Looking at the P700

[stratman]

I'm using the P700 Pk ink, the same ink as in Keith's tests, but be aware that the P700 uses as well a Lk and a LLk... the driver will dither dark grays with the black ink, medium grays with the Lk ink and light grays with the LLk ink, with some transition ranges in between, the P700 uses 3 inks to cover the complete lightness range from black to paperwhite.

OK. I still would like to know how Keith got multi-color bronzing when printing a B&W image.

Is Keith's P700's multicolor bronzing effects due to the paper used, the PK/LK/LLK inks only, or does the P700 use multiple colors when printing B&W besides PK/LK/LLK?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Or it's a transitioning effect when the driver changes over from one gray ink to the next since they most likely differ in pigment density - but who knows what's happening there on the surface - interference effects at some repetitive patterns e.g. pigment size in the ink , mineral particles in the paper coating or else.

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

A member of the German Druckerchannel forum I have some good contacts with provided me with some leftover ink out of P800 cartridges Photo black which I used to run some additional tests - again with my simple WF2010W - and scanning low count patch sheets for profiles and reading the black levels of the P700 photo black and the P800 photo black, I'm using the HP Premium Plus Photo Paper glossy for this test

P700 ink black level

L a b
Lab = 8,91 -0,58 -3,43

P800 black level

Lab = 2,17 -0,1 -0,85

This directly shows that these are very different inks , the P800 B/W prints appear more neutral and w/o bronzing and other reflection effects, the prints with the P700 inks perform as explained earlier in this thread. Again, this test is done with a WF2010W printer in matte paper mode utilizing all 4 ink channels.
The P700 is advertised with a new 'Black Enhance Overcoat' technology overprinting black areas with the LLk ink promising to improve the black level. I cannot verify or simulate this, I don't know whether this is an option on the P700 which can be turned on/off or is fixed in the driver, and it would be interesting to see how much improvement of the black level it actually provides on various papers. These significant differences of the black level are visible as well on several other papers. I tested the Allux/silk one, this results in these Lab values

P700 ink black level

L a b
Lab = 8,21 -0,44 -2,98

P800 black level

Lab = 2,78 -0,12 -1,25 (again - w/o any GO applied)

(All measurements done with a i1Pro2 on a i1iO table)

 

[stratman]

P800 black level

Lab = 2,78 -0,12 -1,25

Do the negative values for a* and b* represent a small amount of green and blue color, respectively, in your grey?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

Lab = 2,78 -0,12 -1,25

Just go by the simple formula for the Delta E (1976), the simple but outdated version - no problem here since the Delta to the gray point with a b=0 0 is very small - take the squareroot of the sum of the squared a and b and L deltas and you get to a Delta E (76) of 1.28 and comparing this number to the 'just noticable difference' JND of 2.3 - to make the simple calculation even shorter - you won't see any color cast with these low a and b numbers - that's still gray

 

[stratman]

Is that a yes or a no to my question? I cannot tell.

To put it a different way, is your profile equipment/software measuring the a* and b* as strictly greys, or, is it measuring the greens and blues (negative values for a* and b*) in the greys?

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The i1Pro2 measures the spectral response, here for the P800 ink on the HP paper, tha's pretty much a flat response

And how do you get from the spectral data to the RGB or Lab values - here a description on page 10 how the tristimulus X, Y, Z values are calculated from the spectral data, and from there it's just another formula to get the RGB or Lab data values.

Do the negative values for a* and b* represent a small amount of green and blue color, respectively, in your grey?

The deviations from the neutral point are below a recognizable threshold, -b goes into the green direction

 

[stratman]

The deviations from the neutral point are below a recognizable threshold, -b goes into the green direction

An "unrecognizable" entity created entirely from a singular black ink that goes in the "green direction".

 

[Ink stained Fingers]

The above findings show that the new P700 photo black is not as black as you might expect; I did some more testing , numbers may vary slightly to the above numbers since the driver settings for matte paper and the 'normal' or B/W mode may vary the ink placed onto the paper by the driver/firmware, all numbers below are done with the same driver settings - matte paper, standard quality , color mode, no color adjustments , and I let the i1iO do multiple readings per patch to average spot and scan variations.
I'm using the Aldi/Sihl glossy paper since it was easily available across Europe, but this paper has its limits with pigment inks and the ink limit of the WF2010W, I cannot do the GO overprint with this paper, I'm using the Aldi/Netbit paper which was available as well alternatively to the Sihl paper, it runs better with my pigment inks, and I'm using an HP Premium Plus Photo Paper - Glossy - to have an OEM paper in the test as well. I'm listing below the L*- luminance level of the black spot of a profile patch sheet w/o and with a GO overprint - except on the Sihl paper

_____________Sihl/Aldi______Netbit/Aldi____HP Premium Plus

Epson P700_____5,25/---______7,80/9,23______ 8,28/7,02
Photoblack

Epson P800_____2,69/---______3,80/6,23_______4,27/3,65
Photoblack

Canon PFI105___2,28/---______8,79/5,51_______6,92/4,82
Photoblack
(Pro10s)

I'm adding results with a black ink used normally on a Canon Pro10s, but it prints very well on Epson printers and delivers a very good black level and no bronzing effects. This ink shows the best black ink level on the Sihl paper in this test. I can add another finding, I used this Canon ink on a P400 printer (currently out of action) , this printer most likely uses a different dithering pattern to place the ink onto the paper and delivered this astonishing result - an L* value of 1,2 on the Sihl paper (D=2,88 which comes very close to Epson's claims of a D=2.95 with the newP700/900). I redid that test several times and got an L value between 1,2 to 1,4 .

The P800 black is performing very well in the test above, better than the P700 black, but keep in mind that the P700 uses this new black overcoat approach to improve the black level; I cannot test the impact of it, I don't have a P700 available and won't either for quite some time.



This shows that you can reach such very good black level already since years in this combination and it is not as spectectular as Epson advertises.

The above numbers show the impact of many variables onto the results - paper - ink set - driver/settings - printer model so it is impossible to derive general statements from it that this printer or paper or ink always deliver the best black level. And keep in mind that specific software like the Advanced B/W mode of Epson drivers may have an impact as well, I cannot test the impact of the ABW mode, it is not available on the little WF2010W and in its driver.

 

[palombian]

The Canon ink you tested is a large format ink that seems to work in the PRO-10 (I've seen the 130ml cartridges on @jtoolman 's desk in several videos, he even made one to show how to extract the ink ).
I measured - also very good - L-values of 3.00 with PRO-1/PRO-10 OEM and Precision Colors SE, both with CO.
On the 9500(II) the same inks only reach L=8 (partly due to the lack of CO, applying afterwards has a very different result).
This suggests the printer driver settings have a lot of impact.
This could be the case with the P700 too.