Canon G series. "megatank" CISS printers

[stratman]

Poor color memory, eye fatigue, color blindness and viewing
conditions can all affect the human eye’s ability to distinguish
color differences. In addition to those limitations, the eye does
not detect differences in hue (red, yellow, green, blue, etc.),
chroma (saturation) or lightness equally. In fact, the average
observer will see hue differences first, chroma differences
second and lightness differences last.

not really

Thank you for the answer. It is a counterweight to the "more ink cartridges the better" prevailing thinking in many consumers.

Barring the dye-based vs pigment ink decision, it seems the fundamental issue is what type and size paper you want to print on rather than number of different cartridges used should guide which printer will meet one's needs.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

"more ink cartridges the better"

We are talking here about printers for private use and not for specific commercial applications -e.g. proofing.
Epson is promising 'colours with 99% Pantone Solid Coated Colour accuracy' e.g. for the P5000, if that's what you really need for your business it then doesn't matter if Epson only can acheive that with 8 or 9 or 10 different inks , but otherwise you can live with less and still create great prints of great pictures.

 

[stratman]

Yes, we're talking non-commercialr printers.

you can live with less and still create great prints of great pictures

I appreciate your clarity on this topic. Fantastic. Thanks, ISF!

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

There is another issue you should keep in mind which I didn't want to bring as a critique of the video; the problem is that some Epson profiles, the genuine ones which get installed with the driver, are in some cases that much off that they are unusable, this had been discussed in the forum already years ago; here is just one example; I'm not claining that my i1Pro2 is absolutely correct but it matches other people's profiles quite good and the calibration via a reference tile prevents larger escapes. I'm showing here the gamut of an Epson Premium paper of which I got a sample pack as part of a WF2010W delivery, I profiled it on a L1800 , and Epson delivers as well a profile for this paper, with the same type of ink used for this profile



The green line is the gamut of the Epson profile, I'm getting a profile with a gamut outlined by the red line, with quite a big difference in the lighter green range. That's differences you cannot explain by tolerances, variations etc, that's effectively a profile for a completely different paper. When looking to the gamut of this same paper of the profile supplied with the L805 - 6 colors, same inks - it is about in the middle of these two lines. I can observe such deviations on some printers, and I get profiles pretty close to those supplied with other printers. It is not consistent, and the user does not have any capability to verify that.
I have seen several explanations - the L...series printers originally got into the market in the Far East - e.g. Malaysia - and the Premium Glossy paper there is actually different to the papers shipping in Europe, but the profiles for the European market did not get an update. Some other commentators implied that such a profile is tuned for a particularly tuned look of prints - e.g. increased color saturation - I cannot verify any of such explanations, I just can issue a word of caution that even genuine profiles may be pretty incorrect. And I don't know whether Canon profiles are more accurate in this respect.

 

[stratman]

a word of caution that even genuine profiles may be pretty incorrect.

That seems to be a significant variance. Are people able to perceive these differences?

Can the lighting under which the profiling is done affect the profiling results?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Are people able to perceive these differences?

If you know what to look for, you would need an image with colors in the range of concern - between these gamut lines, not all images deliver that, but what is happening - the printing software using the wider profile is sending colors to the printer which the paper cannot resolve anymore, the paper is beyond the saturation limit, so greens with a different saturation level will be printed as the same color, undifferentiated, and if an image does not have colors just in this range you wouldn't see that effect at all so it is pretty subtle overall. And if such areas in your image are rather small you wouldn't see the effect either.
Something similar, a rather bad profile in this case, was causing similar effects , as well in the green tones, and this article shows the complications to get to the cause. Gamutvision was a nice program for some purposes but not so easy to use in all cases, just browse through it.

www.gamutvision.com/docs/smudged_pines.html

The top line as a general statement is important beyond this specific case:
' When real images are transformed for printing, most of the action takes placen inside the gamut boundary.'

Can the lighting under which the profiling is done affect the profiling results?

Typical room light is no problem, the spectro is sitting close on the color patches, but you should avoid patch scanning under direct sunlight etc to prevent some stray light getting into the sensor from underneath.

 

[stratman]

Interesting that Epson, which must have some of the finest ICC Profile equipment available and plenty of time to make as good a profile as anyone, would allow such imperfection be released for installations.

Or is this a potential issue for any ICC profile given appropriate conditions?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Sure Epson will use more accurate equipment, and they need to consider many more variables, they need to find a still usable midpoint between all variations - paper variations, ink variations and printer variations of all those x-thousends or millions still produced and going to be produced units in the next years.
It's much easier for me, I profile my printers, papers and inks - any (weird) combinations, and I get a consistent color output - within the constraints of the items in use.
I could start assuming this and that why the Epson profile for the Premium Glossy on the L1800 is different to the profile on the L805 - same inks , same printhead with 6 colors but we just don't know anything - firmware, design goals etc so I just stick to my advice to verifiy an OEM profile if you need to - you are using Epson inks and Epson papers and no 3rd party supplies - and if you can do - you have profiling equipment.
You could think - just as an example - that Epson wants to let the L805 print faster than the L1800 - here the number of print passes become relevant for the same quality setting in the driver. It's all examples and assumptions so let's stop here, it just shows the scope of possible parameters but as well some hidden traps.

 

[stratman]

It has been a great advance level crash course on Epson and color management. Have you considered teaching? You have much to offer.

Thank you, Ink stained Fingers.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Thanks, I hope I could get your questions answered - teaching ? I'm afraid I would get impatient too early....