I’m Planning for the Canon Pro-1000

[pharmacist]

I am planning for the Canon Pro-1000 printer with 12 cartridges: matte black, photo black, gray, photo gray, magenta, photo magenta, cyan, photo cyan, yellow, red (actually orange), blue and chroma optimizer. I hope til then my new loghouse is ready to accommodate all these printers .

Actually using vivid magenta does a hell of a good job in producing bright reds and oranges and also in vivid blues and purples. Somehow the only color that does improve skin tones to me is orange (or red in Canon's vocabulary, but nevertheless it is orange). Now think about Epson's decision to turn from the red and blue in the R1800 to red and orange in the Epson R1900/R2000: I think the use of (possible "vivid" ?) improved magenta in the later versions already made it possible to create brighter blues and purples and omit the blue ink in favor of the more effective orange ink.

So should Canon Pro-1000 use orange and green instead of red (orange) and blue as gamut increasing inks ? In both cases the significant ink gamut increasing color is....orange. Both Epson and Canon agree on the orange (Canon says red) color.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

yes, that's what Canon/Epson etc do with the red/orange to get the best gamut in the range of skin tones, and you see the orange as well in the larger format printers with 10-12 inks. The question remains for me how much that improvement actually is , I have not seen any direct comparitive gamut measurements of the P400/600 or the R2000/3000 . Is the improvement visible on actual prints or just measurable to give marketing some buzz words to differentiate their products? And the situation may get more difficult once somebody switches to 3rd party inks claimed to be compatible with these printers. I have seen quite some variances in gamuts with the more typical color/ink sets, and the benefit of OEM inks of the R2000 may be gone with other inks.

 

[Smile]

Usually the more colors printer has the more difficult is the switch to 3rd party inks claimed to be compatible with these printers. That is because the linearization curves built into the printer driver. If the printer can be driven by RIP then that would solve this problem with matching third party ink curves.

But since no RIP supports these A2 type format printers
And yes PrintFAB has not made the lin curve option, however they do not reply to emails and try to sell the final version for 119Eur, good luck with that.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

PrintFAB - it does not convince me, I won't use it. We are talking here, quite theoretically, about the Pro-1000 vs. Epson models, number of inks etc. Canon claims an gamut increase of 19% vs. the Pro-1, if they refer to a volumetric increase of the gamut cube, then that's not so much linearly, o.k., if it's mainly in direction of the reds and oranges it might very well be visible and a good improvement. When we discuss the size of the gamut we are at the borders of the gamut, at the saturated colors, and there another function/parameter counts more than the linearization - the ink limits hidden in the Canon driver/profiles, the ink limits per color and the total ink limit which should be specific to the type of paper used. And that adds another level of complexity once somebody starts using not only 3rd party inks but as well 3rd party papers which is quite typical. The driver most likely will not let me adjust ink limits for 3rd party papers.
But I'll leave it at this point, Epson came out with new printers and new inks - P800 etc claiming a wider gamut, better blacks etc and Canon starts a new family of printers with the Pro-1000 . with a wider gamut, better blacks etc, and I'm very much interested to see actual tests - not just the printing speed but as well the gamuts, gloss, bronzing, black levels etc

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

But since no RIP supports these A2 type format printers

I just see this info

http://www.whiterip.com/en/news/new-printers-support

I'm not familiar with this package, it claims to support the L800/1800 and P600/800 amongst other Epson printers, Canon models are not supported

 

[Smile]

I just see this info

http://www.whiterip.com/en/news/new-printers-support

I'm not familiar with this package, it claims to support the L800/1800 and P600/800 amongst other Epson printers, Canon models are not supported

But this RIP is about 1000USD
I would rather use something like Wutenprint on windows, or Gutenprint on linux. It's a pain to use because one has to convert to printer profile before opening and printing in GIMP, but it's free.

There is a good info on the net how to set it up.

 

[Smile]

It seems that if one want total control over the printer, including ink limits, curves etc. then EPSON is the only choice, the HP/Canon printers are not supported by RIP's that do support the small format printers This seems to be historical problem as HP/Canon are driven by onboard Firmware (black box) when EPSON is driven from PC software.

And all RIPS are driving them by using opensource linux drivers, or some proprietary code made from modifying these opensource linux drivers

 

[Roy Sletcher]

Actually using vivid magenta does a hell of a good job in producing bright reds and oranges and also in vivid blues and purples. Somehow the only color that does improve skin tones to me is orange (or red in Canon's vocabulary, but nevertheless it is orange). Now think about Epson's decision to turn from the red and blue in the R1800 to red and orange in the Epson R1900/R2000: I think the use of (possible "vivid" ?) improved magenta in the later versions already made it possible to create brighter blues and purples and omit the blue ink in favor of the more effective orange ink.

I have every respect for the knowledge and experience of others, but have some skepticism about skin tones being a serious problem with modern printers.

Considering that skin tones (Aliens excepted) fall comfortably within the sRGB gamut. that is a standard now easily achieved by even the most basic display panels and modest CMY printers. For this reason achieving a good skin tone match should be a pretty easy "by the numbers" exercise, unless unusual or extreme lighting conditions. IE Black people in dark tunnels at midnight can be difficult

I am not for a moment diminishing current comments about less than satisfactory skin tone reproduction, but rather suggesting there may be other reasons. Possibly post processing and the overall image context - good skin tones are not easy and, our supposed brains frequently over rides our eyes in interpreting visual effects. Also paper and paper finish have a huge effect on the final printed result as we all know.

Always happy to be proven wrong by the facts. Just refer me to colour value used in regular skin tones that falls outside the sRGB gamut.

rs

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

I think the discussion was picking up the marketing claims of Canon/Epson that an additional organge/red ink would create better skin tones in printouts, better in terms of saturation I guess. You are right that there is more to skin tones than just that ink, and 'natural' skin tones as photographed vary very much from those photoshopped later into the image, or those of heavily make up covered skins found in advertising. It needs to be as saturated as technically possible to still catch attention. And I still like to see actual gamut comparisons how much improvement is acheived with those inks, and a real life test whether that's actually visible in prints, so your reservations are well received.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

with the announcement of the Pro-1000 the other Canon A2 printer - the IPF5100 appears to be on the phase out route - with quite some discounts at this time making it cheaper than the Pro-1000. It is bulkier, but offers roll paper handling and not such a short paper length restriction as with the Pro-1000. Banners etc with varying lengths would run much better on the IPF5100. And cartridges are bigger reducing the effective ink cost significantly vs. the Pro-1000