset in most of their printers -2 black inks, and you can get great quality prints from these printers, no reviewer complained about quality issues from the lack of photo inks.
Epson configures the printers lightly different - the multipurpose printers - expression home, Workforce etc come with a printhead with 3-3.5 pl droplet size and 4 inks in most cases. You can get very good prints as well with some non-standard driver settings, and you may not see any graininess if you are not aware of it , or you see it if you know about it and look closely. Epson is offering separately some printers models - Expression Photo and such - with an extended 6 color inkset and a droplet seize of 1.5 pl - XP55 - or with 5 inks and 1.5pl like the ET7750. Both light inks and a small droplet size together is becoming an overkill. Again - you normally cannot run the same printer either with 4 or 5 or 6 inks - I did a test with an 6 ink L805 - using the regular inks in the light ink channels and tried to run a profile with it, it is possible, but there are some color quirks in a transition range between the regular and the light inks since I cannot influence the driver internals. But this allowed me nevertheless to print light colors - the upper range of the gamut - you need to look very careful with a loupe to see any differences - whether a light color was dithered with light inks or regular inks - the drop density is slightly different, but that's all below a regular threshold level of visibility. Canon can do very well w/o light colors, and the ET7750 as well.
And you have a class of printers - like the Epson P400, P600, 700 or the Canon Pro10s or Pro100 which are above the A4 desktop printers but below the large format models , Epson is using light inks - P600/700 or not - P400 all with 1.5pl droplet size - Canon is using photo inks in these printers with 4pl droplet size.
That's technical details but you really would need to compare actual printouts to get a final visual impression.
I did that some time ago with 2 forum members, we exchanged Canon and Epson prints, on the same paper , I did remote profiles for the other user so that we wouldn't get into profile issues, lightness etc, and we were surprised how good and close prints with an Epson and Canon printer could get, and this with refill inks at our choice.

 

[stratman]

Thank you for the clarity and succinct summary of these printers.

You have highlighted the droplet size between printers and manufacturers. It has been discussed on the forum that the droplet size is no longer a significant concern, This seems to be borne out in that the Epson P series and the Canon Pro series models have greatly different droplet size but both create superb photo output, thanks to software control of those nozzles.

I think your experiment using "regular" inks instead of light inks demonstrates an important point - color reproduction success depends not only on the software but the sensory perception of the viewer, something that can be manipulated by the size of the image and the distance between the image and the viewer.

More different ink cartridges may mean smoother or more accurate color tone transitions. We've seen palpable improvements in B&W images with the addition of certain colors like Gray.

Interestingly, your gamut comparison shows a GREATER gamut with the 4 color printer rather than the 6 color printer. Is this a factor of the paper used, the ICC profile, printer limitation in hardware or software, or limitations of the ink itself?

Given a proper ICC profile and paper selection, my question remains whether your Pxxx series printers with more ink colors perform better at all than your L1800 or ET7750 in gamut, color transitions, and color accuracy?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Interestingly, your gamut comparison shows a GREATER gamut with the 4 color printer rather than the 6 color printer. Is this a factor of the paper used, the ICC profile, printer limitation in hardware or software, or limitations of the ink itself?

It's all together - the firmware controlling the nozzle shots, timing, volume, placement plays an important role. I used the same paper for such tests.

It has been discussed on the forum that the droplet size is no longer a significant concern,

Yes, you should not buy a printer just because it is using smaller droplets.

More different ink cartridges may mean smoother or more accurate color tone transitions.

may mean or not - please keep in mind that the eye cannot differentiate colors which are very close together - I just cannot find back that color chart with the delta E ellipsoids posted recently. It's from this publication pp16,17
as attached

Given a proper ICC profile and paper selection, my question remains whether your Pxxx series printers with more ink colors perform better at all than your L1800 or ET7750 in gamut, color transitions, and color accuracy?

not really, printers differ more in paper handling, usability and such , color accuracy is not just a matter of the printer hardware but of a good profile, you would need a good number of patches, you should eliminate reading variations - instrument tolerances, reading variations from repeat readings by avaraging results , and don't forget that some of the printers use pigment and/or dye inks