Epson R1900 or Canon Pro9000MKII to refill with Precision Colors Inks?

[leo8088]

you said "Soft proofing alone does not make it happen" it's an important part in the process of getting accurate colors.

Wow, just think about how big the bluffing was without mentioning a word about this. Did you catch the words about R200s all over the swift stores? Why praising such wonderful printers on one hand and saying they are all over the swift stores on the other? I happen to have a R300. I swear to god it is another that belongs to a swift store. A Canon ip3000 beats it both hands down any time. I was given a R280 too that is supposed to be superior because it uses Claria ink. My friend finished less than one set of OEM cartridge then gave it up to me. What a great R series Epson printers they are.

Anyway, color management is a big deal. Hope you see that I am not bragging about it. We don't need any of that. What we need is a way to make our printer print better or more accurate colors that match reasonably close to the colors of the original image. Try to understand that this is not achieved by soft proofing. Bragging about how big a deal soft proofing is does not give an answer to the question about how to achieve this goal. I hope nobody takes my challenge to this thread personally. If you have any question about my point please point it out but don't say blinded by light.

 

[mikling]

=

 

[Red John]

Ultimately what CISS and inks did you choose for the Epson R1900?

 

[mikling]

The user Xavi ended up getting three profiling packages for his system and none is doing the job. The output between the Monaco and Spyder is apparently identical or very close and the Profile Prism output was clearly grades below. Both the Monaco and Spyder softproofs similarly with good colors BUT the output itself is wrong. The output from both profile err similarly. When this occurs it is clearly a system/ software setting issue due to user error of some type. I tested a profile I sent him and it looked fine on my system. When he used it, the result was different. I suspect there is a color space issue surrounding all of his color problems.

 

[TXAvi8tor]

Is it useful to say what color space(s) you're using that result in good results on your system?

I'm seeing somewhat the same issue. Digital images in sRGB color space, monitor profiled with Spyder II Express, Canon 9000 MkII set to Photo Pro Paper II, & using the appropriate paper profile. Printed on Rock River brand Premium Polar Satin, results are approx 30 CC (Kodak Color Correction units) blue and about 25% too light.

 

[mikling]

The key question is are you using OEM paper and inks?

If not, then accuracy will be dependent on luck.

Here is what sooooo many people don't realize. Each composition of paper reacts differently with each color of ink. So even if you use OEM ink, the intended color can be off if a non OEM paper is used. In your case if Canon inks are used but non-Canon paper is used, the accuracy relative to using Canon paper is a matter of luck. When you see adverts on the boxes indicating superior color, hmmmm.... the better phrase is likely to be "different color and we think/hope you might favor the differences".

If you are using after market inks, then the situation gets more elaborate because the differences above are going to be further extended by using the fact that all inks react differently to a similar paper. You can get a brand might be close to one specific brand but with another brand it might well be further off.

The next issue is that the paper setting recommended by the paper manufacturer can sometimes be wrong. It is a setting that they think the average user would like not necessarily the one producing the least error. The best paper setting is best determined by trial and error or very careful inspection of the output.

The final issue and this one is often overlooked is that the quality setting or resolution plays a part in how the colors are rendered. Again there will be differences. A profile created on high resolution is not identically the same profile in standard or lower resolution. This point escapes so many users.

Now when you consider the points above, the only way to reliably obtain accurate colors when using any aftermarket products is to use a custom profile which specifies all settings and only those settings are to be used. Straying away from the settings may or may not produce acceptable results. It varies by printer.

So if you're getting results that are too blue or too light then or whatever, you need to move to the next step and use either a profile with the specific combination of products you are using or obtain a custom printer profile.

If you need just to make a custom printer profile, there is no way that you can determine whether the profile created is in fact the best your combination can produce or whether it is suboptimal unless it is compared to a string of other profiles. It will likely be vastly superior to using no profile and this point should not be lost but obtaining the best one can be elusive unless a series of different ones are made at various settings and the output critically compared.

The final aspect to all of this is that all printers print slightly differently as they come off the production line.Fortunately these variations are small enough for most of us and this aspect allows off the shelf profiles to be used successfully most of the time.

Now when it comes to papers, here's the other issue. Some papers do well on pigment ink and others not so well. So a paper that is reviewed to be a good performer on a particular printer using pigment ink might indeed put out a not so stellar performance on dye ink. Keep this in mind when using highly rated papers used primarily by the professional/serious enthusiast crowd. Many of the comments might well be based on pigment inks. For the sale of sales paper mfrs will indicate that their papers are suitable for all types of printers..except some are better suited.

A type of paper that is not usable with pigment inks that seems to do well with dye inks is the swellable paper variety. One example is the Ilford Galerie "CLASSIC" line. The downside is that they are totally not waterproof or resistant, take a long time to dry and much care needs to exercised during handling right after printing. The benefit is that they allow dye inks better stability and allows the printer better control of colors. Another paper that has a good reputation with dye inks is HP Premium Plus which I can confirm allows the Pro9000 to perform like a top end pigment ink printer when properly profiled for it. It allows reproduction of the dark tones with nuance that higher end pigment printers are usually more capable of.

 

[ghwellsjr]

The final issue and this one is often overlooked is that the quality setting or resolution plays a part in how the colors are rendered. Again there will be differences. A profile created on high resolution is not identically the same profile in standard or lower resolution. This point escapes so many users.

When you say "resolution" do you mean the same thing as "quality setting"? I don't know about Epson printers but my Canon printers do not have an explicit resolution settting but the quality setting controls the number of passes which could be construed as controlling the resolution.

 

[mikling]

Yes, quality settings is basically what I had meant.